SoulAlive said:

That's Vanity on the cover...

Or Denise at the time

funkpill said:

Is it really? I thought she looked a bit familiar.

Rarely have I seen album covers that have been simultaneously creepy and attractive.

Well it seems like "Alligator Woman" is getting the majority vote. But why? Why would this album be better than their more successful albums like "She's Strange" or "Word Up"? Mind you, I only heard the singles like "Flirt" and "Just Be Yourself", and they were pretty funky. But what about the rest of the album?

NWF said:

ummmm NO.
when I think of Cameo I think of the older stuff, and NO. P funk, Ohio players and Cameo were all different. At least it was to those of us who were around when it all first came out. Larry wasn't even the lead singer on most of the stuff I loved, it was Wayne Cooper's voice I associated with Cameo. So yeah, I love me some old Cameo and I don't really appreciate the new stuff, so stop trying to convince me

NWF said:

That doesn't work for everyone --You said it yourself; That's the era that You remember most - and that's fine. That's also when Pop audiences discovered them. But for a lot of us who grew up with the band, the sound we remember most are tracks like "I Just Want To Be", "Shake Your Pants", "Why Have I Lost You", "Freaky Dancin", "Feel Me", "Sparkle", "Keep It Hot", "Be Yourself" , "Flirt", "We're Goin' Out Tonight" - for us, those defined the Cameo sound.... while it is true that early pieces like "Funk Funk" sounded like P-Funk and other Funk bands, IMO, they pretty much had their own defined Cameo sound by '79-'80....the guica percussion, the clipped, unison vocal lines, and the tight guitar and horn lines and synthesizer bleets...I don't think anybody who was really listening was mistaking "Shake Your Pants" for P-Funk or Ohio Players....






...
[Edited 12/24/06 10:34am]

butterfli25 said:

OMG! You read my mind! Excellent post! Thank you!

FuNkeNsteiN said:

"You Know It"

funkpill said:

: "Captain the transporter is ready".
: "That's Hip"
: "Lieutenant Morbid what is the condition of the planet surface"
: "It is difficult to be precise"
: "However, my instruments indicate a a condition of extreme rigor mortis spreading rapidly throuhout the population; highly illogical captain."
: "A bunch of stiffs huh".
: "Well set coordinance for "CHOCOLATE CITY" and have a party of nine men beamed down immediately with phasers set on "FUNK FUNK".
: "Very well Captain Smith".

StarMon said:

HAHA!!!


If you believe in us, you'll be bless with funk...UGH!!!

NWF said:

Because Alligator woman was raw funk. Other hot songs from the album were soul army which had a stanking bass line played by aaron mills that defined cameo's
sound. Other tight joints from the album were enjoy your life, the title track
alligator woman and the ballad for you which they still perform live.
As for your earlier quote, we are not hating on cameo's success of word up but
that shit just sounded cheesy compared to their earlier body of work and most of
the true cameo fans from the 70's and early 80's agree that the band and sound
was much tighter when the band was larger. I have a lot of cameo songs on my mp3 player but not word up or candy. Too commercial. It's good that you recognize cameo for something rather than not at all but their earlier body of
work was better than the mid 80's. I also disagree with you when you compare them to the ohio players or some of the other funk bands from that time because they each had their own style. Slave was different, the deele, barkays, brass
construction, etc. It seems like you are outnumbered here dude because i don't see the word up album on anyone's list. Don't you hate appreciate that old
funk when it was really cameosis.

SoulAlive said:

!!!!!

phunkdaddy said:

I really like that song! But I cannot find it on CD anywhere (not on any compilation CD I have found nor can I find Style on CD).

NWF said:

"Alligator Woman" is also an outsdtanding track but my favorite from this album is "I owe it all to you".

paligap said:

Exactly! From Secret Omen on they had their own sound and feel.





.
[Edited 12/26/06 11:32am]
[Edited 12/26/06 11:32am]

Sowhat said:

agree

They found their sound from that album


And da' rest is history

blackguitaristz said:

These are some great looking album covers, these dudes must have been style. unfortunately I have only heard Word up (so I am a memeber of that token audience) but would love to hear their other stuff, but u just can't get this stuff in New Zealand. They must have been around for a while because apparently when Prince was promoting 4U the kids went over from the line of the Cameo member to c Prince. Do Cameo still make music.

phunkdaddy said:

Well that's definitely an album I'll check out.

And I wasn't saying that their older stuff wasn't great. Don't get me wrong, songs like "Shake Your Pants" and "I Just Want to Be" are funky as hell. And Wayne Cooper had an amazing voice (dare I say his falsetto was better than Prince's?). But you should'nt discount their more commerical albums like "Single Life" and "Word Up". With those albums I felt Cameo really came into their own with their stanky brand of Synth-Funk. And plus other bands were barely trying to hang by the mid-80's. George dropped the P-Funk thang and went solo, EWF was washed up (maybe until that "Touch The World" record), the Ohio Players were fading out, etc. Meanwhile Cameo were leading the pack in the Funk category and bringing their sound to the mainstream. Is there anything wrong with trying to re-invent yourself and bring your sound to a wider audience?

I mean, look at Genesis for example. They began as an experimental art-Rock group from the UK in the early 70's. And this was back when Peter Gabriel was the lead singer. But when he left in the late 70's, Phil Collins took over and took them into the pop mainstream well into the 80's and 90's and never looked back. I'm sure their experimental stuff is great, especially among die-hard fans. But their pop hits (Invisible Touch, Abcab, No Reply at All, I Can't Dance, etc.) shouldn't be discredited either.

The same could be said for Split Enz. In the beginning they were this Kiwi experimental artsy Prog-Rock/Pop outfit who dressed like circus clowns. That could've only been the bizarrest thing in the mid-70's. But by the time of their 5th album, Tim Finn's little brother, Neil came along and hit the pop charts and managed to cross over internationally. They dropped the silly outfits in favor of a more New Wave sound akin to Squeeze and it worked. In fact they became the first major band from New Zealand to break into the international pop mainstream.

So say wht you will about the pop side of Cameo, but I think it's just as good as anything they've done in the past.

NWF said:

You are right about the single life album. That was cool but the word up
album didn't do it for me. I think after the word up album they came back with a word up 2 album called machismo. The only hit from that album was a deep song
called skin i'm in. Then they followed that with a so so album called real men
wear black that contained a funky song reminiscent of their old sound called i
want it now. That was the last big hit for cameo.

phunkdaddy said:

"Word Up!" was a classic Cameo song that happened to cross over -- it's not like the band altered its sound to appeal to a crossover audience. If anything, the strongest criticism of the song is that is sounded similar to one of the band's biggest hits, "Single Life" -- a song that, like most Cameo singles, had NO crossover appeal.

"Candy" was basically an Ohio Players-style treatment of their sound with some rock elements. There's nothing sellout about those songs, and "Word Up!" was the only one that was a Top 20 pop song ("Candy" barely missed the Billboard Hot 100 singles' top 20).

From that point forward, Cameo also scored three other Top 5 soul singles besides "Skin I'm In" -- "Back and Forth" (from the "Word Up!" album), "You Make Me Work" (like "Skin," from the "Machismo" album) and "I Want It Now" (from the "Real Men ... Wear Black" album).
[Edited 2/3/07 15:25pm]

NWF said:

"Alligator Woman" was the album where there was a distinct change in Cameo's music and personnel. The band went from a 13-man brass and horn ensemble in the vein of acts like L.T.D. to a stripped-down, synthesizer-driven group that incorporated new wave elements.

I remember when "Be Yourself" and "Flirt" came out as singles in 1982 -- I would say most Cameo fans were thrown for a loop because they were unrecognizable from their trademark sound. "Be Yourself" had Charlie Singleton (a relatively new member who joined on the "Knights of the Sound Table" album) singing the lead vocal and "Flirt" held only a passing resemblance to the group's previous works.

I also would say "Alligator Woman" was the group's most consistent album, in terms of songwriting quality. As much as I am a Cameo fan, I found most of their albums to be mainly a couple of great potential singles and the rest was filler. Alligator Woman" featured a lot of solid songs in addition to the two singles (the title track, "Enjoy Your Life," "Soul Army" and "I Owe It all to You" also stood out).
[Edited 2/3/07 15:26pm]

chewwsey said:

WASN'T THEIR FIRST.....CARDIAC ARREST WAS!!!!!

1)CAMEOSIS

2)UGLY EGO

3)WE ALL KNOW WHO WE ARE

4)CARDIAC ARREST

5)SECRET OMEN

NWF said:

You never heard the title track?! I think you would LOVE it....it's very New Wav-ish.

SoulAlive said:

Well of course I heard the title track, as well as "Be Yourself" and "Flirt". I have the Anthology. It's just I never heard the "Alligator Woman" album itself.