Curtis Mayfield
Super Fly
I remember being in middle school/freshman in high school and was trying to expand my musical palate. And I felt the best way to do that was by trying to listen to all the albums on one of the more famous 100 greatest albums of all time lists. I remember I picked a list that was classic rock heavy, justifying it as me trying to pick a list that was close to my taste and therefore was more likely to have albums that I enjoyed on it. Subconsciously, I just didn't want to expand my taste so I went a list that would just re-enforce my music taste. Anyway, I mention that sad backstory because
Super Fly was one of the albums I was going to listen to on that list, and I quit that exercise before I got to it. It's one of those albums where I've always meant to listen to it, but I never had the motivation of justification to do so... uuuunnnnntiiiiiillllllllll nnnoooooooooowwwwww.
Then again, what else am I supposed to say that hasn't already been said about
Super Fly? It's sexy? It's smooth? Groovy? Funky? Not a single note or instrument is wasted for a single moment on the whole thing. The lyrics might be the weakest parts (relatively speaking), but it's negligible when the whole album and each individual song vibes so hard that your nitpicks about words end up being pointless when you actually listen to the music as a whole. That said, there is a nice dichotomy of the soundtrack being sorta ambivalent/negative about drugs, compared to a passively positive view on drugs by the movie.
Is
Super Fly cliche sounding? Yeah, but only because anything this damn good is going to be copied and copied and copied to the point where what made it unique and original is lost due to saturation. I'm sure if I sat down and studied several other Blaxploitation soundtracks from the early 70's, I'm sure I'd find something that compares favorably or could be better than Super Fly. But, there's a reason this soundtrack was the cream that rose to the top and is still there nearly 50 years later. It's a damn masterpiece and it barely took more than a listen and a half to realize that.
duh/10