Customer Reviews

Skywriter / Get It Together

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I want to say congrats to Harry Weigner at Motown for re-releasing the Jackson 5 catalog, with some albums that never have been on Cd before.

"SKYWRITER" was released in 1973 just before the release of Michael's "MUSIC AND ME" album. The album contained the semi-hit's "Hallelujah Day" and "Corner of the Sky". This is definitely the transition album for the group cause on the next album they changed their style. You can see the formula wearing a bit thin but i still love the album nonetheless. Other notable tracks include "The Boogie Man" which is one of the first hints of funk/dance/disco that the group would be headed, "Uppermost" which is my fav on this album cause it's so different from anything they've ever done, it's very percussive and MJ's voice is in a very rich stage of the change and he sounds awesome on this one, absolutely brilliant track. Another very cool percussive track on the album was the very mellow "Ooh, I'd Love to Be With You" with a nice shared lead between Jermaine and MJ. I will always have a special place in my heart for the SKYWRITER album because it was the first album i ever got by them, it was many years later that i found the rest.

"GET IT TOGETHER" is probably the groups strongest album during the mid 70's. It was released in the latter part of 1973 and it was different from their other albums for two main reasons. They had "discovered" disco and knew exactly what to do with it, and they had a new weapon to use it with, Michael Jackson's NEW voice which was almost completly changed by this point. The tracks on this album segue from one to the next so it's a very complete feeling album. This album was produced entirely by Hal Davis, who had been producing the group since the ABC album in 1970. A few of the tracks jumped out of the 3 minute song rules, by hitting the 7 and 8 min. marks. "Hum Along and Dance" is a b-boy classic that got and still gets heavy club play. This album introduced the track "Dancing Machine" to the groups list of hits, and was used as the title track for the next album by the group a year later. The version of "Dancing Machine" on this album is far better than the one on the next album mainly because it features the intro that starts it up, whereas the other version starts right on the chorus. They do top notch covers of the Supremes "Reflections" and Glady's Knight's "You Need Love Like I Do (Don't You) and other outrageous originals like the catchy "It's Too Late To Change The Time" and "Don't Say Goodbye Again".

This cd contains 3 bonus tracks. One of them is an outtake from the sessions for this album, the song "Pride and Joy" (which is a cover of the Marvin Gaye song) is incredibly funky and memorable. It was originally released on the Jackson 5's first outtake album "JOYFUL JUKEBOX MUSIC" which came out the year after the group left MOTOWN in 1976. The other two bonus tracks on this cd are both outtakes from the SKYWRITER sessions. The track "Love's Gone Bad" which eventually came out on the mega rare "BOOGIE" album which is very hard to find, and it also came out (as a different mix) on the 1986 MICHAEL JACKSON release "LOOKING BACK TO YESTERDAY" which was another collection of unreleased tracks from the Motown vaults. The other SKYWRITER outtake on this set is "Love is the Thing You Need" which is pretty good and originally came out on JOYFUL JUKEBOX MUSIC. All in all, this is another terric buy for any Jackson 5/Michael Jackson fan!

Huge J5/MJ fan, JUSTIN OSTOFOROFF

This is more of a heads up warning for folks. There is some kind of coding/authoring error on this disc.

The song Get It Together is flawed. For some reason, right into the first chorus the are a couple of really obvious jumps and skips. These are not the result of scratches to the disc itself. This error is in the digital transfer or authoring of the disc itself. In fact, the sample of the song Get It Together that you can listen to right on this page plays the exact spot where the error occurs. I double checked my disc on three different CD players and the same thing happened on all three players. I also checked my Soulsation 25th Anniversary set and the song Get It Together on that set doesn't have the same problem that this disc has.

So, buyer beware. The disc is flawed and you are not getting the entire song Get It Together. Listen to the sample on this page and you'll hear what I mean.

Skywriter is the last album the band recorded in a traditional r&b style. The title track opens up the album and it's an uplifting, bouncy song. "Hallelujah Day" as the title suggests has a gospel vibe while "The Boogie Man" has a buzzing, funky sound. "Corner Of The Sky" is from the Motown backed Broadway show Pippin and the band delivers it in show tune fashion. "Uppermost" is an interesting and strong song while "You Made Me What I Am" closes the album out on a high note. Stevie Wonder produced a couple of songs on the album and this led the band to recording the backing vocals on his number one hit "You Haven't Done Nothin'". Get It Together marks a decided shift in the band's sound. Gone are the soulful ballads and r&b rhythms and entering are thumping disco beats and heavy dance sounds. The title track fires the opening salvo, but it is the propulsive "Hum Along & Dance" that shows off their new sound. It is a dance floor classic and its hypnotic beat drives you to the dance floor. "Dancing Machine" appears in a different version that the hit song and the band made a good decision to remix it. Get It Together started bringing a sound that young Michael would cultivate for the rest of the 70's.

Been waiting for years for Get It Together to come out on CD. I can't believe it took this long. Truly a great album, all of a piece, superfunky Temptations-style production. The only bummer is the re-mastering job. Bass-heavy, and too much compression, especially seeing as the original master was already heavily compressed. Having the CD is great, but try and find the vinyl if you can.

Skywriter is basically a throwaway album, but the whole package is worth it for GIT.

Good CD, Skywriter, Halluluyah Day, Get It Together and Dancing Machine are the most famous tracks.

SKYWRITER and GET IT TOGETHER are two albums that are as different as day and night. SKYWRITER still boasted some of the Jackson 5's "bubble gum" soul sound that made them famous, yet the boys were young men by early 1973. The music wasn't lacking in quality, but it seemed like Motown had put the brothers into a box with material about teeny-bopper love and the sort, and didn't want them to break out of it. Plus, that year, the solo careers of Michael and Jermaine were already underway, with older brother Jackie next to make a splash with his debut.

So SKYWRITER was recorded at a time when the brothers' popularity was starting to wane - they still had hits, but nothing like the explosive material that they recorded when they first arrived at Motown. You hear some songs that let you know that the guys are growing up and maturing, but then you're hit with others that want to remind you that they were once a kiddie group, so you could correctly call SKYWRITER the group's "growing pains" album. A lot of this material is kind of bland, very pop-oriented ("World of Sunshine", "Ooh, I'd Love To Be With You" for example). It's surprising that Motown let this happen to one of their most exciting and popular acts. The biggest hit from this album was a bouncy tune from a Motown-produced Broadway musical called "Pippin": "Corner of the Sky", which peaked at #9 (R&B) and #18 (Pop). The song wasn't bad - I used to love that song when I was a kid - but it obviously lacked the energy of those earlier J-5 hits. SKYWRITER does have some good moments, though: the title song; of course, "Corner of the Sky", "Touch", an excellent amd sensual remake of a Supremes song; "I Can't Quit Your Love", "Uppermost" and "You Made Me What I Am". But somehow, while you're listening, you get the feeling that the boys are itching to move past this stuff, and what was to follow was a must-needed change for them.

Enter the "brand new thing". GET IT TOGETHER is my favorite (and undeniably the better) of the two albums presented here - the five star rating is for THIS album. Released in late 1973, GIT brought the J-5 where they wanted and needed to be: leaving the bubble gum sound behind and into some really funky territory. With raw, extended dance tracks and exciting vocal arrangements, it kind of reminds you of the metamorphosis that the Temptations underwent in 1968 when they began their "psychedelic" phase with "Cloud Nine". And much like the Temptations during that time, you hear ALL of the Jacksons' vocals individually on various cuts.

The title song, the electrifying "Get It Together", opens the album and sets the tone for everything you hear throughout. "Don't Say Goodbye Again" and "It's Too Late To Change The Time" are the two ballads on this album, but there is a touch of funk to each of them, so they are not at all out of place. The other songs are all slickly produced R&B dance tracks that were just in time for the blossoming disco movement, and made to make you get up out of your seat! And they do!

Now Motown definitely was accused of recutting the same tunes in their catalog over and over again with different groups to milk it for all its worth, but in this case, it wasn't such a bad idea. The J-5 do four funky, high-octane versions of earlier Motown songs, three from Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong's psychedelic catalog, the duo responsible for transforming the Temptations: the primal underground club classic "Hum Along and Dance" and "You Need Love Like I Do (Don't You)", the Undisputed Truth's "Mama I Gotta Brand New Thing" and an interesting retake of the Supremes' "Reflections". The massive #1 funk smash from 1974, "Dancing Machine", closes the album out, sparked a whole new dance craze, and put the Jackson 5 back on top where they belonged. If you didn't go off when you saw Michael do the Robot during the song's breakdown, you obviously didn't have a pulse!!!

You also get three bonus tracks from the vaults: "Pride and Joy", a funked up remake of the Marvin Gaye hit, but you hardly recognize it; "Love's Gone Bad", another remake of singer Chris Clark's song from the '60s that sounds like something the Four Tops should have recorded and "Love Is The Thing You Need", from JOYFUL JUKEBOX MUSIC (1976) (the final J-5 album that consisted of tracks that were in the vault and recorded sometime in 1972-73 at Motown but was not promoted).

The two albums that followed GIT (DANCING MACHINE - recycled again for that album - and MOVING VIOLATION) were the group's final offerings for Motown and both of them were heavily dance-oriented and ahead of their time. GIT blazed the trail for everything the Jacksons would do in later years. Pick this CD up and get your dance on!

now this is what you call a boy band with actual TALENT! J5 was the last good group and Michael was the last great artist to hit Earth!

on the Skywriter CD, I love the songs Skywriter, Hallelujah Day, Boogie Man, Touch Me, Uppermost. And on Get It Together, I love Get It Together, Don't Say Goodbye Again, Reflections(one of j5's best songs ever!)

and the bonus cut Love Is The Thing You Need!

this CD is worth it for all those tracks I mentioned! I prefer the Dancing machine/Moving Violation and Diana Ross Presents the j5/ABC rereleased CD's over this one, but it's still a great buy and highly recommended to all jackson fans!

this is a double set on one collection that has alot of bumping Jams by the first family of Music the Jackson 5. strong Production and Grooves that still are finger snapping Jams that still pack a strong punch. Michael Jackson vocally sounds incredible on these songs which cover a wide range of styles and themes. good stuff.

Skywriter was a the kind of album that you bought if you were a 'hardcore' Jackson 5ive fan. I featured the now coveted Michael and Jermaine duets and some very beautiful vocals. I can't quit your love, Skywriter and the funny Boogieman are all here. If you know your 70's Classic soul & Pop you know the Jackon Five's 'Git it together. It was part of the 'New Motown Sound' with driving beats and synthizied sounds. There are some great remakes included on the album from Gladys Knight and the Pip's, You Need Love Like I do (don't You), the Tempations soulful psycha-delic hit Hum-Along and Dance and the Supremes song, Reflections. The Classic Hit Dancing Machine was so big it garnered an album of its own with the same name. Great Stuff, get it and listen to a seasoned, still young but very talented Jackson Family.

The SKYWRITER/GET IT TOGETHER combo might as well be two different records by two different bands. SKYWRITER was the last of their bubble-gum kiddie pop, if not softened up a bit with the soft-rock influence of early 70s groups like Bread and The Carpenters. The title track is the only song that sounds somewhat right for its time, with its psychedelic harmonies and intense clavinet a'la Stevie Wonder. "I Can't Quit Your Love" almost fits in this vein, and is perhaps even more soulful and aggressive. The other highlights are the softer ballads and showtunes ("Touch," "Ooh, I'd Love To Be With You," and "Corner of the Sky"). Unfortunately, "Boogie Man" is terrible and almost out of Michael's vocal range at this point; "World of Sunshine" and "Hallelujah Day" seem like post-hippiedom, anti-Vietnam statements that don't sound right from these young'ns, although the songs themselves are decent. They could easily have been recorded by the Fifth Dimension circa 1968.
GET IT TOGETHER, on the other hand, is very surprsing. The first time I heard these songs, I couldn't believe that Motown let the J5 record such long, infectious funk grooves. Sure, some of them sound like Temptation replicas, but some perfectly combine the past J5 with the "new" J5 sound ("Don't Say Goodbye Again," "You Need Love Like I Do," "Mama I Got A Brand New Thing"). Others sound nothing like anything they'd ever done, and succeed marvelously in getting feet moving ("Get It Together," "Dancing Machine"). Despite an awkward cover of "Reflections," this album rocks. The bonus tracks here (and on other recent J5 compilations) show that much of the unreleased material from 1972-73 was much better than what was put on SKYWRITER. That album could have been a much bigger success if they put some of these funkier tracks on it instead of the lightweight fluff.