Powerlight

Earth Wind & Fire

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: February 1983
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000025TA
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,988 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of their best, March 31, 2000

By	PAUL WITHERDEN (London, England) - See all my reviews

Powerlight is one of their best albums ever. I would rate this on a par with Faces and Raise as being an album where each track is superbly produced and different from the other tracks. The 2 choruses on Heart to Heart are subtley different from each other and this point exemplifies the musical subtlties that are present across the album. Even after 16 years, I still get a lift from hearing the tracks. Miracles is so powerful, and Maurice's voice consistent and clear. Fall in Love With Me is so simply catchy and the chord changes during the intro are spine tingling. Unfortunately, they went downhill from here,but it would be nice to see this line up return to the studio again!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars LET IT SHINE!, December 29, 2004

By	Christopher Williams (Syracuse, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just about everytime EW&F broke new ground in the mainstream from any album, their follow-up release would attempt to pull back in an effort to recapture some of the group's true essence. Spirit, Faces and this album are all perfect examples. Powerlight is the successor to 1981's Raise!, which was a commercial comeback album of sorts for EW&F. The incredibly glossy acoustics, futuristic sound effects and formulaic rhythms that made Raise! a success were combined with the meatier instrumental and vocal contributions that Raise! was missing, laying an intriguing framework that I'm sure the "shiny suit men" thought couldn't miss...

"Fall In Love With Me", the lead-off single, while dance-floor ready, immediately sets a laid-back tone and clarifies EW&F's direction for this album as R&B, one of their many mastered genres. Unfortunately for the pop fans gained from Raise!, this cut would be the closest EW&F would come to sticking their necks out for them on Powerlight. Hey, sucks to be them! Because in terms of R&B/dance cuts, this album is brimming over with jewels like the hard-driving, vocoder-assisted "Spread Your Love", the breezy "The Speed Of Love", and the funked up "Hearts To Heart". The ballads are near-mint, with the gorgeous "Side By Side", "Straight From The Heart" which at first sounds like a re-re-hashing of "After The Love..." but finds its own identity, and the lullaby-like "Miracles". Yes, those kids sound real, real bad at the end, but if they just stopped the music beforehand, it might not have been taken so seriously.

Personally, I love this album, even as underrated and un-classic as it may be. The beefed up bass and high-impact vocals actually helped this album achieve a harder edge than the immediately preceding albums, without having to move 100 miles an hour or having to reinvent the wheel creatively, as was done on Raise! This album is very much EW&F, but the following changes led them in the wrong direction:

- Starting with Raise!, The Emotions became mainstays in the band, guest starring more often and contributing background vocals more frequently. On Powerlight, you can hear them on just about every song. By the next album, Wanda & Co. would take over the background and actual group member background vocals would be all but absent.

- The computer effects, in addition to stagnating musical creativity, were also being used to distort live vocal and instrumental performance on Powerlight, which should not have to be done with this group, which is known for its skills in both areas.

Anyway, you do not need to be a hardcore fan to appreciate this tight package. Powerlight takes EW&F's nuances of the '80s and offers them in rare form back to their core audience. If you already own this album and don't see its value, give EW&F's following release a listen, then clutch your shining Powerlight just a little bit tighter.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Futuristic Funk!, November 1, 1999

By A Customer

As might be indicated by the cover depiction of celestial bodies, this sounds like music one might hear on some future journey to another planet. POWERLIGHT is probably the first EWF album where electronics & synthesizers almost completely overpower the more traditional instruments --which was an all-too-common phenomenon around 1982. (Check out CHICAGO 16, released the same year, and you wonder if David Foster didn't learn production from Maurice White?) One thing that hadn't changed was the band's wonderful & inspiring songs (all but one co-written by Maurice). "Fall In Love With Me" & "Side By Side" were pulled as singles, and rightly so! This is actually far from my fave EWF album-- but their "so-so" is better than most other's "best-ever". (And hey, wouldn't "Spread Your Love" qualify as a disco tune-- if it had come out 5 years earlier?)