Believe

When James Brown popularized funk in the 1960s, he elevated repetition to an art form in the R&B world. The cardinal rule became "find the perfect groove and work it to death," and the goal was musical hypnosis. Brown, of course, didn't single-handedly invent musical repetition — in India, Hindu musicians were celebrating the joys of repetition centuries before he was even born. But the Godfather did pave the way for numerous funk, disco, house, Latin freestyle, jungle, and trance artists who liked to stay on the groove. In the 1970s, the use of repetition worked wonders for everyone from Parliament/Funkadelic and the Ohio Players to Donna Summer and Cerrone — and the value of repetition certainly wasn't lost on Mass Production, whose hypnotic funk-disco continued to sound fresh on its second album, Believe. There are no signs of a sophomore slump on this LP; the club DJs who went wild over MP's first album were equally impressed with exuberant, ultra-danceable offerings like "Free and Happy," "People Get Up," and "I Believe in Music." The record also contains a few dreamy soul ballads, including "Keep My Heart Together" and "Being Here." But Believe is party album first and foremost, and it's an exciting one.