Review: Vinyl Reissue of The Temptations' 'Psychedelic Shack'

When conservative Motown decided to dip its toes into the spiked waters of psychedelia, its LPs rarely committed fully to the genre's artiness and spaciness. For every "Reflections" there was a cornball cover of something like "Up, Up and Away". So it isn't surprising that Berry Gordy had some trouble wrapping his head around the more committedly conceptual works that artists like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder served up in the seventies. 

Review: Vinyl Reissue of 3 Motown Albums

This month Elemental Music continues its Motown vinyl reissue campaign it began back in May by releasing three pivotal albums from three pivotal artists. The label's most enduring male vocal group makes their debut. The label's superstar female vocal group undergo an image change. The label's pioneer innovator starts winding down his original pop hitmaker phase and gets his first number one pop hit. 

Review: Vinyl Reissues of The Supremes' 'We Remember Sam Cooke' and The Temptations' 'I Wish It Would Rain'

Motown has long had a reputation for putting out fab singles in the sixties but not putting much effort into its long players until Berry Gordy finally gave artists such as Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder the freedom to mature in the seventies. That assumption is mostly unfair, and was probably started by people who never really gave many of the label's sixties albums a chance. So Elemental's decision to mount a Motown LP-reissue campaign is more than mere property exploitation. Reissues of some truly fantastic albums are on the way, and the first of which is The Temptations' I Wish It Would Rain. The final album the Temps made before transitioning to the funkier psychedelic soul that would define their early seventies work is remarkably consistent and remarkably good, with album tracks such as "Cindy", "Why Did you Leave Me Darling", and "I've Passed This Way Before" being every bit as good as the hits "I Wish It Would Rain" and "(Loneliness Made Me Realize) It's You That I Need", which are two of their best. 

Review: 50th Anniversary Edition of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On"

In 1971, Marvin Gaye gave Berry Gordy a serious case of the cold sweats when the artist presented his latest concoction for release on Gordy's Motown. Until that time, the label had been known for light-hearted odes to love delivered in a set style designed for transistor radios and discoteque floors. "What's Going On" was something else: trippy, political, and not particularly hopeful. The album constructed around Obie Benson's composition--which was too much for Benson's own Four Tops... and Joan Baez, of all people--further exploded Motown tradition by doing away with individual tracks for a seamless suite of songs as invested in current affairs and relentlessly searching as its title track.