The Ohio Players
Fire

THE REVIEW

It happened that one day the Ohio Players began assertively manifesting themselves around me.
Relying on my admittedly mediocre knowledge of George Clinton's opus magna, I started realizing one evening that I recognized much of the samples in the gangsta music playing in my friend's car, a fitting soundtrack for trips through troubled neighborhoods. "But do you know the Ohio Players? Dr. Dre often used their samples," he said to me. When I got home, I discovered that practically every rapper had used the Players for their beats, from NWA, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Notorious B.I.G. to De La Soul, Public Enemy, Xzibit, and Carmen Electra. (Yes, Carmen Electra made an album, but luckily that's another story).

From then on, the Ohio Players began appearing to me practically everywhere. My brother kept watching that stupid show where Chef Gordon butchered foolish Yankee cooks: I later learned that the program's theme was "Fire" by the OP. Watching a clip from the Beavis & Butt-Head movie, I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform a song I didn't know: it was "Love Rollercoaster" by the Ohio Players. I was listening to my beloved Screaming Life/Fopp by Soundgarden and noticed that "Fopp", present in two versions, was a cover of the OP. I tried searching Ohio Players on Google and came across a series of cover arts, each more suggestive than the last, for albums with titles more explicit one after another. At this point, I feared the Ohio Players would start appearing to me in dreams like Mohammed appeared to Laurence Olivier in the film Khartoum: to exorcise this obsession, I started listening to them intensively, heedless of the upcoming final exams.

It was worth it, indeed: the Ohio Players, already formed in the late '50s, began climbing the charts at the end of the '60s to achieve great success in the '70s, playing some great funk. Funk in its most sly, commercial, danceable, and pimpish sense, but always good music. Fire, from 1974, is one of their most successful albums. The album opens with the eponymous "Fire", one of the hits of 1974, staying in the top ten for five weeks and unmistakable in its heavy guitar riff, introducing a clear fire theme that would be picked up in "Smoke", the Parliament-like "Runnin' from the Devil", and "What the Hell", aggressive and obsessive, with all the instruments performing wonderfully. This fire theme is intertwined with classic romantic ballads, as in the cinematic "Together", the sugary "It's all Over", and the well-executed "I Want to be Free", seven sweet minutes of ballad unfolding among synths, female choirs, incisive bass lines, and notable drum rolls.

A good example of the more mainstream '70s funk, then, with powerful and incisive tracks and romantic ballads that do not overdo it in TV-show romance, as happens in other OP discography episodes, decidedly diabetes-risking.An album probably too catchy for many listeners today, but also a very atmospheric album. If I haven't yet used it as a background for my (rare) carnal encounters, it's only because I fear the Ohio Players would once again appear in vision at the least opportune moment, with their afro hair, glittery red uniforms, and, worst of all, the bald woman in S&M attire on the Rattlesnake cover. Look at the full image to understand.