“Get Ready” – Human Nature
by 
lkatulka on January 11th, 2008
Human Nature have been doing their Motown thing for so long it’s easy to forget they used to be a boy band. But all that is coming to an end with the release of their final Motown experience, Get Ready.
After pumping out a few of these soulful nostalgia trips, there was always the risk the third album would become stale. To prevent this, The Nature headed to Detroit and enlisted the help of some of Motown’s finest artists: Mary Wilson of The Supremes, Martha Reeves, The Temptations, and Smokey Robinson.
The result is an album that’s full of energy and loads of fun. You might think that by the third album, Human Nature would have already covered all the good tracks. The wonderful thing about Motown music is that no matter how many albums come before it, there are still great songs to record. “The Way You Do The Things You Do,” “Tears of a Clown,” “It’s The Same Old Song,” and the title track “Get Ready” all benefit from the Human Nature treatment. I could have done without the inclusion of a Motown-style “Jingle Bells,” but that’s what I get for buying the album around Christmas time.
There’s nothing earth shattering or revolutionary about this recording. If you didn’t like the first couple of Motown albums, this one probably won’t rev you either. But there’s a reason why Human Nature have sold millions of Motown records around this country. Quite simply, these lads have four of the finest voices in Australia. And when you get them singing some of the greatest songs ever written, the result is always going to be sublime.
Image source: Human Nature website
Tags: Get-Ready, Human-Nature, Motown| 1.7 |
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POSTED IN: Album Reviews
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2 opinions for “Get Ready” – Human Nature
Mar 10, 2008 at 8:34 am
I just saw Human Nature perform some of their Motown songs LIVE at Stage 88, Commonwealth Park, Canberra. Boy do those guys give a good value concert. Eighty minutes of non-stop handjive dancing and close harmony backings while the members took turns on lead vocal. But it was only when they sang some of their old songs, including “Everytime I Cry”, that I was reminded how well they harmonise.
The Motown style, with a lead singer and two or three backup singers, doesn’t fully show off this aspect of their talent. But they certainly have the Motown moves down pat. They must have studied old music videos or told their choreographer, “we want to look just like that!”.
Why Motown? Why not! What do boy bands do when they become men? At least they have picked some great songs to cover.
What’s next for HN? My guess would be late 50’s - early sixties pop. Let’s hope that in their next album they add just a little more sparkle or extension to the original songs to set them apart from the original artists and make me want to buy their album rather than the original.
Maybe someone will write some new songs that suit their style, perhaps they could move into jazz or Buble-style ballads as they mellow along with their fans.
Mar 10, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Oh I definitely agree with you Ozzi. I took my husband to see the lads when they were performing their first Motown shows. He’s American and I wanted him to see these guys who made me weak-kneed as a teenager many many years ago. He was so impressed by how good these guys are. They really do deliver live, and I agree that those earlier songs really are the best showcase of that.
I love your suggestion of tackling Buble-esque standards. I have a feeling the next album we’ll see from the lads will be full of originals, but if it flopped like the last couple of ones before Motown we might see them head in that direction!
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