Consumer Guide Album

The O'Jays: Family Reunion [Philadelphia International, 1975]
In which Jesse Jackson (or is it Reverend Ike) goes disco, proving that the words do too matter. The self-serving, pseudopolitical pap Kenny Gamble sets his boys to declaiming here underlines the way the overripeness of this vocal and production style can go mushy, which it does. Even the working-class party anthem "Livin' for the Weekend" is ruined by the rest of the side--some play-her-like-a-violin soft-core, and the unspeakable (would it were unsingable) "I Love Music." Moral: the rich and the superrich shit--the nouveau riche can fuck you over too. C