Let's Groove

"Let's Groove" is a song by the American band Earth, Wind & Fire from their eleventh studio album Raise! (1981). Written by Maurice White and Wayne Vaughn, and produced by White, the song was chosen as the lead single from the album.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, disco music was undergoing a severe backlash. In spite of this, the band decided to revive the disco sound that was later included on their previous works and records. Musically, "Let's Groove" is a post-disco, pop and funk song which includes instrumentation of synthesizers and keyboards along with live electric guitars.

The song was a commercial success, and was the band's highest-charting single in various territories. The song peaked inside the top 20 in countries including the United States, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and other component charts in America.

Overview
Let's Groove was produced by Maurice White for Kalimba Productions. With a duration of five minutes and thirty nine seconds the song has a tempo of 126 beats per minute.

Critical reception
Ed Hogan from AllMusic said, "He brought in guitarist Roland Bautista and began co-writing, with Emotions member Wanda Vaughn and her husband Wayne Vaughn, a song that reflected the then-emerging electronic sound of the '80s. Not to be confused with the same-named hit by Archie Bell & the Drells, "Let's Groove" certainly was a change. Starting off with a robotic-sounding vocoder riff, it served up a more gritty-sounding EWF for the 1980s, laced with Brecker Brothers-supplied horn blasts that rival those of EWF's 1976 gold single 'Getaway'." However, reviewing the parent album, William Ruhlmann said the song was a recycled mid-tempo tune from the mid-'70s, and stated that everything else sounded desultory and uninspired. He, however, highlighted the song as an album standout.

Rolling Stone described Let's Groove as "city music" where "the horn section screams like a car running a red light." The Baltimore Sun noted that the song was "quite possibly the funkiest thing to come out of the early 1980s". NME also placed Let's Groove at number 16 on their Singles of the Year list of 1981.

"Let's Groove" was Grammy nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

Commercial performance
The song peaked at number three in the US and in the UK. It also spent eight weeks at number one on the Hot Soul Singles chart in late 1981 and early 1982 and was the second R&B song of 1982 on the year-end charts.

The single sold over a million copies in the US and has been certified gold by the RIAA as until the RIAA lowered the sales levels for certified singles in 1989, a Gold single equaled 1 million units sold. "Let's Groove" was also certified silver in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry.

Music video
The music video of "Let's Groove" was the first video ever to be played on Video Soul on BET. The video, rich with vintage electronic effects, was created by Ron Hays using the Scanimate analog computer system at Image West, Ltd.

The whole style of the music video later went on to influence Bruno Mars' "Treasure".

CDB version
The song was covered in 1995 by the Australian R&B/pop boy band CDB. In Australia, the song reached number two and was certified platinum for shipment of over 70,000 units. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1996 "Let's Groove" won the Highest Selling Single category.

Track listing

 * CD single (662147 2)
 * 1) "Let's Groove" – 4:17
 * 2) "You Will Be Mine" – 4:07
 * 3) "Let's Groove" (Summer Groove) – 5:05
 * 4) "Let's Groove" (Instrumental) – 4:19

Asia's Got Talent judges version
"Let's Groove" was covered by the Asia's Got Talent judges—David Foster, Anggun, Melanie C and Vanness Wu—and released as a promotional single on 14 May 2015 by Universal. It was released as a charity single for the May 2015 Nepal earthquake and all money raised was donated to the victims. The version was produced by David Foster.

Promotion
On May 14, 2015, the four artists performed the song in the final of first season of Asia's Got Talent. On June 4, the Asia's Got Talent released the behind the scenes video of the recording.

Track listing

 * Digital download
 * 1) "Let's Groove" – 3:32