Groove Theory (album)

Groove Theory is the only studio album by the American R&B duo Groove Theory, released on October 24, 1995, by Epic Records. The album peaked at number sixty-nine on the US Billboard 200 chart. In October 1996, it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for surpassing 500,000 copies in the United States.

Background
""Well, I mean, inspiration was being young and green and having years and years of songs written before then, and never being in the studio before. It's a live combination of inexperience, excitement, innocence, and a lot to say, you know being years and years of writing stuff, and watching things, and I grew up at the time that the Native Tongues was really popular, that really influenced me. I think I grew up in the hey day of hip hop, the best hip hop, the late 1980s, early 1990s, so I had a lot of stuff to inspire musically that was going on. And it was inspirational for me as a songwriter to be able to have all my own material that I was writing, as opposed to being in a group where some things are written for you.""

- Amel Larrieux, 2009 interview with Nu-Soul Magazine

Reception
Stanton Swihart of AllMusic considered the effort "an exquisite, even innovative album. Not only did it (in retrospect) help to herald the progressive neo-soul movement, but its melding of decidedly hip-hop production techniques... with the emotional impulses and themes of soul was still a novel approach to making R&B at the time."

In a retrospective review, Stephen Kearse of Pitchfork declared the record "a cool and atmospheric bomb thrown into the waters of ’90s R&B… Although Groove Theory’s fusions never feel as audacious as the worldbuilding taking place on other syncretic mid-’90s R&B albums like Meshell Ndegeocello’s Plantation Lullabies, Sade’s Love Deluxe, D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar, and Janet Jackson’s janet., there's no friction from all the blending. Groove Theory imagined R&B as a tentpole genre that could house jazz scats, funk grooves, and rap edge without conflict. It's no accident that the terms most often used to describe the group are "cool" and "smooth."

Track listing
All music by B. Wilson, A. Larrieux, and D. Brown except where noted.

Personnel

 * Art direction – Carol Chen
 * Bass – Darryl Brown, Eric "Ibo" Butler, Kirk Lyons
 * Design – Sean Evans
 * Drums – Ralph Rolle
 * Engineering – Russell Elevado, Joe Hornof
 * Executive production – Jimmy Henchman, Amel Larrieux
 * Guitar – Darryl Brown, Mike "Dino" Campbell
 * Keyboard arrangements – Bryce Wilson
 * Keyboards – Darryl Brown, Kevin Deane, Gary Montoute, Bryce Wilson
 * Mastering – Chris Gehringer
 * Mixing – Ron Banks, Russell Elevado, Dave Kennedy, Angela Piva
 * Percussion – Jeff Haynes
 * Production – Lamont Boles, Amel Larrieux, Bryce Wilson
 * Production coordination – Donald Wood, Kim Lumpkin
 * Programming – Isiah Lee
 * Saxophone – Mike Phillips
 * Stylist – Jamie Kimmelman
 * Vocal arrangement – Amel Larrieux, Laru Larrieux, Trey Lorenz
 * Vocals – Amel Larrieux, Laru Larrieux
 * Vocals (background) – Sean Jasper, Jean, Amel Larrieux, Laru Larrieux, Trey Lorenz, Troy Montgomery

Singles
"—" denotes releases that did not chart.