The album pales only to Street Songs due to its heavier shadings of disco, though James is savvy enough to incorporate a sufficient amount of his self-dubbed “punk funk” – a funk/rock hybrid – to keep the disco influences from seeming too overbearing, which has helped the disc to age better than a lot of other disco-influenced full-lengths Motown and its subsidiaries were releasing around this time. Arguably second only to Street Songs as the finest album he ever made, James’ full-length debut – he’d released a now- very-hard-to-find non-LP single (“Funkin’ Around” backed with “My Mama”) for the A&M label four years earlier to little fanfare, but that 45 constitutes his sole solo pre-Motown recorded output – is a true statement record.
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