My Greatest 100 (or so) Albums...

Superfly (Curtom, 1972) Curtis Mayfield. This soundtrack album, featuring songs like "Freddie's Dead","Pusherman", and "Superfly" has often been compared with Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," which we will get to eventually, but to me it's really more like Pet Sounds. Curtis Mayfield had been a founding member of the Impressions. They were sort of Chicago's answer to the Temptations, anyway, by 1972 Curtis had sort of moved beyond his role in the group and was ready to do something amazing. He did. This is like Pet Sounds because it's of a theme (being a movie soundtrack, it had to be) and features a bunch of great songs and two instrumentals. Obviously, it's got a different theme than Pet Sounds, but structurally, it's similar. Unlike Pet Sounds, which was sort of idiotically remaindered by Capitol, Superfly was a huge hit. You could not walk around outside in NYC back in fall of `72 without hearing something from this. That made `72 good. Check it out.