"Let's Groove" is a song by American band Earth, Wind & Fire, released as the first single from their eleventh studio album, Raise! (1981). It is written by Maurice White and Wayne Vaughn, and produced by White. The song was a commercial success, and was the band's highest-charting single in various territories. It peaked inside the top 20 in countries including the United States, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and other component charts in America. In 1979 and the early 1980s, there was a severe backlash against disco music. In spite of this, the band decided to revive the disco sound that was included on their previous works and later records. Musically, "Let's Groove" is post-disco, pop and funk which includes instrumentation of synthesizers and keyboards along with live electric guitars.
Overview
"Let's Groove" was produced by Maurice White for Kalimba Productions. With a duration of five minutes and thirty nine seconds, the song has a tempo of 126 beats per minute.[3][4]
Critical reception
Ken Tucker of Rolling Stone described Let's Groove as "city music" where "the horn section screams like a car running a red light."[5]Record World praised the "deep, brawny bass line."[6] Ed Hogan from AllMusic noted that White "brought in guitarist Roland Bautista and began co-writing, with Emotions member Wanda Vaughn and her husband Wayne Vaughn, a song that reflected the then-emerging electronic sound of the '80s. Not to be confused with the same-named hit by Archie Bell & the Drells, "Let's Groove" certainly was a change. Starting off with a robotic-sounding vocoder riff, it served up a more gritty-sounding EWF for the 1980s, laced with Brecker Brothers-supplied horn blasts that rival those of EWF's 1976 gold single 'Getaway'."[7]People though said that the album's "biggest disappointment is Let's Groove, yet another gotta-boogie tune."[8] Jordan Bartel of The Baltimore Sun noted that the song was "quite possibly the funkiest thing to come out of the early 1980s".[9]Richard Williams of The Times wrote "Let's Groove, the bass-heavy new single, is a reliable pointer".[10] Whitney Pastorek of Entertainment Weekly declared that "I actually love this song, especially the little computer voice in the background, like Pac-Man has come to life to boogie just for me!"[11]
The song peaked at number three in the US, becoming their 7th and last top 10 hit.[14] It also spent eight weeks at number one on the BillboardHot Soul Singles chart in late 1981 and early 1982 and was the second R&B song of 1982 on the year-end charts.[15]
The single sold over a million copies in the US and has been certified gold by the RIAA as until the RIAA lowered the sales levels for certified singles in 1989, a gold single equalled 1 million units sold.[16] "Let's Groove" was also certified platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry.[17]
Music video
The accompanying music video of "Let's Groove" was the first ever to be played on Video Soul on BET.[18][19] Heavy with vintage electronic effects, the video was directed and created by Ron Hays using the Scanimate analog computer system at Image West, Ltd.[20]
Violin – Anton Sen, Arkady Shindelman, Arnold Belnick, Betty Lamagna, Brian Leonard, Denyse Buffum, Endre Granat, Haim Shtrum, Henry Ferber, Irving Geller, Jerome Reisler, John Wittenbert, Mari Tsumura Botnick, Marvin Limonick, Myra Kestenbaum, Nathan Ross, Norman Leonard, Reginald Hill, Ronald Folsom, Sheldon Sanov, Thomas Buffum, William Hymanson, William Kurasch
Vocal – Beloyd Taylor, Maurice White, Ms. Pluto, Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson
In 1995, "Let's Groove" was covered by the Australian R&B/pop boy band CDB. In Australia, the song reached number 2 and was certified platinum for shipments of over 70,000 units.[51][52] In New Zealand, it peaked at number 1 for three weeks and also received a platinum certification, indicating sales exceeding 10,000 copies.[53][54] At the ARIA Music Awards of 1996, "Let's Groove" won the Highest Selling Single category.[55]
^Molanphy, Chris (October 15, 2022). "Give Up the Funk Edition". Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia (Podcast). Slate. Retrieved April 25, 2024.
^Earth, Wind & Fire: Let's Groove. Columbia Records. September 1981.
