This year Elemental Music is winding down its extensive Motown reissue campaign begun early last year, and the latest slate is its final full one, with three LPs by the label's three top groups. They're all fairly minor records, but each has something to recommend them. The biggest hit and best song among these albums kicks off The Temptations' Puzzle People. "I Can't Get Next to You" was a number-one hit and the first record with their new psychedelic-soul sound to crack the top-five. It's a great track: accessible, angsty, and a little sinister-sounding in the tradition of past classics like "(I Know) I'm Losing You". However, the album as a whole kind of flails around without landing on a specific point-of-view the way the Temps' best albums, such as With a Lot O' Soul and I Wish It Would Rain, do. The topical "Don't Let the Joneses Get You Down" successfully swims in the same tide as "I Can't Get Next to You", but similar stuff like "Message from a Black Man" and "Slave" fall down melodically. The smattering of covers of recent hits ("Hey Jude", "It's Your Thing", "Little Green Apples") feel like the filler they are. The other pieces of Puzzle Pieces are pretty good though.
The Supremes' Let the Sunshine In has similar consistency issues, and none of its singles are as strong or beloved as Puzzle People's key track. "I'm Livin' in Shame", the record's only single to inch into the top ten, reruns the soap-opera melodrama of "Love Child" with decent but diluted results, but "No Matter What Sign You Are" is really silly and dated. However, Smokey Robinson's "The Composer" is supremely lovely. "Discover Me and You'll Discover Love" and "I'm Glad I Got Somebody (Like You Around)" are the only other Sunshine tracks that almost rise to the group's usual level, but the album cover is all kinds of groovy.
Despite the middling quality of these three albums, the quality of the vinyl continues to be above reproach. Next month it all comes to an end with The Temps' Psychedelic Shack.
