Masterpiece

by

The Temptations

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In 1973 it marked the officially the last time Norman Whifield and long time writing partner Barrett Strong would ever collaberate on a Temptations album again, and by this album you could tell that Whitfield couldn't been any happier. From the beginning you have the Richard Street led song "Hey Girl (I Like Your Style)" which for a moment brought the old style Tempts into the early 70's with its passionate vocal work by Street and great song arrangement by Whitfield(also marking the first time Whitfield would write produce and arrange all songs). Then things get back to business as usual as he basically does an instrumental with added Temptation vocals through out on the title track. Although I love this song to death and has been samples to death by artist since the 90's the Temptations were naturally not pleases with the finishing product of the song and album. While clocking in at nearly 14 minutes the song builds up to a about with its great bass and string work to about 4 minutes and then let Richard Street and the rest of the group exchange vocals for about 2 minutes. After that the song carries on again and let Damon Harris and the rest of the group finish the song off for about another minute and then concludes again with instrumentation.

By this time, Temptation and many fans started calling the Tempts the Norman Whitfield Singers and were starting to get tired of Whitfield flexing his muscles by using the the group to show off his intricate production techniques. The final song on the album "Hurry Tomorrow" does not make things any better as he basically uses them again for about 8 minutes. In between the two songs I last mentioned are "Ma" which was also done by the Motown rock group Rare Earth who also put out an album produced by Whitfield that is very similiar to this release. See, if I have one problem with Norman Whifield is that he takes all his artist and makes their sound very similiar to each other (although he does change the arrangements). But to me the best track on here has go to be "Plastic Man" which is done very nicely and talks about people that we all know who are always trying to be something their not, which is still prevelant today. I love this album and highly reccomend it if you can shell out some major cash for it because it is also out of print. Great allbum overall. See Ya.