The Temptations

Arguably the Temptations' best album since Truly For You dropped in 1984, For Lovers Only is not the Temptations' first album of standards. This set of classics is different than Temptations in a Mellow Mood, where they acquiesced to the material, giving relatively straight readings, and never deviated far from the songs' popular arrangements. The only things the standards on For Lovers Only have in common with the originals are the titles and the lyrics, the arrangements are completely different, and the tempos are changed. The Temptations' sing with this much enthusiasm in years.

Representing much of the group's output for the year 1969, the two albums show the group advancing in the face of adversity - Paul Williams, who had been very much the Temptations' sparkplug in its earlier years, was in declining health, and music was changing around the group, almost faster than a lot of soul artists of the era could keep up with. This remastered collection is a reminder, even better than the Emperors Of Soul box, of precisely how ambitious and urgent the Temptations' music became in response, and how the group and producer Norman Whitfield helped expand and change soul music's boundaries in the process.

Arguably the Temptations' best album since Truly For You dropped in 1984, For Lovers Only is not the Temptations' first album of standards. This set of classics is different than Temptations in a Mellow Mood, where they acquiesced to the material, giving relatively straight readings, and never deviated far from the songs' popular arrangements. The only things the standards on For Lovers Only have in common with the originals are the titles and the lyrics, the arrangements are completely different, and the tempos are changed. The Temptations' sing with this much enthusiasm in years.

Psychedelic Shack is a 1970 album by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label, which represents the Temptations' full-blown submergence into psychedelia. Completely written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong and produced by Whitfield, Psychedelic Shack almost completely abandoned the "Motown Sound" formula for this LP; hard rock guitars, synthesizer sound effects, multitracked drums, sampling, and stereo-shifting vocals giving most of the album's songs a harder, less traditional feel than the Temptations' previous work.

Released in early 2007 as part of Universal's extensive and cheaply packaged Number 1's: Temptations series (see also: volumes dedicated to James Brown and Marvin Gaye), this disc compiles 19 number one R&B singles from the Temptations. It's worth mentioning that some of the inclusions – "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "You're My Everything," "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," "Ball of Confusion" – were number ones on the Cash Box chart, rather than the Billboard chart (the usual source), and 1998's "Stay" is a bit of a stretch since it topped Billboard's Urban Adult Contemporary chart. Nothing can argue against the set as a decent introduction to the group, even though several great singles – such as "Cloud Nine" – peaked below the top spots.

This biographical TV miniseries tracks members of the famed Motown group, The Temptations, faithfully following their rise to fame and the subsequent downhill race in a chronological coverage spanning 40 years.