"Let's Groove" is a song by American band Earth, Wind & Fire, released as the first single from their eleventh studio album, Raise! (1981). It is written by Maurice White and Wayne Vaughn, and produced by White. The song was a commercial success, and was the band's highest-charting single in various territories. It peaked inside the top 20 in countries including the United States, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and other component charts in America. In 1979 and the early 1980s, there was a severe backlash against disco music. In spite of this, the band decided to revive the disco sound that was included on their previous works and later records. Musically, "Let's Groove" is post-disco, pop and funk which includes instrumentation of synthesizers and keyboards along with live electric guitars.

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

Ken Tucker of Rolling Stone described Let's Groove as "city music" where "the horn section screams like a car running a red light." Record World praised the "deep, brawny bass line." Ed Hogan from AllMusic noted that White "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'." People though said that the album's "biggest disappointment is Let's Groove, yet another gotta-boogie tune." Jordan Bartel of The Baltimore Sun noted that the song was "quite possibly the funkiest thing to come out of the early 1980s". Richard Williams of The Times wrote "Let's Groove, the bass-heavy new single, is a reliable pointer". Whitney Pastorek of Entertainment Weekly declared that "I actually love this song, especially the little computer voice in the background, like Pac-Man has come to life to boogie just for me!" NME placed Let's Groove at number 16 on their Singles of the Year list of 1981. "Let's Groove" was also Grammy nominated in the category of Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

Commercial performance

The song peaked at number three in the US, becoming their 7th and last top 10 hit. It also spent eight weeks at number one on the Billboard 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 equalled 1 million units sold. "Let's Groove" was also certified platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry.

Music video

The accompanying music video of "Let's Groove" was the first ever to be played on Video Soul on BET. Heavy with vintage electronic effects, the video was directed and created by Ron Hays using the Scanimate analog computer system at Image West, Ltd. The style of the music video influenced that of Bruno Mars' "Treasure".

Personnel

Engineers Performers

Accolades

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Sampling

"Let's Groove" was interpolated in "Feels" by Calvin Harris featuring Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry and Big Sean, and in "Alright" by Kent Jones.

In other media

• the song was used in 1998 film The Waterboy • this song was used in the 2005 movie Kronk's New Groove.

CDB version

In 1995, "Let's Groove" was covered by the Australian R&B/pop boy band CDB. In Australia, the song reached number 2 and was certified platinum for shipments of over 70,000 units. In New Zealand, it peaked at number 1 for three weeks and also received a platinum certification, indicating sales exceeding 10,000 copies. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1996, "Let's Groove" won the Highest Selling Single category.

Track listing

CD single (662147 2)

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

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 May 14, 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. This 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

Release history