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Best Ever Lists

100 Greatest Albums of All Time

From ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ to ‘The Doors’ make it to the ROLLING STONE list

Sep 29, 2012

72. Superfly, Curtis Mayfield Curtom, 1972

Isaac Hayes’ Shaft came first ”“ but that record had one great single and a lot of instrumental filler. It was Curtis Mayfield who made a blaxploitation-soundtrack album that packed more drama than the movie it accompanied. Musically, Superfly is astonishing, marrying lush string parts to deep bass grooves, with lots of wah-wah guitar. On top, Mayfi eld sings in his worldly-wise falsetto, narrating the bleak ghetto tales of “Pusherman” and “Freddie’s Dead,” telling hard truths about the drug trade and black life in the 1970s; it was Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On at street level. “I don’t take credit for everything I write,” Mayfield said. “I only look upon my writings as interpretations of how the majority of people around me feel.”

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