LP Review: Natural Resources and Black Magic
NATURAL RESOURCES
Released: 1970
LP Charts: nada
Let’s just acknowledge this album is lackluster and filled with way too many cover songs. The worst offenders are “Everybody’s Talkin’” (the song has ADHD) and “Didn’t We” (melodrama to the max). Just awful.
The cover of the Beatles’ “Something” has a funky backbeat, so it is exempted from being lumped in with the terribleness above.
The original tune “Easily Persuaded” is delightfully funky and downright ominous. Best song on the album challenged only by the anti-Vietnam War ballad “I Should Be Proud”. I think musically “Easily Persuaded” wins, but the lyrical content of “I Should Be Proud” is pretty devastating as it puts Reeves in the role of a widow who is pissed that her husband died “fighting for the evils of society”.
The sun shiny “The Hurt Is Over (Since I've Found You)” sounds like something you’d hear on The Brady Bunch. In a similar vein, “Love, Guess Who” is a finger-poppin’ midtempo ballad.
But there’s too much tripe and mediocre fluff to save this LP.
ALBUM GRADE: F
Something: 5/10
Easily Persuaded: 7/10
Didn’t We: 3/10
I’m In Love: 4/10
Love, Guess Who: 6.5/10
Everybody’s Talkin’: 0/10
Put a Little Love in Your Heart: 3/10
The Hurt Is Over (Since I've Found You): 6/10
Take A Look: 2/10
Won’t It Be So Wonderful: 5/10
I Should Be Proud: 6.5/10
People Got To Be Free: 4/10
BLACK MAGIC
Released: 1972
LP Charts: #30 R&B, #146 pop
Well, after Natural Resources deservedly bombed, the Vandellas were given a swansong with Black Magic. It bombed too, but not as badly as Natural Resources since Motown actually decided to feed the group new material from top producers. Granted the material from these top producers wasn’t their top material, but it’s better than reheating someone else’s leftovers.
For example, Johnny Bristol opens the album with “No One There”. Not great, but it’s respectable early ‘70s pop-soul. But the album isn’t bereft of covers. There’s “Anyone Who Had A Heart” and a re-use of “Something” from Natural Resources; but there’s also a Motown cover in “I Want You Back”.
An inspired choice that last one because the same dudes (The Corporation) who wrote it also contributed two originals that are the album’s best songs: “Your Love Makes It All Worthwhile” and “Bless You” (#29 R&B, #53 pop). None of those three songs approach the perfection of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”, but they definitely have that song’s sugar-funk DNA. Which means the cover is okay and the two originals are good, especially compared to the rest of this album.
Old friends Ashford & Simpson drop in with “Tear It On Down” (#37 R&B, #103 pop). It tries too hard to be tough funky R&B. Martha Reeves coulda pulled the song off back in 1964, but by 1972, here voice just didn’t have the raw power to muscle such a song.
To sum things up, the major issue with this LP is (The Corporation’s contributions aside), the actual recording sounds very poor. At times it’s too loud. Other times kinda muddled. In both cases, the instruments and voices bleed into each other in the worst way possible. Too often the music sounds like noise.
Better than Natural Resources, but not the best way for this classic girl group to go out.
ALBUM GRADE: D-
No One There: 6/10
Your Love Makes It All Worthwhile: 6.5/10
Something: 5/10
Benjamin: 3/10
Tear It On Down: 6/10
I’ve Given You the Best Years of My Life: 4/10
Bless You: 7/10
I Want You Back: 6/10
In and Out of My Life: 5/10
Anyone Who Had a Heart: 4/10
Hope I Don’t Get My Heart Broke: 4/10