Spaced Invaders

Tom Brock - I Love You More and More

Today is more about a lesson than an album review. The dusty crate digging funk and soul lesson of today is you can almost judge a good album by its cover. To illustrate my point we’ll take this cover Tom Brock’s “I Love You More and More.” Now let’s take a minute and conjure up an image.

Let’s say that you were the smoothest cat at the bar and you actually picked up a beautiful young lady. (We all know that has never happened to you, but just make pretend for a moment that it has.) You are really attracted to this girl and you want to impress the panties off of her. Now you bring her back to your place, and you decide to get a little more comfortable and put on your pimp ass smoking jacket, and open up a fresh bottle of Columbia Crest Two Vines Merlot. You pour the lady and yourself a glass and sit down and begin to tell her how you save kitties stuck in trees, cried at The Notebook, and how much you enjoy John Mayer’s music. Now you aren’t jumping the gun to get in her drawers because you are smooth like that and want to get her so wound up that one touch from you will send her into ecstasy. Got that image in your head? Okay good. What does it look like? Chances are it looks like this cover here. And chances are this is the closest that you and I will ever get to that situation.

Anyway, this is Tom Brock’s finest and only album. It’s filled with beautiful strings, driving bass lines and rhythmic beats, with funky up-tempo rhythms. Tom Brock’s vocals on this album are top notch. Then again, what would you expect from a protégé of the walrus of love himself, Barry White. Oh that was never mentioned? That’s right Tom Brock was mentored by White himself. In fact, Barry produced this album. I am actually very surprised that this album never went anywhere. With it being produced by Barry, and just the great soul that is on this album, I’m just truly surprised that this wasn’t an instant classic.

Now for the juicy details of this album. We all know Jay-Z, well “Girls, Girls, Girls” came from this album here. Also, nearly every track on this album has sample qualities. In fact, I’m producing music for a few artists and already four tracks of there album were sampled from this. If you are a crate digger you must find this album.

Tom Brock – I Love You More And More
Track listing:

1. Have A Nice Week End Baby

2. The Love We Share Is The Greatest Of Them All

3. there’s nothing in this world that can stop me from loving you

4. I love You more & more

5. Naked as the day I was born

6. That’s the Reason Why

7. Shake Me, Wake Me

8. If We Don’t Make it, Nobody Can

I was going through some old funk albums this weekend, looking for the perfect beat as usual, and I ran across this old gem that I semi-forgot how some of the tracks sounded. So, I loaded it up on the decks and took a listen. From what I understand Kool and the Gang’s self released album was an unexpected success. After listening to their first single on the album, also self titled, it’s not hard to understand why this album was a success. The single climbed both pop and R&B charts at the time, reaching #19 on the R&B and #59 on the pop. Subsequent singles “The Gang’s Back Again,” “Let the Music Take Your Mind,” and “Funky Man,” followed and moved steadily up the charts. However, there were still many notable tracks such as “Raw Hamburger,” and “Chocolate Buttermilk.” This record is a total ruckus to listen to and contains the trademark styles of the band before the late disco era: smooth melodies, brassy horns, and funky-as-all-hell drumming. This album has stood up to the test of time and has been sampled by many early rap artists and is considered a classic in the eyes of the stoic vinyl collector and breaks from this album still surface in b-boy competitions across the world. I have listed the artists that sampled from this album below:

Song: Give it Up
A Tribe Called Quest - “Scenario”
Beastie Boys - “Professor Booty”
Compton’s Most Wanted - “Compton 4 Life”
Cypress Hill - “The Phuncky Feel One”
Deee-Lite - “Deee-Lite Theme”
Eric B and Rakim - “Don’t Sweat the Technique”
GangStarr - “Take a Rest”
Greg Osby - “3-D Lifestyles”
Lionrock - “Morning Will Come When I’m Not Ready”
MC Brains - “Everybody’s Talkin’ about MC Brains”
NWA - “Real Niggaz”
Organized Konfusion - “Intro”
Uptown - “Dope on Plastic”
X-Clan - “Shaft’s Big Score”

Song: Chocolate Buttermilk
Chubb Rock - “The Night Scene”
Eric B and Rakim - “Keep ‘em Eager to Listen”
Eric B and Rakim - “No Omega”
Heavy D - “Let it Flow”
Marley Marl - “Simon Says”
Masta Ace - “Simon Says”
Pete Rock & CL Smooth - “Straighten it Out”
Special Ed - “Ready 2 Attack”
SL2 - “On A Ragga Tip”
Stetsasonic - “The Hip Hop Band”
Style - “Set the Mood”
YBT - “Proud to Be Black”

Song: Let the Music Take Your Mind
Beastie Boys - “Lay it on Me”
Boss - “Process of Elimination”
Ice Cube - “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”
Ice T - “Freedom of Speech”
Jungle Brothers - “What’s Going On?”
Ultramagnetic MCs - “MC Champion”

Song: Breeze & Soul
Dr. Octagon - “Bear Witness”
Jimmy Jay - “Les Cool Session”

 

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