The Ohio Players’ second album of 1974 is tighter (ironically) than Skin Tight. Where that record featured just six tracks, four of which ran seven minutes or longer, Fire is — at least, on the surface — a slick, focused disc that alternates funk jams (“Fire,” “Runnin’ From The Devil,” “Smoke”) with lush ballads (“Together,” “It’s All Over”). But they were still adventurous and even weird at times. “I Want To Be Free” is a ballad, but it begins with a drum solo, and there’s another drum solo before the bridge. And “What The Hell” is an absolutely bizarre, theatrical hard rock/jazz-funk song that’s wilder than George Clinton; it’s almost Frank Zappa-esque, and prefigures things Fishbone would be doing in the late ’80s and early ’90s.