159. The Temptations - Cloud NIne (February 1969)

1. Cloud Nine*

2. I Heard It Through the Grapevine*

3. Runaway Child, Running Wild*

4. Love is a Hurtin' Thing

5. Hey Girl

6. Why Did She Have to Leave Me (Why Did She Have to Go)

7. I Need Your Lovin'

8. Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me

9. I Gotta Find A Way (To Get You Back)

10. Gonna Keep on Tryin' till I Win Your Love

***1/2

This is another two for one album. Side one sees the Temptations straying a long way from "My Girl" territory, exploring a hard and expansive form of psychedelic soul that employs funky guitars and complex vocal interplay. Side two is more conventional - the production is still quite innovative, but it's all short love songs more in line with what people would expect from the group at the time. So I guess I'll mostly talk about side one.

"Cloud Nine" is a pretty astonishing opener. An admitted bid to stay relevant in a changing pop landscape, it sees the group telling a story of a poor black youth escaping into drugs to deal with the general shittiness of existence. However, it's also quite a clever song because on a cursory listen you might mistake it for a song about the power of positive thinking. It's also quite ambiguous about whether it condones or condemns drug use. Then, musically, it incorporates psychedelia and funk to create a hard, slightly spooky backdrop for the vocals. It's not really surprising that it won a Grammy, as it's an obvious template for so much of the harder edged, socially conscious soul that would dominate the early 70s. 

The Temptations' version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" isn't about to knock Marvin Gaye's version from the top spot, but it's a great cover in any case. There's a stripped-down, jazzy feel but the repeated use of the famous riff holds the song together despite its explorations.

Lastly on side one, you have the truly epic "Runaway Child, Running Wild", which goes for almost ten minutes and tells the story of a teen runaway who finds the world is too much to handle, with the Temptations urging them to go back home before they come to a bad end.

So that's three great songs, two of them dealing with some pretty weighty themes, all representing a new direction musically for soul music. When you consider the towering achievement that is side one of Cloud Nine, it's not really surprising that the more conventional fare on side two comes as a bit of a let down. That's talking as someone with little knowledge of the group, mind - for long time fans at the time side two's collection of pretty ballads was probably quite welcome, showing that the group had matured as artists but weren't about to abandon their roots as purveyors of smooth pop. And the sonic innovations of side one are largely carried over to side two, in a more understated form, with psychedelic tinges and wah-wah guitars and the like. 

In the end, I enjoyed this album quite a bit but I feel it would work much better on vinyl, where you can treat it as two separate listening experiences. Playing through the whole thing on Spotify, there's a contrast between the material that means it doesn't quite work, even if all the songs are solid.