Smokey Robinson: The Solo Albums, Vol. 4

"Hip-O Select continues to mount impressive reissue campaigns for sixties and seventies soul. In the midst of James Brown and Complete Motown retrospectives, the label has started in on the solo albums of Smokey Robinson, who created one of the most enduring catalogues in pop-music history with the Miracles, before leaving the group, in 1972. He resurfaced as a solo artist a year later; his albums, which Hip-O is packaging two to a set, include 'Pure Smokey' (with the tables-are-turned classic 'Virgin Man') and 'Big Time.' ... Now we're on to 'The Solo Albums: Vol. 4,' which collects 'Love Breeze,' from 1978, and 'Where There's Smoke ...,' from 1979. 'Why You Wanna See My Bad Side,' the opener of 'Love Breeze,' has a percolating disco beat, stabbing horns, and a typically Robinsonian lyric, formalist but slippery -- 'You have me doing things against my nature/Sometimes I think I overrate you' turns against itself before you're even out of the couplet" (Ben Greenman, "Pop Notes," New Yorker, 2/14-21/11).
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