The Stylistics - the Original Debut Album

After the great Philadelphia arranger Thom Bell had made stars of The Delfonics, he turned his attention to The Stylistics, a long-running Philadelphia harmony group that was in search of Bell’s golden touch. Bell became enamored of the vocals of frontman Russell Thompkins Jr., whose pinched falsetto was strikingly similar to the singers Bell had worked with in The Delfonics. Using Thompkins’ voice as a focal point, Bell constructed The Stylistics’ eponymous debut and furthered his quest for the ideal cherubic soul sound. Of the hits it spawned, take your pick: “Stop, Look, Listen to Your Heart,” “Betcha by Golly, Wow,” and “You’re a Big Girl Now” are feathered and airy, the pinnacle of Bell’s vision for white-cloud R&B music. For all their cleanliness, these songs have an eerie undercurrent that becomes explicit on “People Make the World Go Round.” That track might not be the album’s most enjoyable song, but it's the most interesting; its pensive, descending pattern gives the impression of a darkening delirium, and its vignettes of working people provide a spike of the realism that was emerging in harmony soul music.