This album is a landmark of jazz fusion (in the "jazz funk" subgenre) and one of the few in that category to regularly sit in top albums list for both jazz and rock. Herbie Hancock, after a period of wandering from hard bop, through an experimental phase, finally settled into something far more "mainstream" than his peers. His rhythm section was fairly new, while his horn player, Bennie Maupin, was a veteran of the nascent genre (and another Miles Davis alum). Each album side is features two long pieces and the longer pieces can be viewed in movements rather than solid slab of one style. For example, on "Chameleon" there are four distinct parts: the main synthesizer-driven opening, an electric piano and fast drums sections, a return to the synths, then a coda featuring a brief solo from Maupin.
I've got two Herbie Hancock albums in my collective, this one and Maiden Voyage. I can't say which I like better since the two are so different from one another. That's the fun thing about Hancock's extensive solo career - he never seems content to settle into any one genre for long. Just as this album is far removed from his early solo albums, in an equal number of years into the future he would be adding turntables to the mix, then ten years further ahead dabbling in acid jazz. Not every single album is a winner, but it's a powerful repertoire.
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