Dancing Machine

"Dancing Machine"
Single by The Jackson 5
Released February 19, 1974[1]
Format 7" single
Recorded April - May 1973
Hitsville West, Los Angeles
Genre Funk, disco
Length 3:30 (album version)
2:43 (single version)
4:25 (alternate version)
Label Motown
M 1286
Writer(s) Hal Davis
Don Fletcher
Dean Parks
Producer(s) Hal Davis
The Jackson 5 singles chronology
"Get It Together"
(1973)
"Dancing Machine"
(1974)
"Whatever You Got I Want"
(1974)

"Dancing Machine" is a 1973 song recorded by The Jackson 5, released as a single in 1974. The group's first US Top Ten hit since 1971's "Sugar Daddy", "Dancing Machine" hit #1 in Cash Box and reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition, it hit #1 on the R&B charts.[2] Billboard ranked it as the No. 3 song for 1974.[3] It brought The Jackson 5 their second Grammy Award nomination in 1975 for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, losing to Rufus and Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Something Good".

Background

The song, which reportedly sold over three million copies,[4] popularized the physically complicated Robot dance technique, devised by Charles Washington in the late 1960s. Michael Jackson first performed the dance on television while singing "Dancing Machine" with the Jackson 5 on an episode of Soul Train.

"Dancing Machine", originally recorded for the group's 1973 album G.I.T.: Get It Together, was also the title track of their 1974 album Dancing Machine released in 1974 as a remix for a response to the success of the single.

Cover versions

Personnel

Notes

  1. Hitsville USA, The Motown Singles Collection, Vol. 2: 1972-1992 (1993), liner notes
  2. Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 287.
  3. Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1974
  4. Sales statistics for Jackson 5 singles. Retrieved March 17, 2008
Preceded by
"The Payback (Part 1)" by James Brown
Billboard Hot Soul Singles number one single
May 11, 1974
Succeeded by
"I'm in Love" by Aretha Franklin