#349 Curtis Mayfield - Superfly

Miles 38-76 on the 5 - the last of the Soul run.

Here we have some legitimate funk, really getting into the first vestiges of proto-rap with the spit delivery and the social message, all roiling basslines and wickawack guitar. It's actually an interesting middle ground, resting somewhere between Al Green and a full-on-Funkadelic sense of richness and grandeur; a relentless energy builds and builds. Meanwhile, a loose narrative gives it all structure and backbone and makes the album more than the sum of its parts.

That said, the realy problem is Mayfield himself - I still don't think he's really that good of a singer, sounding strained nearly all of the time. He's no Al Green. And its enough to keep this squarely at 3.5/5