Consumer Guide Album

The Temptations: Psychedelic Shack [Gordy, 1970]
It's no accident that the best cut here begins "Ain't no words to this song." For all the hyperactivity of his horn charts, Norman Whitfield is a lot better equipped to get funky than to lead Motown's belated raid on "relevance," and many of these lyrics are dreadful. Several of them are quite all right, though, and "War" does help mitigate the climactic wishy-wash of "Friendship Train." More to the point, the singing and playing really do fuse the production styles of Smokey and Sly, a major achievement. Why do white people challenge these songs so much quicker than they did "Lucy in the Sky" or "Happiness Is a Warm Gun"? Are friendship trains any dumber than bed-ins? B