Sex Machine (album)

Sex Machine
Studio album and live album by
James Brown
ReleasedSeptember 1970
Recorded
GenreFunk, soul[1]
Length64:29
LabelKing
ProducerJames Brown
James Brown chronology
It's a New Day – Let a Man Come In
(1970) 		Sex Machine
(1970) 		Hey America
(1970)
James Brown live albums chronology
Live at the Apollo, Volume II
(1968) 		Sex Machine
(1970) 		Revolution of the Mind: Recorded Live at the Apollo, Vol. III
(1971)
Singles from Sex Machine
  1. "Lowdown Popcorn"
    Released: August 9, 1969
  2. "Brother Rapp"
    Released: April 1970
  3. "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine"
    Released: July 1970
  4. "Spinning Wheel"
    Released: 1971
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
Billboard(favorable)[2]
Christgau's Record GuideA[3]
Rhapsody(favorable)[4]
Rolling Stone[5]
Spin(favorable)[6]
Yahoo! Music(favorable)[7]
Zagat Survey[8]
Sputnikmusic[9]

Sex Machine is a 1970 double album by James Brown. It showcases the playing of the original J.B.'s lineup featuring Bootsy and Catfish Collins,[10] and includes an 11-minute rendition of the album's title song, different from the original recording of the title song which was released as a two-part single in 1970.

Sex Machine purports to be a live recording. However, the first LP's worth of material consists of tracks recorded in studio settings with added reverberation and overdubbed applause (some of which subsequently were released in unadulterated mixes, most notably on the 1996 Funk Power compilation CD.). All but one track of the second LP apparently were recorded live in concert in Brown's hometown of Augusta, Georgia, although this material, too, features added reverb and overdubbed applause.[citation needed] It charted #4 R&B and #29 Pop.

Sex Machine is often considered to be one of the greatest and most important funk records of all time, and arguably the high point of Brown's creative heyday from 1967 to 1971. It was ranked 1st in SPIN magazine's 25 greatest albums of all time in 1989, and 96th in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time.[11] Sex Machine was also voted the 34th greatest album of all time in a VH1 poll of over 700 musicians, songwriters, disc jockeys, radio programmers, and critics in 2003.[12] In Rolling Stone's 2020 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked number 439.[13]

  1. ^ a b Huey, Steve. "James Brown: Sex Machine" at AllMusic. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  2. ^ "Billboard Album Reviews". Billboard. September 19, 1970. p. 59. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  3. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: B". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved February 22, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  4. ^ "Sex Machine: James Brown". Rhapsody. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  5. ^ Hoard, Christian (2004). The new Rolling Stone album guide. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 109–113. ISBN 978-0-7432-0169-8. Alt URL
  6. ^ "The 25 Greatest Albums of All Time". Spin. Vol. Five, no. One. April 1989. ISSN 0886-3032. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  7. ^ "Sex Machine by James Brown". Yahoo! Music. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  8. ^ Movies & music pack 2004 : top films & albums of all time. New York: Zagat Survey. 2003. ISBN 978-1-57006-543-9. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  9. ^ g, manos (August 1, 2013). "Review: CD James Brown – Sex Machine Album". Sputnikmusic. Retrieved 2013-11-08.
  10. ^ "James Brown". warr.org. Sex Machine. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
  11. ^ "The 100 Greatest Albums". BBC Four. Archived from the original on April 19, 2005. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
  12. ^ "James Brown – Sex Machine".
  13. ^ "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2020-10-27.