Another Top Ten? Yeah, But...

Another Top Ten? Yeah, But...

TIGHTEN UP

by Vine Aletti

Well, yes, it’s ridiculously late for a 1972 Ten Best list, but after seeing everyone else’s, I wanted to add a footnote. Maybe a little perspective. It’s, strange to me how everyone acknowledged the importance of black music in 1972 — it was, for trend-watchers, a Very Big Year for black music — but almost completely ignored it when it came time to listing the year’s best music. I’m not interested in analyzing the situation, but was anybody really listening, or just reading the charts? It really dismays me to realize that out of all the critics in the Fusion poll, only three or four listed black albums in their ten best .

I’m not trying to compensate for this in my list — 1972 was simply an extremely good year for black music and nothing else had as much effect on me. Besides, I got back into dancing again last year, and I don’t care what anybody says, you just Cannot dance to 99 percent of white music. Making up a ten best list always involves some sort of compromise between those records you really listened to — I mean didn’t take off the turntable for weeks and still play — and the records you know are great but, well, you never actually played that much (for instance, Santana’s Caravanserai, which was completely unexpected, or Curtis Mayfield’s Superflf score). I’ve tried to make very few compromises and just stick to records in the first group, so it’s a personal selection of 1972 favorites.

1. Talking Book. Stevie Wonder.

2. Music of My Mind. Stevie Wonder. Take two giant steps. Wonder has almost singlehandedly dragged Motown back into the avant garde of black popular music. It wasn’t easy. What began as another story of Motown’s paternalistic repression — Stevie, struggling for room to grow, broke away from the company for several months in order to produce Music of My Mind outside its immediate control — turned into a prime example of the new mood of creative freedom at Motown as Wonder, like Marvin Gaye, added a whole new thong to the Motown Sound. While not as radically different, Wonder’s seems to be the only really exciting new sound since Sly’s and another important move in drawing white rock techniques into a more expressive black context. But more important: it’s the best.dance music in years. Though the two albums are nearly interchangeable on the list, Talking Book seems a more relaxed, surer work, without any of the abrasive, lpok-what-/-can-do stuff that seejfs into Music. And it contains “Superstition”.

3. Young, Gifted and Black]Amazing Grace. Aretha Franklin. Whew. I struggled with YG&B like no other album this year and for such a potentially awful album it sure is great. Aretha proves she Can do anything, anything at all. Didn’t I blow your mind this time? Sure did, Aretha. The gospel set, Amazing Grace, is somewhat uneven and not the sort of thing you can listen to every day for a week or two, but it contains some of Aretha’s purest, strongest singing. Much of it is so overwhelming it’s like being confronted with a magnificent volcano erupting.

4. Moon Shadow. Labelle. This is my favorite group. And another album that took some time to get into. At first I thought it was a mistake to switch from mainly interpretation, which they did so well on their first, album, to original material (most of it by group member Nona Hendryx). But that was before I’d really listened to it. Patti LaBelle is another singer who can do anything — her voice knocks me out — but the original stuff here is so good (some of it better than the borrowed material: Pete Townshend’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Moon Shadow” from Cat Stevens), there’s little question of her salvaging a minor song through sheer technique. Labelle is just about the last of the hot girl groups and one of the most exciting stage acts around. Check it out.

5. Let’s Stay Together/I’m Still in Love With You. Al Green. This was A high achiever’s year: Stevie, Aretha and Al Green all with two albums each. Green was certainly the sensation of the year and his albums back him up pretty well. As a total Achievement, they belong up here at number 5, but separately I’m not sure either would be on my list — I was listening to the singles instead. But cuts like “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” and “Love and Happiness” make it all worthwhile.

6. For the Roses. Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell just amazes me. And I can’t explain it so don’t ask me.

7. Still Bill. Bill Withers. Nice guy music; almost country soul but it works. Especially “Lean On Me” and “Use Me”.

8. A Lonely Man. Chi-lites/Stylistics. Studio soul, slick and frothy but down to basic emotions. Thom Bell’s production and material on | the Stylistics album is a cut above Eugene Record’s work for the Chi-lites but “Oh Girl’:* comes in just a bit over “You Are Everything”. Gee, it’s nice to have real love songs again.

9. Trapped by a Thing Called Love. Denise LaSalle/ Straight from the Heart. Ann Peebles. Yeah, I know I’m cheating with all these double choices # but it’s real hard to decide. In a year full of exceptional, or at least interesting, albums by women (Laura Lee, Millie Jackson, Valerie Simpson, Syreeta, Bette Midler, Betty Wright, Lynn Collins, Bonnie Raitt, Ellen Mcllwaine, as well as those above) these two managed to stand out. Both are tough, gutsy, even a little nasty. LaSalle produced and wrote much of her own material, with arrangements by Al Green’s man, Willie Mitchell. Mitchell produced the Peebles lp which gives it a slight edge * and here, too, the singer did some writing (sharing credits on one song with Denise LaSalle), I wouldn’t waht^to make a choice between these two, but if I were forced I’d probably take Trapped if only because “Heartbreaker of the Year” is one Of my favorite cuts in 1972.

10. People.. . Hold On. Eddie Kendricks. Sleeper of the year. Released in May, this record sat around unpromoted and undiscovered for months. I listened to it, shrugged and lent it to Tom who immediately picked up on “Girl You Need a Change of Mind”, a 7:30 comment on Women’s Liberation that became one of the biggest dance records in New, York before the summer was up. I soon borrowed the record back, but it wasn’t until the fall that the album began picking up and radio stations were playing “Change of Mind” without waiting for it to be made a single. People.. . Hold On is one of the best albums to come out of Motown this year: Frank Wilson’s production is solid and Kendricks, formerly with the Temptations, still has one of the sweetest voices in the business. Though hot as flashy, it’s better than any of the^lp’s Norman Whitfield has done with the Temptations in years.