Vinyl Junkie #11 - Masterpiece

Tweet

Along with Black Sabbath's 1971 album, Master of Reality, this particular record, The Tempations' 1973 errr, masterpiece, Masterpiece, is the very foundation of my life spent as a music collector. When I was, I don't know, somewhere around 10-12 years old, my aunt gave me a few of her albums when she left for college, and those were the two that really made the biggest impact upon my young mind, starting me down the record/CD collecting path that I've obsessively wandered ever since. Written and produced by Norman Whitfield, Masterpiece is an utterly brilliant record that seems to have pissed a lot of people off at the time. Critics derided it as a Norman Whitfield solo album that featured The Temptations as guest vocalists (a sentiment shared by The Temptations themselves,) and fans went so far as to take their complaints directly to The Temptations instead of say, writing Barry Gordy a letter. Despite all of the dissention, Masterpiece performed admirably, reaching #7 on the Billboard 200, and spawned three Top 40 singles (and a fourth that "missed it by THAT much.") But it's as an album that Masterpiece works best, no skipping around for hits necessary (nor recommended.) Just play the first side, flip it over, play the second side, and just groove. "Hey Girl (I Like Your Style)" is a lovely vocal ballad of the sort that had already cemented the group as legends. And the title track is an all-time favorite protest song of mine, an orchestrated 14+ minute funk epic that finds The Temptations protesting the conditions found in the ghetto (of those 14 minutes, the group performs just three minutes worth of vocals, but as a white kid I learned more about the ghetto from those three minutes than anything I ever learned about it in school.) The gritty, southern soul tune, "Ma" had served as the title track of Rare Earth's Whitfield-produced 1973 album before he had The Temptations do it, while "Law of the Land" is a pretty damn intense bit of funk that Whitfield had his "other" group, The Undisputed Truth, record as well, with Detroit releasing both versions as singles during the same year (Temptations: #41 on the Billboard Hot 100; Undisputed Truth: #40 on that magazine's R&B chart.) And "Hurry Tomorrow" is a wonderful eight-minute psychedelic funk excursion into a hallucinogenic trip. And as an added bonus, Masterpiece is a really, really good stoner album. I'm baked as (F-Bomb) right now, and I just keep playing it over and over and over again. No skipping around necessary. Just ride the Norman Whitfield groove! (Info verified by Wikipedia)