Consumer Guide Album

Ohio Players: Greatest Hits [Westbound, 1975]
On Mercury the Players are a funk factory, turning out delightful but very similar hits and surrounding them with functional filler. On Westbound they were experimentalists whether copying Funkadelic or Cactus. Not that all the experiments were interesting, much less successful, or that a hit format displays them at their best--I'd welcome a second long jam in addition to the two-part "Pain." Which is one of the three successful as opposed to interesting songs on this compilation. The others are "Ecstasy," after the manner of George Clinton, and "Funky Worm," impersonated by Junie Morrison. B