Dancing Machine / Moving Violation

Album Review

Although Dancing Machine contained a few more choice pre-disco leanings, such as "She's a Rhythm Child" and "Life of the Party," the emphasis began to shift to album (read: longer) tracks rather than singles. That certainly isn't to imply that the hits had dried up. In fact, it was the persistent success of "Dancing Machine" from Get It Together that determined the direction of the album. The centerpiece of Dancing Machine is the opening track — a seven-plus minute epic titled "I Am Love." The stunning use of counterpoint and a melange of pop music styles — ranging from soul ballad to album rock — are a tribute to the enormous flexibility of the Jackson 5. The album was so skewed toward a pop music audience that it failed to chart on the R&B charts, although it reached a most respectable number 16 on the Billboard album chart. Moving Violations is a more assured return to what was happening in popular soul music and the burgeoning disco scene of the mid- to late '70s. In fact, with only a few exceptions — most notably "All I Do Is Think of You" and "Breezy" — the tracks on this final Jackson 5 album were created specifically for the dancefloor. This in turn heralded the return of the quintet to the R&B album charts. Although this would be the final long-player credited to the Jackson Five, the band would continue as a quintet with youngest brother Randy Jackson replacing Jermaine on their next chapter as simply the Jacksons. As with all five in this series of the remastered Jackson 5 two-fer discs, there are a few pertinent "bonus tracks" on this disc — both of which are circa Moving Violation. "Through Thick and Thin" first appeared on the Joyful Jukebox Music compilation. "Forever Came Today" — originally by Diana Ross & the Supremes — is indeed a rarity, as the last half of the track is a dance-friendly instrumental and was originally issued on Motown's Disc-O-Tech #3 various-artist long-player.