>Abit too crass perhaps? Thats how I truly feel about it.
>Between George Benson's "Give Me the Night" and MJ's "Off The
>Wall", he laid out himself too thin. And even if he gave them
>his full attention, I wouldn't think he would bring out the
>best in them, he's production is a lil' too slick, too
>calculated, and doesn't leave much room for Chaka's
>spontaneity.

nah, that's about dead on with the consensus reaction to this album.
The funny thing about it, is that you really appreciate the natural "loose sound" of Rufus that existed before this album, hearing this.

Now I'm a Q-head so I was cool with all of this in the same way I was cool with David Foster Chicago... but it was probably a good thing for Rufus that they didn't go to that well again (more on that later).

>Plus, he was the connect line between Chaka and crew, they
>were estranged and the chemistry is virtually off. But the
>worst thing about the album is how fucked up they mixed
>Chaka's voice, the engineer(I'm guessing Bruce Sweden) thought
>it was a great idea to bury Chaka's voice under the production
>instead of putting it in the foreground.

again, to take it back to you-know-who... reviewing it again after this post, it reminded me of LITE ME UP and how Herbie was buried so far under the mix on the songs he produced himself. Bruce Swedien definitely was the culprit. On "Do You Love What You Feel" I had to listen a little harder for Chaka on that track.

If you know the backstory, you figure Chaka didn't really want to come back and play, not after having recorded an album on her lonesome and having it catch fire.

>"What Am I Missing" is the album's saving grace, and I prefer
>"Camouflage" over this one.

CAMOUFLAGE, I definitely liked better than this one, as well. However, that record as well as the other Chaka-less albums Rufus recorded (not including NUMBERS from '79), tried damn hard to recapture that tightly-bound Quincy sound. I think they really liked it.

It sounded like Chaka was way more on board for CAMOUFLAGE than this album... or rather, the music was more tailored for her to just jump on.