A Year of Blind Spots: Cloud Nine

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die:

When the producer Norman Whitfield teamed up with the Temptations in the late 1960s, they were already on a roll, for the quintet had notched up several U.S. hits. But Whitfield—who had a proven track record himself, having penned "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," among others—relished the challenge.

When their lead singer David Ruffin left in 1968, Whitfield grabbed his chance, giving both the band—Melvin Franklin, Otis Williams, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, and Ruffin's replacement Dennis Edwards—and the label a makeover. Escaping the label's formulaic pounding four-four beat, Whitfield knowingly referenced the West Coast, with liberated lyrics and exhilarating musical exploration, proving he and the group could easily adapt to the changing times.

The album's foundations were laid in the Motown Producers' Workshop at Hitsville, Detroit. Central was that title cut, which landed the label its first Grammy and introduced a fresh new Motown sound. Funk Brother Dennis Coffey created the track's distinctive guitar intro: "It was my first session with Motown, and it was then that I introduced them to the wah-wah. I started throwing a few licks around, and within a week, I was in the studio recording with them on Cloud Nine."

Other LP standouts include the atmospheric, peerless vocal showcase "Runaway Child, Running Wild." the album left Berry Gordy scratching his head, but the likes of Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, and Barry White all took serious note.

Joe:

The Temptations were fundamental in my musical upbringing, but I was lazy about it. I did what contemporaneous fans did with the Temptations, and only got to know the classic hits. But I really did know them. I gotta imagine I've done "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" in front of a karaoke crowd at least a couple dozen times, and "My Girl" a dozen more. I remember none of them, but that's kinda the point—even sloppy blotto Joe knew every inch of those songs, way more than enough that I could perform them adequately beyond a blackout state.

On the oft-spoken-about Motown Greatest Hits comp that soundtracked many memorable High Life nights of our youth, the two big songs were on there. So was "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." I didn't like that one as much. I appreciated its artistry, but that's not really what I was going for when I clicked play on the iPod playlist of Motown party music. And I don't think that the group or its creative forces were going for party music when they made something like "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." It was me who was missing the point.

None of these songs are on Cloud Nine, which is cool. But on Cloud Nine, I hear what I have to imagine was the first distinction between the Temptations' two modes of play. The first we'll stick with calling "party music." The second, we'll call "inner-city dramatics." That's not an opinion, by the way, that's more an accurate description of the subject matter of the songs I'm referring to. "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" is literally a twelve-minute odyssey about how tough it is to grow up poor. This means that it is a deeper, richer song than "My Girl." It also means that I don't find as much joy in my life when I'm listening to it.

If we're talking genres, there's a better way to describe the difference. The hits from the mid-'60s is R&B, when R&B was defined as bright pop music of the soul variety (as opposed to what it became in the '90s, which is sleeker and slower). "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" is described as psychedelic soul. Now, with Cloud Nine, you have the introduction of psychedelic soul to the Temptations' repertoire ("Papa Was a Rolling Stone" was at the end of the aforementioned Norman Whitfield's team-up with the Temptations, three years after Cloud Nine). Again, I find myself more interested than enthralled.

Like the 1001 Albums blurb says, you can't knock how widely influential this shit was. Just because I like-don't-love "Runaway Child" doesn't mean that I don't love that classic Curtis Mayfield shit. Tough to nail a sound in the same moment you're creating it, ya know? But I think that's my big takeaway from this album—I never viewed the Temptations as "influential" before. I thought they were just a top-tier act in a stable full of 'em. I thought they were a band as good as their biggest hits. But it appears, in getting familiar with Cloud Nine, that they were more than that. It feels like their legacy was that they made new sounds too and that those new sounds rippled throughout multiple genres.

Not that they completed eschewed the Motown party music on Cloud Nine. Lots of songs about love and girls. Also a cover of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" (a song that appeared twice on that old Motown Greatest Hits comp, neither by the Temptations). They didn't completely reinvent the wheel all at once. The Temptations were instead a really fun group of singers who were talented enough to see people's vision through, and I guess this dude Norman Whitfield was able to use them for his vision. Nothing wrong with that. It's honestly pretty great music back to front. You only get into the weeds when you start talking about legacy and influence. It's cool to have that conversation in the context of the Temptations, but not totally necessary.