There’s No Place Like America Today

Nice I guess

Incredible album. Just the album cover alone is cause for you to really take in everything about this album, and it has the songs to back it up. Billy Jack, Jesus, Hard Times, and my personal favorite, Blue Monday People, are all incredible examples of the type of political, soulful mastery across this album.
9.3/10

Just love the Curtis vibe.

7.5

Fav track: Hard Times

Least fav: Blue Monday People

Hugely appreciate this guy and his wonderful voice. This didn’t disappoint. Powerful lyrics and warm melodies combining in a really special album special topped off with a great album cover taken from the famous photo by Margaret Bourke-White.

Glad this one came up. A glaring omission on my part.

I’m not crazy about the song Jesus, but that’s not to say it’s a bad song, I just don’t love Jesus. Every other song here was great!

Curtis Mayfield is fantastic, I have loved his Superfly album for years. He's funky and soulful.

Damn that's good

So far I haven’t been disappointed by a good album cover and title. Not quite a 5 for me but there’s good stuff in here.

This stank just like America today!

Not bad, pretty chill.

Funk so funky you could eat it with a spoon. A beautiful voice so charged with feeling.

But the lyrics. From the man who wrote "People Get Ready" and "Move on Up" we get things like:

Can't be no fun
To be shot with a hand gun

Or

When cupboards are bare
Our love we can share
Truth is not the whole question
What is the answer you hide?

Or

Every time we kiss
It's such a pleasant taste

Or this pearler

Our love is your confession
That we're in love.

It's just not very good.

4 for the music
1 for the songs

Really liked it at first, but that voice started rubbing me the wrong way as it went on. Kind of a shame. It seemed like I was actually going to enjoy this a lot more than I did.

This shit got a GROOVE, loved it

Not bad, but not as good as Super Fly. Music was great, but Mayfield's falsetto kind of gets tiresome after a while

While I am thrilled to see that Curtis Mayfield is on this list I can't believe either his eponymous debut album Curtis or even SuperFly isn't the go to choice here.

This album is a solid 3 where the two previously mentioned are 4-5 starts easily.

All in all, an enjoyable time was had here.

I wasn't sold on the vocals to begin with, which very much sit in a higher register and have an airy, breathy quality to them on occasion, but I was able to come around to them quite quickly. The instrumentation here is compelling enough - funky, groovy playing interlaced with tinges of soul. It's very much a "vibe" of a sound. The album probably does peak early throughout its first half, but the drop off in the second isn't a seismic one.

This was on the precipice of getting four stars - but perhaps just not quite memorable enough to justify a purchase.

I don’t really understand playing music while having sex, but this feels like the stereotypical album to play during sex.

I love Curtis Mayfield but I don’t really know why this album is on the list. It’s good but it’s not essential. I think his self titled album would’ve been a much better pick.

I wasn't familiar with most of this album, but Curtis Mayfield is always great.

I really enjoyed this, and will likely listen to it again. It's amazing how it sounds like a modern throwback, if that makes sense. It was ahead of its time enough at the time that it came out that now people are trying to achieve this sound as a throwback. The production sounds like crisp, modern techniques to try to sound like mid-70s production.

I love the album artwork here, it's really provocative and is the highlight of the album for me. The music is good, Curtis just has a really delicate voice that doesn't always do it. The song jesus is incredibly annoying and preachy. All around good though. 3/5