{"id":834,"date":"2014-12-29T21:50:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T21:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=834"},"modified":"2014-12-29T21:50:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T21:50:41","slug":"rs-400-the-temptations-anthology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=834","title":{"rendered":"RS #400: The Temptations, Anthology"},"content":{"rendered":"
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#400<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The Temptations,\u00a0Anthology<\/h3>\n
Release Date:<\/span>\u00a01995
\nPreviously Owned:<\/strong> No<\/div>\n
First Time Listen:<\/span>\u00a0Yes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\"The
Man those dudes dressed sharp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Impressions:<\/span>\u00a0These guys\u00a0had me from the bright opening chords of the first song\u00a0“The Way You Do The Things You Do.” It sounds like straight-up sunshine. When\u00a0everything is\u00a0all in place (the honey soaked R&B harmonies, classic Motown pop\u00a0songwriting\u00a0and absolute perfect arrangements), it really doesn’t get much better than this. Sure,\u00a0a few\u00a0tunes get a little\u00a0samey sounding (like with their female counterparts, The Supremes,) but when the formula is so good why argue? Most of disc one is made up of this brand of pristine machine tooled, pop-gospel-inflected R&B Motown bliss. These\u00a0guys could\u00a0sing the phone book\u00a0and make it beautiful, compelling to listen to.\u00a0Seymour 2 is probably\u00a0the best bass singer of all time. “Ain’t To Proud To Beg” almost<\/em> got ruined by being on the Big Chill soundtrack, but it’s still a stomping\u00a0number with an exciting ascending chord structure. Disc 2 is their more serious, later stuff. “Cloud 9” is funkier and a real change up from their early stuff. The music is great and I like that they tried different stuff, but I find the slightly awkward preachiness undercuts their message a bit…wait they claim this songs is not<\/em> about drugs but a “State of Mind?” huh? “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”… just heaven if not a little stalker-y. Some of these later songs are pretty great arrangements but ham-handed “statement” songs like “Joneses,” or \u00a0“Ball of Confusion.” But then, “Just My Imagination” floats in and makes me forget about whatever complaints I was just typing up. Despite being a message-tune “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” is a stone classic and benefits from a more narrative approach. The tail end of disc\u00a02 charts their slide from Funk into proto-disco to ’80s cheeseball R&B. Again, I’m glad they changed things up but some of their attempts missed the mark.\u00a0“Power”… singing about Nukes? Brrr. Trying to keep up with the times, they\u00a0sort of ended up\u00a0sounding\u00a0like a not-so-bad copy\u00a0of Earth, Wind and Fire or less freaky Parliament. Ah, well…<\/p>\n

Starred Songs:<\/span>\u00a0“The Way You Do The Things You Do,” “My Girl,” “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)”
\n<\/span>Sneaky Tracks:<\/span>\u00a0“Beauty’s Only Skin Deep,” “What Love Has Joined Together,” “Since I Lost My Baby,” “Don’t Look Back”<\/p>\n

Should this be on the list:<\/span>\u00a0Yes, of course. But this anthology thing on this list is starting to piss me off.
\nReplace With:\u00a0<\/strong>Maybe a tighter compliation that omits their later crap
\nWill You Listen To This Album Again:<\/span>\u00a0This collection? Ehh…but the songs, yeah!<\/span><\/p>\n

Summary: <\/span>As individual songs, you can’t beat this super-smooth example of\u00a0peak Motown, but\u00a0this collection could be defeated.<\/div>\n
Rating:<\/span>\u00a0\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

#400 The Temptations,\u00a0Anthology Release Date:\u00a01995 Previously Owned: No First Time Listen:\u00a0Yes Impressions:\u00a0These guys\u00a0had me from the bright opening chords of the first song\u00a0“The Way You Do The Things You Do.” It sounds like straight-up sunshine. When\u00a0everything is\u00a0all in place (the honey soaked R&B harmonies, classic Motown pop\u00a0songwriting\u00a0and absolute perfect arrangements), it really doesn’t get much … Continue reading RS #400: The Temptations, Anthology<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[217,24,218,10,9],"class_list":["post-834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rolling-stone-top-500-albums","tag-217","tag-4-stars","tag-compilation","tag-first-time-listen","tag-unowned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":835,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions\/835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}