Don't buy an artist's new work expecting it to sound like old work. If you can't get past an artist's old work, buy an old album. Right?

True artists are all about evolution. Duh. Nothing evolves into the same old thing. To compare this to his 60s work is stupid. And how does one confidently critcize someone with a hand in the development of a standard for breaking from it?? He PIONEERED a type a jazz and set the standard at one point. If he breaks from that standard to explore the possibility of new ones, that's his business. Just keep working on YOUR outstanding standard Jazz masterpiece. hahahaha

My fave tracks on here are Maiden Voyager/P. Bop and Chemical Residue. Check this album out and see what you think about it. As an artist myself I'm glad Mr. Hancock made this album. It boosted my creative exploratory confidence.

There's no real content here. This is not Kraftwerk, this is not Bill Laswell at any kind of peak, this is not Herbie Hancock at any kind of peak. It's a group of people at a creative dead end pumping out "product". The music is washed-out minimalist R&B.

Herbie Hancock's last installment of the Rockit band let the funk capture the groove.

In what was also the last album Hancock released for Columbia Records, Bootsy Collins (b) and Sugarfoot (v) deliver outstanding performances, while Bill Laswell's production keeps the beat moving without too much clutter.

Vibe Alive comes very close to capturing the freshness of the classic cut, Rockit, and an extended dance mix is included on the CD. Beat Wise - two versions also appear - is another clubland original.

Hancock digs deep into his vast archive and reworks his 1965 hit, Maiden Voyage, with electronics & couples it with P. Bop. Perfect Machine, Obsession and Chemical Residue are interesting cuts and again demonstrates that the Hancock/Laswell collaboration were taking solid ideas and backing them up with quality work on the mixing board.

An outstanding music video was issued for Vibe Alive.

When released in 1988, the album was ripped by critics and questions were voiced on how much input Hancock actually had in the project. But by casting the drama aside and letting the music speak for itself, Perfect Machine shows there was still some hop left in the hip robot.

An uneven Herbie Hancock record (and I wish this were his only one!), but several of the tracks work well. The title track is groove heavy fusion, and its subsumed vocoder vocals make it even catchier. Of the three tracks with Sugarfoot, only "Vibe Alive" is catchy and interesting - the other two sort of hold place on the album with little or nothing going on (I must admit, however, to laughing when Sugarfoot sings, "Why do I talk like this?/Obsession."). "Chemical Residue" is a dreamy but still modestly interesting fusion ballad. "Maiden Voyage/P Bop" (which probably should be called "P Bop/Maiden Voyage") is an agreeable number with HH's classic "Maiden Voyage" tacked onto the middle for no apparent reason - still, the one track here I'll find myself humming later in the day. The remixes aren't bad but certainly aren't essential - you may want to save some dough and buy the cheap-y cut-out version while you still can.

I have heard a lot of Herbie's sstuff, going all the way back to the 60's with the original Maiden Voyage, a favorite, for sure, but I am not a music snob, who cannot relate to contemporary music and an artist's changes and experimentation.

This new "Voyage" reinterpretation blew my mind. Loved it! Didn't love the whole album, this new Voyage and "Chemical Reside", (the slow "groove" piece). VERDICT: People hear what they want to hear, and music is a personal thing. I checked this out of the library the other day, and really dug it, now I'm buying it for my collection!