Get It Together
The Jackson 5
Get It Together (often titled G.I.T.: Get It Together) is The Jackson 5’s eighth studio album, released on September 12, 1973 by Motown. Running eight tracks and about 36 minutes, it was recorded between late 1972 and mid‑1973 and produced by Hal Davis, with arrangements by Arthur G. Wright, David Blumberg, and James Anthony Carmichael. The album includes the modest hit Get It Together and the original version of Dancing Machine, which would later be edited and reissued on a tie‑in album to become a major Top‑10 pop single and a defining Jackson 5 classic. Other songs—Don’t Say Good Bye Again, Reflections, Hum Along and Dance, Mama I Got a Brand New Thing (Don’t Say No), It’s Too Late to Change the Time, and You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You)—round out a concise set that has since sold an estimated two million copies worldwide.
Artistically, Get It Together represents a bold reinvention for the group. As their early teenybopper popularity waned and the brothers (especially Michael and their father/manager Joseph) complained about the band’s direction, Motown and producer Hal Davis steered them toward a funk‑oriented progressive soul sound with strong elements of emergent disco. The album draws on the Norman Whitfield school of psychedelic funk: it includes covers of Temptations songs You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You) and Hum Along and Dance, as well as Mama I Got a Brand New Thing, previously recorded by the Undisputed Truth, here stretched to seven minutes with all five Jacksons sharing lead vocals. The sequencing is continuous, with no gaps between tracks, borrowing a concept‑album flow from Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind. Vocally, it’s the first record where Michael sounds noticeably older—14 during recording, 15 at release—with a deeper tenor and the debut of his famous “vocal hiccup,” heard on It’s Too Late to Change the Time, while all five brothers share leads more than ever, giving the music a unified group aura. Contemporary and retrospective reviews note that the album’s blend of nostalgic Motown feel, early‑’70s disco, and genuinely funky grooves makes it one of their most energetic and exciting works since ABC, and a key step in breaking them out of the “just‑kids” market.
Get It Together
The Jackson 5
Get It Together (often titled G.I.T.: Get It Together) is The Jackson 5’s eighth studio album, released on September 12, 1973 by Motown. Running eight tracks and about 36 minutes, it was recorded between late 1972 and mid‑1973 and produced by Hal Davis, with arrangements by Arthur G. Wright, David Blumberg, and James Anthony Carmichael. The album includes the modest hit Get It Together and the original version of Dancing Machine, which would later be edited and reissued on a tie‑in album to become a major Top‑10 pop single and a defining Jackson 5 classic. Other songs—Don’t Say Good Bye Again, Reflections, Hum Along and Dance, Mama I Got a Brand New Thing (Don’t Say No), It’s Too Late to Change the Time, and You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You)—round out a concise set that has since sold an estimated two million copies worldwide.
Artistically, Get It Together represents a bold reinvention for the group. As their early teenybopper popularity waned and the brothers (especially Michael and their father/manager Joseph) complained about the band’s direction, Motown and producer Hal Davis steered them toward a funk‑oriented progressive soul sound with strong elements of emergent disco. The album draws on the Norman Whitfield school of psychedelic funk: it includes covers of Temptations songs You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You) and Hum Along and Dance, as well as Mama I Got a Brand New Thing, previously recorded by the Undisputed Truth, here stretched to seven minutes with all five Jacksons sharing lead vocals. The sequencing is continuous, with no gaps between tracks, borrowing a concept‑album flow from Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind. Vocally, it’s the first record where Michael sounds noticeably older—14 during recording, 15 at release—with a deeper tenor and the debut of his famous “vocal hiccup,” heard on It’s Too Late to Change the Time, while all five brothers share leads more than ever, giving the music a unified group aura. Contemporary and retrospective reviews note that the album’s blend of nostalgic Motown feel, early‑’70s disco, and genuinely funky grooves makes it one of their most energetic and exciting works since ABC, and a key step in breaking them out of the “just‑kids” market.