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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Double Disc Retrospective, September 29, 2001
Motown continues its reissue hit streak with this fine two-disc collection on the Commodores. As with Motown's other multi-disc sets, you get the full picture of the artists: from the early style-searching stages, through the hits years, and onto their inevitable decline. The first thing that jumps out at you after listening to this thorough thirty-nine track set is just how versatile they were. The Commodores began as a hard funk band along the lines of the Ohio Players with early '70s hits like "Slippery When Wet" and "Young Girls Are My Weakness." All of the six group members were contributing to the hits at various times and lead vocal duties were shared by Lionel Richie and Walter Orange. In the mid-'70s, Richie began to generate country ballads like "Sweet Love" and "Just To Be Close To You" which added a nice balance to the funk hits and brought the Commodores a pop audience. Soon, even the Orange-led high-energy funk numbers like "Brick House" and "Too Hot Ta Trot" were making it big on the pop charts, while Richie's pop evergreen "Three Times A Lady" became the biggest hit of its time. By 1979, Richie's ballads were dominating the Commodores' singles releases, even though all of the band members continued to contribute to the albums. A bland sameness runs through Richie's ballads like "Still," "Sail On," and "Oh No," but the public ate them up anyway. Before Richie departed the Commodores in 1982, however, he did contribute a few fine change of pace singles like the poignant "Heroes" and the inspirational "Jesus Is Love." Without Richie, the Commodores had only one more moment of glory, the Marvin Gaye/Jackie Wilson tribute tune "Night Shift." Otherwise they were firmly rooted in mediocrity, with weak Chic imitations ("Reach High") and Earth Wind & Fire knockoffs ("Turn Off The Lights"). The technocrap of "Animal Instinct" was the group's nadir. The Commodores left Motown in 1986 for an uninspired album at Polygram, which to date is their last album of original music. The best part of this collection is its generous helping of choice album cuts (after all, there are a number of Commodores' hits collections already out there if one wants just the singles). Walter McClary's gorgeous instrumental "Cebu" has a Middleastern feel unlike anything else they recorded. Some of Lionel Richie's best moments were also not singles, such as the insightful "This Is Your Life" and the soaring "Zoom." At their peak, the Commodores were one of the greatest bands in R&B music, with albums that contained little filler. Anthology captures their greatness remarkably well.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Funky Bunch has arrived!, November 18, 2002
Here's a group that can kick out a funk-jazz instumental (Machine Gun), a booty-shakin' jam (Brick House), a laid-back mood-maker (Zoom), and a heart-felt ballad (Three Times A Lady), quicker than it takes prunes to work! The legacy of the Commodores will always be made to last, thanks to the hard work of the members and the fans who will continue to love them. This 2 disc set will carry any fan out of their mind and introduce new listeners to what made a funky beat bounce and what made love more meaningful. This collection is a must-have for any serious collector interested in have one of music's most spirited groups sitting on their racks and either disc in their player.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yeahhhh...I feel sanctified!!!, March 18, 2004
Kudos to Motown/Universal for putting together this outstanding 2 CD anthology!! This far outdoes anything that company has put out over the years in regards to greatest hits collections and the like for this band.
Long before Lionel Richie became one of the biggest pop solo stars of the '80s, he was a member of this group, once dubbed "The Funkiest Band In The Land" and one of Motown's most successful acts during the 1970s. Richie wasn't even the central figure of the Commodores - not in the beginning, anyway. That was extraordinary drummer Walter "Clyde" Orange, who was their first lead singer (that's his voice you hear on the smashes "Brickhouse" and "Too Hot Ta Trot"). But since Walter was WAAAAYYY in the back during their concerts and Lionel was up in the front on piano or the sax, he was encouraged to take the lead more. The rest is history, as they say.
I grew up listening to the Commodores - I loved them - and I am so glad I recently rediscovered just how good they really were. They were certainly one of R&B's most versatile bands, cutting material that ranged from hot funk to romantic, heartfelt country-influenced pop. What a walk down memory lane!! This collection not only has the group's biggest hits, like the aforementioned two and the down-and-dirty booty-shakers like "Machine Gun" (their first hit), "The Bump", "Gimme My Mule", "Fancy Dancer" (This song is OFF THE HINGES! Now THIS is the Lionel I love! Lionel, come back home, all is forgiven!), "Slippery When Wet" and "I Feel Sanctified" and the soulful funk ballads like "This Is Your Life" (love this, love this, LOVE THIS!!), "Sweet Love", "Just To Be Close to You" and the country-soul of "Easy"...but popular cuts AND the extended versions from their albums like "Cebu", "Zoom", "Say Yeah", "Heroes" and "Jesus Is Love" are also included. There is also a rare gem included on this set, an early Commodores single that didn't do anything - but is nonetheless worth having, "Are You Happy?"
The first CD, like most reviewers have said, is better than the second...shows without a doubt these brothas could hang with the Ohio Players, Earth, Wind and Fire and Funkadelic any day of the week. The second CD concentrates more on the years where Lionel became the dominant force in the group (1977-'81), and the Funkiest Band In The Land lost their funk edge after 1977 (their last big certifiable funk hit was "Too Hot Ta Trot" from late '77), which was unfortunate, because they could still throw down with any of the other deep funk bands of the day. But now they were being viewed mostly as a pop act because of Motown and the media's overwhelming concentration on the Richie material ("Three Times A Lady", "Sail On", "Still", for example). The success of those tunes and his associations with country singer Kenny Rogers and Diana Ross led to his inevitable departure from the band in late 1982. After Lionel left, the Commodores struggled for a while until they came up with the Grammy-winning smash "Nightshift", that closes out this set. Short of having the actual albums, this anthology is well worth the money! Only flaw I could find is the omission of two of my favorite Commodores songs: "Wonderland" and "Saturday Night". But other than that, it's an excellent collection. If you have more than a passing interest in these guys, then snatch this up right now.
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