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. 

And Yet Another Three Motown Reissues...

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.

3 More Motown Reissues for the New Year

Elemental Records had so many Motown albums planned for the label's 2024 reissue campaign that it couldn't get them all out in 2024. So we're starting the new year with another look at fresh reissues of three classic LPs. 

The first is my personal favorite of the bunch, and one that begins with what might be my favorite side of music on any sixties Motown album. The Supremes' Reflections not only kicks off with my fave Supremes track and Motown track of the sixties, the mysterious and mournful psych-soul title tune, but it then bounds between a series of great album cuts (the tough and funky "I'm Gonna Make It" being a particular stand out) and excellent yet less well-known singles ("Forever Came Today" and "In and Out of Love"). Most of these songs were supplied by Holland-Dozier-Holland, who also produced The Supremes for the final time with Reflections.

Review: Yet Another 3 Motown Reissues

This month Elemental Music is wrapping up their long and fruitful Motown reissue campaign of 2025 with three lesser known titles, two of which are by a couple of the label's key artists and one of which is by one-hit-wonders The Undisputed Truth. That group's self-titled debut sports the recording with the longest legs on any of these three albums because The Undisputed Truth is the album with "Smiling Faces (Sometimes)". This stone-classic established a new strain of sinister soul that would reach fruition with the following year's "Papa Was a Rolling Stone", which UT would record and release before The Temptations had their hit. Ashford and Simpson's "California Soul" worked in a similar mode, though the majority of the album is comprised of covers of established pop hits, like "Aquarius", "Ball of Confusion", "Ain't No Sunshine", and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", that make the record feel a little like a throw-back to those covers-heavy Motown LPs of the sixties. Ultimately, what stands out most on the record is the heavy and sweet see-saw between Joe Harris's deep baritone and the lighter vibes of Brenda Joyce Evans and Billie Rae Cavin, The Undisputed Truth being the rare Motown act with male and female singers sharing leads.

Review: Stevie Wonder's 'Definitive Collection' on Vinyl

Stevie Wonder was one of Motown/Tamla's key pop hit makers in the sixties. When he followed a far more personal path in the seventies, he became the label's most innovative artist, while still racking up a slew of hits. 

However, there are precious few compilations that encompass both of these phases, at least for vinyl enthusiasts. In 2020, there was Number 1's, but that double-LP was slightly hampered by its concept. Indisputable classics like "Hey Love", "For Once In My Life", and "My Cherie Amour" didn't hit number one on any charts, so they weren't included. Strangely, "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day", which did top the US R&B charts, weren't present either. Those errant number ones hadn't made the party for 2002's The Definitive Collection CD either, but the three aforementioned classics did. Maybe that's why The Definitive Collection became Wonder's biggest selling hits comp, and it's why it's the one that's being reissued on vinyl this year. 

Review: 3 More Motown Reissues from Elemental Music

As we reach the penultimate month of Elemental Music's year of Motown vinyl reissues we receive three rather different records. The earliest of these is one of Motown's courting-the-old-folks discs, although unlike the label's stodgier efforts in this arena, which tended to force The Four Tops or The Supremes to croon show tunes or corny standards, Marvin Gaye's When I'm Alone I Cry is something else entirely. In fact, Gaye had greater ambitions to be the next Nat King Cole than to be the next Smokey Robinson, so his heart was completely in this album. It's a genuine class act, marrying Gaye's classically fine voice with beautiful big band arrangements. This is a record that actually deserved to win over an older audience of discerning listeners. Moody and gorgeous.

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. 

Review: Motown's Mono Vinyl Series, Part 1

You can get into the “stereo vs. mono” debate until your ears disintegrate, but when it comes to Motown soul, there is no debate. Mono is the only way to experience the unified power of the Funk Brothers’ and the silky harmonies of The Miracles and The Marvelettes. So the label’s new limited edition series of vinyl cut from original mono master tapes is completely welcome. Most of these discs are long out of print on wax in their definitive mixes, and a couple in the first wave—The Marvelettes’ Sophisticated Soul and The Supremes’ Reflections—have either never been available in mono (the former) or only available in that format in the UK (the latter). 

Review: 'Motown Gold from the Ed Sullivan Show'

After sitting through The 4 Complete Ed Sullivan Shows Starring The Beatles and 6 Ed Sullivan Shows Starring The Rolling Stones it’s kind of a relief to find that Motown Gold from the Ed Sullivan Show includes nothing but music. And I’m not talking about all the opera singers and polka bands and Bavarian folk choirs you’ll skip past on The Beatles and Stones DVDs. Motown Gold jams 37 performances by The Supremes, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Miracles, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and Martha and the Vandellas onto its two discs. Historians may miss the cornball acts and vintage commercials teens had to endure while waiting for the pop. Everyone might take issue with the decision to jumble the chronology and fail to even provide dates for the performances.