Consumer Guide Album

The Temptations: Sky's the Limit [Gordy, 1971]
Greater even than "Just My Imagination" is "Smiling Faces Sometimes," in which for twelve minutes Norman Whitfield's spacey string and sound effects combine with a rhythm track that might as well be looped to transform Eddie Kendricks's soft lead into the rap of a paranoid soothsayer. But on the flip Whitfield funks up James Bond horns for nine horrible minutes and finds a Swahili title for an offensively defensive brotherhood appeal. B