James Brown - Sex Machine

Fellas, I’m ready to get up and do my thing. (Yeah, that’s right! Do it!) I want to get into it, man, you know? (Go ahead! Yeah!) Like a podcast machine, man. (Yeah!) “Sex Machine” by James Brown is a half-fake live album of overdubbed ersatz crowd noise atop pitch-perfect “on-the-one” funk jam bliss, that went on to influence the likes of Fela Kuti. Recorded at the apex of the “Popcorn” dance craze, these two sides capture James Brown before and after his backing band changed from the “classic” line-up to the arguably better one featuring bass playing by p-funk superstar Bootsy Collins and his brother Catfish.


It’s also #439 on the Rolling Stone magazine list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, so Christopher Macarthur-Boyd and Liam Withnail listened to it, and now they’re going to do a deep-dive on everything from Browns’ appearance in the 2002 Jackie Chan film The Tuxedo, to the low points of his behaviour with angeldust and domestic violence. All that plus another unfruitful Secret Posho and an absolutely wild YouTube Comment Of The Week. Enjoy An Album! Enjoy.