It is fair to say that in 1974 Motown had little idea what
to do with, or about, the Jackson 5. In fact one could say that in 1974 Motown
had little idea what to do about anything; I recall a doom-laden piece by Bob
Edmands in the NME at the time which
bandied about words such as “Hubris” and “Nemesis,” while the
optimistically-titled Motown Chartbusters
Volume 9 included three reissued oldies from the sixties.
Nevertheless “Dancing Machine” is the second consecutive Motown single to appear in this list so they must have remembered how to do
something, and indeed the J5’s first US top ten hit since 1971’s unfortunately-titled
“Sugar Daddy” – in Britain they had a few more hits, including two top tens
with the tune-free “Lookin’ Through The Window” and their bizarre cover of “Doctor
My Eyes,” but the hits dried up altogether after 1973 and when they resurfaced in
the charts a few years later they had signed to Epic Records and become The
Jacksons.
Actually disco suits the group quite well, and
fifteen-year-old Michael in particular has a whale of a time with the song’s
robotic determinism – witness his exclamatory “She’s geared to really BLOW YOUR
MIND!” The mid-song instrumental breakdown reminded Lena of Kraftwerk and the
prospect of teenage Michael grooving to Autobahn
– which emerged just a few months later – is, in its own logical way,
mind-blowing. You can clearly tell where Michael, if nobody else, is going and
the “Robot” dance he did on Soul Train
spelled that out even more obviously.
Date Record Made
Number Two: 18 May 1974
Number Of Weeks At
Number Two: 2
Record At Number One: “The
Streak” by Ray Stevens
UK Chart Position: None
Other Information: The song was subsequently sampled by many artists, most notably by MC Hammer on "Dancin' Machine" and Justin Timberlake on "Murder." Laura Mvula and Naughty Boy also revisited the song in 2017.
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