Tracks
- Funky Music Sho' Nuff Turns Me On
- Run Charlie Run
- Papa Was a Rollin' Stone
- Love Woke Me Up This Morning
- I Ain't Got Nothin'
- The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face)
- Mother Nature
- Do Your Thing
All Directions is a bifurcated album. The music is soul and funk. The songs vary from standards like The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face) to social commentary like Run Charlie Run. And that's how the music divides, too. The safer ones being soul and the more adventurous ones being funk. The main feature here, of course, is the Temptations voices. There isn't a finer group of voices in music.
The songs are all good enough to stand alone. There isn't a bad one among the bunch. The problem is that they don't jell. So then the album seems more like a collection of hit songs than an album with a common thread running through it.
Then there is Papa Was a Rollin' Stone. This is another outstanding song both for the music and vocals. In fact, prog rock bands should take a look at the Temptations' playbook on how to make long songs compelling. The problem with the song is then its inclusion among so many short songs. When there are eight songs and one comprises over a third of the album's length, it just unbalances the the whole thing.
I think this is an enjoyable album and it's worth listening to, but since it would seem to be more of a compilation of songs than a "true" album, I don't think it belongs on the 1001 Albums list. Rather individual songs can appear on a 1001 Songs list.
All the songs are excellent. The stand-outs are: Run Charlie Run, Papa Was a Rollin' Stone, I Ain't Got Nothin', The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face), Mother Nature and Do Your Thing.
★★★★★★★★☆☆
Tracks
- Cloud Nine
- I Heard It Through the Grapevine
- Runaway Child, Running Wild
- Love is a Hurtin' Thing
- Hey Girl
- Why Did She Have to Leave Me (Why Did She Have to Go)
- I Need Your Lovin'
- Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me
- I Gotta Find a Way (To Get You Back)
- Gonna Keep On Tryin' till I Win Your Love
Cloud Nine is a surprising album. The musical style doesn't have obvious connections to anything on the 1001 Albums list. A connection to the early and mid '60s soul albums seems the only plausible connection, but even that seems tenuous at best.
The bass guitar has a pulsating and playful sound and is the main driver of the rhythm. The vocals come in short bursts and are accompanied by a bass vocalist on the low end and a falsetto vocalist on the high end. Several of the songs have social commentary in the lyrics. It's not unique, but it's more direct and personal.
This is a good album, but not a great one. The first half of the album is the most interesting part. I tend to lose interest when listening to the second half, but there are some good songs. This album is certainly worth listening to because it presents a new style.
One frustrating thing about this list is that, although the albums are in chronological order by year of release, they aren't necessarily presented in chronological order within the year. So, Cloud Nine is presented before Sly and the Family Stone's Stand!, but Stand! was released before Cloud Nine according to Wikipedia. However, Stand! also had the funky sound, so Sly and the Family Stone may not have been the innovators, but they were ahead of The Temptations. So, there's an attribution problem with the way the albums are ordered. Of course, there's a potential attribution problem because the list is incomplete, but if this list is worth anything, it should be including innovative albums by default.
The songs are decent enough, but the stand outs are Cloud Nine, Runaway Child, Running Wild (although I really hate in the middle where a kid is screaming "I want my mother!"), Love Is a Hurting Thing, I Gotta Find a Way (To Get You Back) and Gonna Keep On Tryin' till I Win Your Love. I would have liked to have include I Heard It Through the Grapevine, but other artists have done a much better job.
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
