The first record I ever bought as a kid! (Sure, it was using my allowance, but whatever.)

My second ever album I bought as a kid! (The first one was XTC’s “Black Sea”.) Definitely the first “funk” record I ever bought. Needless to say, “Give It To Me, Baby” and “In The Ghetto” still reel around my brain.

The deluxe edition adds some extended and instrumental mixes of the big singles “Super Freak” and “Give It To Me Baby”. The second disc is a live show recorded in Long Beach, CA just after this album’s release. My mom was cool enough to recommend this album to me (i.e. “You can use your allowance to buy this album”, “OK! :)”), but she wasn’t hardcore enough to take me to a Rick James concert. Only if.. sigh.

If there wasn’t a more poignant way to drizzle away grey ol’ 2005 – in a global context, this album was it. I’ll likely revisit it in the future.

This album changed my life when I entered college and first got involved in college radio. This was clearly the lily pad I needed in order to jump off the now forgotten “funkmetal” genre that dominated the latter half of the 80s. This was the doorway to future fun and weirdness in my rock-related purchases.