Get Up I Feel Like Being Like A Sex Machine
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Album Summary
Laid down live in the studio and released in 1970 on King Records, 'Get Up I Feel Like Being Like A Sex Machine' is one of those records that just stopped time the moment it hit the airwaves. James Brown — the hardest working man in show business, the Godfather of Soul himself — produced this one with his own hands and his own vision, backed by his tight-knit band of funk disciples. Recorded at King Studios in Cincinnati, this wasn't just another album drop; it was a declaration. Brown was shedding the last traces of traditional soul and stepping fully into the fire of funk, and this record is the sound of that transformation happening in real time.
Reception
- The title track became an immediate and enduring funk anthem, cementing James Brown's status as the undisputed Godfather of Soul and a towering force in popular music.
- The raw, stripped-down groove of the recording resonated deeply with audiences, proving that rhythm and feel could carry a record further than any conventional song structure ever could.
Significance
- This record stands as a cornerstone moment in the development of funk as its own sovereign genre — built on locked-in syncopated rhythms, razor-sharp horn stabs, and the kind of call-and-response energy between Brown and his band that no one else on the planet could manufacture.
- It captured something real and alive about early 1970s African American cultural expression, becoming a soundtrack for both the dance floor and the deeper social currents moving through Black America at that time.
- Brown's production approach on this album — stripping the music down to its rhythmic skeleton and letting the groove do all the preaching — laid philosophical groundwork that would reshape how musicians and producers thought about feel, space, and the power of the one.
Samples
- Get Up I Feel Like Being Like A Sex Machine (Part 1) — one of the most sampled recordings in the history of funk and hip-hop, with its groove and vocal breaks appearing across hundreds of tracks spanning decades of popular music.
- Get Up I Feel Like Being Like A Sex Machine (Part 2) — sampled across hip-hop and electronic music, with producers drawn to its relentless rhythmic drive and Brown's electrifying vocal ad-libs.
Tracklist
-
A Get Up I Feel Like Being Like A Sex Machine (Part 1) —
2:49
-
B Get Up I Feel Like Being Like A Sex Machine (Part 2) —
2:33
Artist Details
James Brown, the self-proclaimed Godfather of Soul, rose up out of Barnwell, South Carolina, and by the early 1960s had set the whole world on fire with a raw, sweat-drenched blend of gospel fervor, rhythm and blues grit, and a rhythmic intensity that would eventually birth the very foundation of funk itself. His band was so tight, so deeply locked in the groove, that Brown virtually invented a new musical language — one built on syncopated rhythm, punishing horn stabs, and a vocal ferocity that no human being had any right to possess — and that language went on to shape soul, funk, hip-hop, and beyond. James Brown wasn't just a musician; he was a cultural earthquake, a symbol of Black pride and power whose anthem "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud" landed in 1968 like a thunderclap across a nation in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement, cementing his place not just in music history, but in the very story of America itself.
