Consumer Guide Album

Edwin Starr: The Best of Edwin Starr [20th Century-Fox, 1981]
He's more exciting at his best--check out the five tracks on Volume 3 of the Motown's Preferred Stock series, if you can find it and don't wear a pacemaker--but one reason he suits the disco format better than, for instance, Johnnie Taylor, is that he isn't as good as Johnnie Taylor. That is, his excitement inheres mostly in his formula. Just as you expected, the formula here isn't up to full-speed Motown like "Agent Double-O Soul," "War," or (the here reprised) "25 Miles," though "Accident" comes close. Not only that--to salve his conscience they let him have some full-length ballads. B