Happy New Year! I wrote more music
reviews in 2015 than any time since 2011. For 2016 I’d like to keep the pace up
and also get to work on a new novel. Writing is the best!
Disc 818 is….The Millennium Collection (best of)
Artist: Ohio
Players
Year of Release: 2000 but with music
from 1974 - 1977
What’s up with the Cover? A bunch of very cool dudes with
very impressive afros. Much as I love this cover, the band’s studio albums
always featured sexy ladies on the cover, and I think they should have stuck
with tradition.
How I Came To Know It: I liked the song “Fopp” on Soundgarden’s “Screaming Life/Fopp”
EP (reviewed back at Disc 393). When I found out it was a cover an Ohio
Players album, I checked it out. I liked it just as much as Soungarden’s
version, and since I knew a few other songs by them decided to take the plunge.
How It Stacks Up: I don’t have any other Ohio Players albums,
but even if I did, compilation albums don’t stack up.
Ratings: best of albums don’t get rated –
that’s just how I roll.
The Ohio Players bridge the gap between the funk of
Parliament and the soul of the O’Jays, with a bit of jazz thrown in for good
measure.
The band made music from 1969 all the way to 1988,
but this Millennium collection only spans 1974-77. This is OK with me, as that
is the period the band was at its creative peak.
For me, the Ohio Players are at their best when they
are driving in the funk lane, as they are with classics like “Fopp”, “Skin Tight” and “Fire.”
Technically their biggest hit, “Love
Rollercoaster,” is also one of the funkier tracks but it feels too much
like a novelty song for me.
“I Want to be
Free,” “Let’s Do It” and “Heaven Must Be Like This” are slower
baby-makin’ music songs, designed to be played after you turn down the lights
and pour your woman a tall glass of champagne. Of the three, I like “I Want to be Free” most as it is a) the
sexiest and b) the most funky. The other two have a bit too many jazz
flourishes.
In fact, my main criticism of the Ohio Players is
their penchant to add jazz piano to their songs. It isn’t that they do it
poorly – quite the contrary. I just don’t like to jazzify my funk. “Heaven Must Be Like This” is
particularly bad, clocking in at over seven minutes, at least half of which
feels like being dropped into a jazz cocktail lounge. “It also features
kissy-kissy noises which are really jarring. I’ll add my own kissy-kiss noises,
thank you very much.
Fortunately there is plenty of funk to go around
that is relatively unsullied by jazz piano. “Fire” and “Skin Tight”
are both sexy and funky in equal measure. “Fire”
is second only to “Love Rollercoaster”
in terms of being well known, and is by far the superior song. It is filled
with a groovy bass line, a lascivious vocal delivery from front man Robert Ward
and an engaging rock guitar riff holding down the bridge.
“Skin Tight”
is slower and dirtier, but just as funky. The opening lyrics are wonderfully over
the top:
“You’re a bad, bad missus
In those skin tight britches
Runnin’ folks into ditches
Baby I’m about to bust the
stitches
Skin tight!”
This song is a rival to James Brown’s “Hot Pants” in terms of being equal parts
sexy, hilarious and inappropriate. If you were to remove even one of those
elements the song would fall apart under its own ridiculousness. Instead, everything holds in a perfect
balance of excess and libido. Even the jazzy piano that creeps into it stays on
the funk side of the line.
For me, the best song on the album is the one I
bought it for in the first place. “Fopp”
is equal parts funk and rock, and it is easy to see how a Seattle grunge band
took an interest in it in the early nineties. An Ohio Players song wouldn’t
feel complete without a bunch of sexual double entendres and “Fopp” delivers, leaving you constantly
on edge if the “Fopp” in question is a dance or a sexual proposition. Likely
both.
Compilation albums often lead me to want to own a
bunch of studio records. The Ohio Players didn’t inspire this level of interest
from me, but they are still great. The music holds up wonderfully 40 years
later, and has no doubt successfully closed out more than a few date nights
over those years.
Tragically, only one of the original five band
members is still alive. Despite not being with us anymore, the Ohio Players
have left a fitting musical legacy.
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