Customer Reviews

Funk on Fire: The Mercury Anthology

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let's be real here. Those original gatefold sleeves are some of the greatest works of album art in popular music (see especially the CD, HONEY). Too bad Polygram/Universal didn't keep this important aspect in mind when they created this package. Each original album cover should have been reproduced in full-color and on full-page.
What you do get here is some of the greatest funk music, by one of the greatest funk bands in their prime. Two hours of 28 slabs of funk on two CDs, chronicling the years 1974-1978. Included are the great party jams: "Skin Tight," "Jive Turkey," "Fopp," "Sweet Sticky Thing," "More Than Love," "Who'd She Coo," and -of course- the anthems, "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster."
Sadly missing are some great original album tracks such as, "Smoke," "What The Hell," "Streakin' Cheek To Cheek," or "Running From The Devil." The inclusion of a couple of these gems would have made this an excellent anthology.
Purchase also the compilation, ORGASM: THE WESTBOUND YEARS. This is a great collection of tracks taken from their earlier, harder trilogy of albums they made for Westbound Records through the years 1972-1973: PAIN, PLEASURE, and ECSTASY.

Following the earliest hits of James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone, and preceding hip-hop, the 1970s gave us a number of really great examples of soulful funk music by African-American performers. And among the very best were the highly underrated Ohio Players, who, along with Earth Wind and Fire and Parliament-Funkadelic, were my favorites from the world of funk. I was in high school when this was out; listening now brings me back to an era of platform shoes, loud silk dress shirts, and movies like Rocky, Jaws, Car Wash, and Star Wars and to "Butterfly" a certain clothing store/head shop in my NJ neighborhood, staffed by some young, hip, partying Latinos (who'd have this sort of music, as well as stuff like Santana and Led Zep playing on the store speakers). In other words, it's a musical trip down memory lane.

This compilation, then, containing all the Players' classics, like the romantic jazz piece Sweet Sticky Thing (now these guys knew how to do smooth jazz), the dance hit Love Rollercoaster (a version of which was put to great use, years later, in the Beavis and Butthead movie) and brilliant tracks like Fopp (which like so many great pop tunes appears to be a euphemistic reference to doing the nasty) and Fire (a musical masterpiece), is a joy to listen to. While some of the tracks here are filler, nothing is unlistenable. Whatever weaknesses may be found here are more than offset by the record's many highlights.

One other point; these guys get a few bonus points from me for having some of the coolest Afros of the 70s. They always looked fly!

Solid gold funk from one of the best self-contained bands of the 70s. Their jams made you sweat and their ballads made you fall in love. Fire is one of the best party songs of all time with bridges and breaks and drums and percussion and horns and whew!-I'm sweating just thinking about it. Love Rollercoaster seems to get faster as it races toward its conclusion. The Ohio Players played tight sounds with great horns and clever lead singer Sugarfoot is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Contains full-length version of all of their hits which allowed this funk band to stretch out and wade into jazz territory (See Sweet Sticky Thing for example.) If I had to register a mild complaint, the inclusion of the ballad "Let's Love" aka "Let's Do It" from the Honey album would have made this a more perfect listening experience. But no false advertising here, there is enough funk here to set you on fire. Put CD 1 in your car stereo on a long trip and watch the miles go by.

Good collection. A few too many falsetto ballads but the funky tunes are way funky. Dig Far East Mississippi, Only a Child Can Love, Fire, Body Vibes, all cool. The sound is great and there is an excellent booklet with the story of the band and each cover is reproduced in full (albeit shrunken) colour. A good starting place for some funky pioneers.

Funk On fire may not tear the roof off, but it'll burn the house down!
This is where the Ohio Players finally hit their stride and find their definitive sound (the sound they're best remembered by as a group).

These batch of jams are in a way superior to their Westbound recordings for a number of reasons. The production values have improved, the polished production gives their grooves the slinky and sleazed out atmosphere they've been searching for on their Westbound recordings, Diamond Williams hard rock styled drumming makes the grooves sound looser and leaner, and lastly, the collective musicianship of the band was as tight as ever.

No disrespect intended towards their era with Westbound records but, the basement raw production style that underpinned Pain, Pleasure, and Esctasy just wasn't appropriate for their style of loud, sexy, and plush playboy funk. This more polished style of funk sounded like the the kind of music they wanted to make - and this anthology showed that the Players made the most of it with over 28 high powered grooves and ballads.

Unlike Funkadelic when they decided to polish up their jams around the same time, The players music never sounded diluted. It just got better. The absence of Junie Morrison does make a difference, but not by much. Sugarfoot steps up and make these jams hard to resist.

Pick up these sweet sticky thangs and you'll be stuck on em' forever!

By the way, I agree with another reviewer. Where are rest of those beautiful models?

For fans, this double set collects quite a few of their great tracks but it also leaves out quite a few tracks so it's not a very complete anthology.

For newbies or casual fans who want the chart toppers only, the other tracks they included do not include any hidden gems and as mentioned by others, leave out some hidden gems.

So, if you're just looking for the hits, better to get the GH collection, it's a much tighter package ... I'm also going to dock a point for not including the great covers of the original Lp's - of course, it's un-PC but why re-write history ;-)

When you talk about the great RB Bands of the 70s and 80s, we speak so highly of those Commodores, Earth Wind and Fire, Kool & the Gang etc. Yea I'm sure there're more on my short list we would like to mention, but as always, we're gonna miss a few. (bros johnson, heatwave etc, see what i mean?) What's amazing to me why do we always forget those "Ohio Player". Playboy magazine once wrote in there jazz pole "these guys act like they invented "boogie". The Ohio Player had there window, and had a real good ride. If you're looking for songs with a lot of deep meaning, it wasn't gonna come from them. Now if you're looking for no rest for tapping your feet, these are the guys. "skin tight", "love roller coaster" "fire", just a few of their biggies. Remember how jazzie they were?? Yea, I forgot about that too, then check out "far east Mississippi" and one of my favorites "sweet sticky thing". Sometimes music lovers never get to hear all the good things a band can really do, if it's not played on the radio, and that's where a lot of us miss out. We all knew how good those "Ohio Players" were, but I think ..... we just forgot.

This is a fantastic two disc set of the Ohio Players, well worth the money spent. I would recommend this to anyone who is in need of some funk.

This cd is awesome I received it in a timely manner which was great, but listening to these song brought back so many memories.

This 2 cd set is a must have if you are a funk fan like I am! These brothers not only can funk, but can ballad even though they are not known for it. My favorite song is the underrated, "Heaven Must Be Like This" Also, on disc 2, you will hear many songs thay many rappers have sampled!