I probably have not listened to this one enough to properly "review" it, but this dumb blog is hardly a proper "reviews site," so forget it. Masterpiece is not a masterpiece (ho ho ho ho HOOOOO), but it's still pretty damn great. Why is it not placed in the same echelon as Innervisions and What's Going On and other Motown classics of social commentary (and funk)? Probably because the Temptations didn't write their own songs. But who cares, right? Norman Whitfield DID write these songs, and Norman Whitfield rules. Sure, it all sounds a lot like "Papa Was a Rollin Stone." But who cares, right? "Papa" rules, too, and these are not straight carbon copies. They're just all (with one exception) dark, and all funky, and mostly paranoid. Who doesn't like that in music? "Dark," "funky," and "paranoid"... has that not always been a three-word formula for success?
I'm going to argue that, on this day, Masterpiece, the album, is better than What's Going On.
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