Browse Music
Rock & Pop
R&B & Hip-Hop
Country
Blues
Jazz
Classical
Latin
Christian
Soundtracks
Collections
Cameo
Anthology
Cameo:  Anthology

$13.98 2-CD Set
AMG Top Pick Listen Greatest Hits

Album Review

Released: 2002
Label: Mercury
Selection #: 244484
NYC/Atlanta funk aggregation led by Larry Blackmon. Word Up, Candy, She's Strange, Back And Forth, I Want It Now, Rigor Mortis, It's Serious, Skin I'm In, many more.
Listen RM WM
1 Rigor Mortis
2 Post Mortem
3 Funk Funk
4 Find My Way ["TGIF" Version]
5 It's Serious
6 We All Know Who We Are
7 Insane
8 I Just Want to Be [12" Version]
9 Sparkle
10 Shake Your Pants
11 We're Goin' out Tonight
12 Why Have I Lost You [Version 2]
13 Keep It Hot
14 Feel Me
15 Freaky Dancin'
16 Don't Be So Cool
17 Just Be Yourself
18 Flirt
19 Alligator Woman/Secrets of Time
20 Style [Single Version]
21 She's Strange
22 Talkin' out the Side of Your Neck
23 Hangin' Downtown
24 Attack Me With You Love
25 Single Life
   1 | 2  
Download Player:    Real Media Real Media    Windows Media Windows Media
Album Review

Mercury's Cameo "Anthology" supersedes the two single-disc "Best of Cameo" volumes issued in the mid-'90s with a lengthy two-CD set that comprehensively chronicles the group's tenure on the Chocolate City and Atlanta Artists labels in the 1970s and '80s and just into the '90s. More casual fans may want to stick with the discount-priced "20th Century Masters -- The Millennium Collection: The Best of Cameo" best-of, since this is a band best remembered for one particularly successful phase of a long career, the mid-'80s, when their new wave-influenced funk style led to the chart-topping R&B and Top Ten pop hit "Word Up." On "Anthology", you don't get to that point in Cameo's story until 12 tracks into the second disc. What you do get is 23 of their 26 Top 40 R&B hits, beginning with 1977's "Rigor Mortis" and ending with 1990's "I Want It Now." (Inexplicably, one of the omissions is the 1988 Top Five R&B hit "You Make Me Work.") Along the way, Cameo can be heard to evolve from a Parliament/Funkadelic-style freeform funk band into a more disciplined unit who often sounds very similar to Earth, Wind & Fire, notably on the tracks "We'Re Goin' Out Tonight" (1980) and "Feel Me" (1981). With "Freaky Dancin'," which appropriately opens the second disc, however, bandleader Larry Blackmon is starting to bring in his own interpretation of rock's new wave in the form of more aggressive playing while maintaining the funk feel, and by 1984's "She'S Strange" he had found a sound for his band that would push them to a new level of popularity. That success would prove relatively short-lived, but by the time Cameo faded from the top of the charts in the early '90s they had built up quite a library of dance-oriented R&B, and most of the best of it is here. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

Back To Top
About This Artist
Biography


Other albums by: Cameo
more
Related Artists
The Bar-Kays
Bell Biv DeVoe
George Clinton
Con Funk Shun
The Dazz Band
Dr. Dre
The Gap Band
Rick James
Kool & The Gang
Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly
Ohio Players
Parliament
more

Any reproduction, publication, further distribution, or public exhibition of materials provided at this site, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited.
©2006 All Media Guide, LLC
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC