O'jays

The O'Jays, Survival, Philadelphia International K.Z 33150.

The O'Jays continue to make the strongest music coming out of Philadelphia today. Master producers Gamble and Huff, who also write, arrange, and produce for Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, Billy Paul, and The Intruders, save their best stuff, for some reason, for these three hotshots. Survival, their latest, fits both detailed political accusations and intense love songs into grandiose yet swinging frameworks.

The album opens with "Give The People What They Want" which is redolent musically of their last smash "Money" and lyrically of the Chi-Lites' "Give More Power To The People". In it, the guys revel the source of their "We done been all over the world, and everybody feels the same. It's a unanimous decision, I said we're ready for a change".

The title cut explodes out of the gate and goes on to passionately describe the desperation closing in on many a ghetto breadwinner these days:

Pockets are bare, I'm down to the last penny.
Looking for food, I can 't find any.
First Law of Nature is the Preservation Of Man [sic].
Looks like I'll have to do anything I can.

These uptempo, rabblerousers are alternated back to back, in the time-honored way, with mellower love songs. Of these "What Am I Waiting For" and "Never Break Us Up" are especially moving- intense vocals and arrangements transcending average lyrical vehicles.

"Rich Gets Richer" is the third panel of the O'Jays urban triptych- a simple, driving indictment of the rich handful on top. These three tunes make the album for me. They inspire unity, pride, and anger, and, at the same time and in the tradition of the best of Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, and Curtis Mayfield, get you irresistably shaking. A dangerous combination.

Bill Adler