Look out for #1
Artist: The Brothers Johnson

The Brothers Johnson first earned national recognition as recording artists by singing the sensuously funky mid-tempo number "Is It Love That We're Missin'," featured on Quincy Jones' album Mellow Madness. The dynamic duo maintains that same groove on this, its debut release for A&M Records. The first single was the moderate number "I'll Be Good... Read More

Anthology
Artist: Stevie Wonder

Before the long-awaited Stevie Wonder box set was issued, this triple-album set was the ultimate Wonder collection. It contains every major hit, and many other vital singles from 1962-1971, showing his evolution from Ray Charles' disciple to assembly-line hitmaker to individualistic artist. Unlike its other anthologies, which have been carved... Read More

Show Time
Artist: Slave
Community Score: 4.50

Released in 1981, Show Time was the last album that Steve Arrington recorded with Slave. The singer/drummer had been a valuable part of the Dayton funk combo, providing lead vocals on such hits as "Watching You" and "Just a Touch of Love." So you can say that Show Time (which was produced by Jimmy Douglass) was the end of an era for Slave.... Read More

Sacred Songs
Artist: Daryl Hall

In what must be the most bizarre coupling ever, Hall is accompanied by none other than King Crimson figurehead Robert Fripp on production and, of course, on guitar. This record suffered at the hands of record company mismanagement. Originally recorded in 1977, Sacred Songs wasn't granted a release until 1980. RCA worried about Hall's lack of... Read More

Original Musiquarium I
Artist: Stevie Wonder
Community Score: 10.00

Released in 1982, the double-album Original Musiquarium I summarizes Stevie Wonder's classic period of the '70s, concentrating primarily on the hits, but adding a few album tracks to hint at the depth of his albums, as well as four new songs (one for each side, all pleasant, none particularly remarkable). Though there could be some dispute about... Read More

Hotter Than July
Artist: Stevie Wonder
Community Score: 8.45

Four years after the pinnacle of Stevie Wonder's mid-'70s typhoon of classic albums, Hotter Than July was the proper follow-up to Songs in the Key of Life (his Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants concept record was actually a soundtrack to an obscure movie that fared miserably in theaters). It also found Wonder in a different musical... Read More

Diana's Duets
Artist: Diana Ross

An excellent collection featuring Diana Ross singing with The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, the Supremes, and Marvin Gaye. These songs, all brilliantly produced and arranged, with wonderful lyrics, show how great a vocalist Ross was before she became weighted down with being a star and celebrity. Her delivery, vocal range, lyric... Read More

Dirty Mind
Artist: Prince
Community Score: 7.65

Neither For You nor Prince was adequate preparation for the full-blown masterpiece of Prince's third album, Dirty Mind. Recorded in his home studio, with Prince playing nearly every instrument, Dirty Mind is a stunning, audacious amalgam of funk, new wave, R&B, and pop, fueled by grinningly salacious sex and the desire to shock. Where other pop... Read More

So Excited
Artist: The Pointer Sisters
Community Score: 7.80

Sandwiched in between the heavy hitting Black and White and Break Out LPs, the Pointer Sisters' 1982 So Excited effort may not have managed the Top Ten, but impacted the scene nevertheless, as the group took three singles into charts that year. The opening, and best remembered track from the set, "I'm So Excited," delivered a punch-drunk, rapid... Read More

Black & White
Artist: The Pointer Sisters

Their fourth album for Planet, 1981's Black & White, was also the Pointer Sisters' fourth Top Ten LP. Leaving behind some of the early soul that had taken them through the 1970s, the band now focused on a purer pop. Keeping one foot in the past while gingerly touching the waters of the future, it was a sound that perfectly welded their old... Read More