The Commodores – Machine Gun
The Commodores
Listen/Download – The Commodores – Machine Gun
Greetings all.
The week is at an end, and if I’m lucky, by the time you’re reading this the fam and I will be away on the vacay, as it were (thus I’m canning and vacuum sealing this one a few days in advance).
I meant to drop this one a while back, since I picked up the 45 last year when I was spinning with DJ Birdman down in DC. Unfortunately, which is often the case around here as my mind deteriorates more rapidly each day, I neglected to take a picture of the 45, then I filed it away in the giant heaving mass of vinyl that sits behind me while I type this. However, recently, while I was pulling some records for to be digimatized, I happened upon the Commodores Greatest Hits LP, so in essence what you’re hearing is the 45, what you’re seeing is the LP, but since it’s all the Commodores, you’ll have to bear with me.
I have to admit that I wrote the Commodores off for years, thanks in large part to the lame, middle of the road and largely un-soulful solo career of Lionel Richie.
No matter that ‘Brick House’, the official funk song of elderly relatives (which they all dance to at weddings), is actually quite good, it all blended together for me into one big, unpleasant heap.
My bad.
Years back, I’m sitting there watching the movie ‘Boogie Nights’, and all of a sudden a very groovy song comes on the soundtrack in a discotheque scene, and I’m all ‘What’s that?” and then the credits rolled around and I was all “The Commodores, eh?” and therein lies a minor re-evaulation thereof.
That, and the fact that a cursory listen will set your ears a-tingling when you recognize the sample from the Beastie Boys ‘Hey Ladies’ pop in.
All that aside, ‘Machine Gun’ is a badass number packed end to end with enough clavinet to blow your mind, some very tasty wah-wah guitar and – if I might – not a single note of Lionel Richie’s melodious voice to screw things up.
The Commodores came together in the late 60s at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and signed to Motown releasing their first album (also titled ‘Machine Gun’) in 1974. The title track (written by guitarist Milan Williams) was a hit in 1975, and despite the presence of synthesizers (or maybe because of it) ‘Machine Gun’ manages to be solidly funky, and eminently danceable (without being stereotypically disco-ey, though it was clearly a hit on the dance floor).
I hope you dig it, and I’ll be back on Monday.
Peace
Larry
Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press
PS Head over to Iron Leg for some groovy mid-60s pop.
Themocracy
Hi Larry. I had the same experience with this track when I heard it on that documentary ‘The Kid stays in the picture’. I searched the credits on that thing over and over until I was forced to consider that it might be the Commodores. Sure enough it was and I would consider the other instrumental on that album ‘Rapid Fire’ to be the same but different twin for the track you posted. I kind of feel that this track represents the tipping point, it’s perfectly poised to be something all electro and modern yet damn right funky’n all, the absolute best of both. But then things tipped quickly and you know the rest.
One of the turtlenecks (third from left) seems to be missing it’s turtlebod!
I felt much the same about the Commodores, although I liked this song…but one day I found the OG album that this was the title track of. Get it. It is so goddamn funky. “The Bump” and “I Feel Sanctified” are just crazy stupid funk bombs for which I can hardly find adjectives.