LP Review: The Jacksons
Previous LP: Moving Violation (B-) Next LP: Goin' Places (C)
Released: 1976
LP Charts: #6 R&B, #36 pop
The Jackson 5 finally made their big move in 1976. After a few years of general disgruntlement fueled by the lack of creative input on their albums, brothers Michael, Jackie, Marlon, and Tito jumped ship from Motown to CBS Records.
*counts the number of brothers*
Hmm, that’s a Jackson 4 not a Jackson 5… JERMAINE IS MISSING! The group’s co-lead singer, who also happened to be married to Berry Gordy’s daughter, decided to stay put at Motown as a solo artist.
In a cruel twist of irony, the other brothers left Motown to get more control, but it was Jermaine who got to release a self-produced (and largely self-written) album on Motown in 1977 before his brothers got the chance at CBS. He even got to start producing other artists, namely Switch, whose career I’ve already gone over on this here blog.
Motown also took another pound of flesh: the Jackson 5 couldn’t be known as the Jackson 5 anymore. Motown owned the name and wouldn’t give it up.
Thus Michael, Jackie, Marlon, and Tito recruited their youngest brother Randy (who’d been performing unofficially with them for a few years anyways) to replace Jermaine and changed their name to the Jacksons.
STILL NO CONTROL… MOSTLY
As already mentioned, despite switching record labels, the Jacksons initially still had little creative control on their first CBS album The Jacksons.
The brothers Jackson were hoisted onto CBS’s subsidiary Philadelphia International Records (PIR). It was a label inspired by the Golden Age of Motown in many regards and that included nearly complete control by producers and songwriters over what material singers cut. Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, the founders and main producers/songwriters at PIR, were given final control on over The Jacksons.
Gamble and Huff wrote five of the 10 songs. Other Philly Soul luminaries got in on the act too. Keyboard enthusiast Dexter Wansel got two songs to his credit while the trio of Gene McFadden, John Whitehead, and Victor Carstarphen got a song to themselves.
The Gamble-Huff songs are standard-issue PIR material, which isn’t necessarily bad, but this wasn’t distinguishing the Jacksons all that much from the O’Jays or Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.
“Enjoy Yourself” (#2 R&B, #6 pop) was a mild-mannered throwback song reminiscent of doo wop at the sock hop. “Think Happy” was soulful disco typical of Gamble-Huff. And “Good Times” is a somewhat moving ballad that teeters between sentimentality and sleepiness. “Dreamer”, fittingly, is just sleepy.
Also, with Jermaine gone, Jackie steps in as the co-lead vocalist on the first three of those songs. Despite staying ably within his lane, Jackie is much more vocally limited as a co-lead than Jermaine who could really steer a song, while Jackie merely goes with the flow. Oh well… more vocal weight put on the shoulders of Michael…
Michael carries that weight extremely well on the one Gamble-Huff song that is an undeniable and titanic winner: “Show You The Way To Go”. It’s truly one of the greatest Philly Soul songs. It performed well in the US (#6 R&B, #28 pop) but absolutely crushed it in the UK where it became the Jacksons’ first and only #1 hit. It’s a song that just gets better the longer it goes as Michael gets to vocalize and ad lib delivering what may be his best “pure” soul performance.
Given his enthusiasm for synthesizers, Dexter Wansel’s “Keep On Dancing” has lots of zips and zaps from keyboards. But that’s not until the song’s second half. It starts off slow, but you can tell it’s a just biding its time before turning into a barnburning dance number. Wansel’s other contribution, “Living Together”, is a lush soul song reminiscent of the O’Jays’ “I Love Music”.
The solitary McFadden-Whitehead-Carstarphen selection is “Strength of One Man”. It features vocals from all of the Jacksons, except Tito. He was fine just tuning his guitar, I guess. Anyways, the song has a positive message of sharing burdens, but it’s in a long line of Philly Soul message anthems. Nothing too special.
That’s eight out of ten songs…
Wait, that means…
The Jacksons actually got to write two songs on their own album. Finally!
“Blues Away” was solely written by Michael and you can clearly see a sapling song that grows into catchy monster hits he’d concoct in a few years. Most notable is him playing around percusssively with his vocals.
The other Jacksons original is “Style of Life”, written by Michael and Tito. It’s the weakest song here, but probably because the song is forcibly put through the Philly Soul machine. The instrumentation is pure PIR, while the vocals point toward the Jacksons’ fully self-produced material that would eventually come on Destiny.
ALBUM GRADE: B-
An important if not particularly stunning LP that is able to power its way from a C+ to a B- on the back of “Show You The Way To Go”.
Despite the brevity of their self-penned material here, the Jacksons showed they could write their own music. The Philly International production, although not especially revelatory outside of “Show You The Way To Go”, proved the Jacksons were not mere creatures of Motown either.
Both of those developments had their limitations, though. One of their self-penned songs was pretty good, the other pedestrian. Their freedom from Motown only saw them get tethered to another record label that had singers subjugated to the production process.
And a final note: this was the first Jacksons/Jackson 5 album to be certified gold by the RIAA. They surely had previous such albums, but Motown didn’t let outsiders inspect their books and sales.
Song Scores
Enjoy Yourself: 7/10
Think Happy: 6.5/10
Good Times: 6.5/10
Keep On Dancing: 6.5/10
Blues Away: 7/10
Show You The Way To Go: 9/10
Living Together: 7/10
Strength Of One Man: 6.5/10
Dreamer: 6/10
Style of Life: 6/10
Previous LP: Moving Violation (B-) Next LP: Goin' Places (C)