The one hundred sixty-fifth album: #165 Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul
Before starting the album, I had to check I'd actually copied everything for my ipod. Hot Buttered Soul only has four tracks, two of which are long (turning the 3 minute walk on by into a 12 minute song that keeps strentching and going through different versions of the rhythm, quite tightly composed but also maybe a bit too much of that thing. It's followed by Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic, which follows this same pattern, meandering through the song and exploring a number of different angles. It feels jazz-like, but not quite as loose and with a far bigger group of musicians and instruments.
In contrast, One Woman feels the most constrained. It's still over five minutes long, but all content, and probably the best example of the core of one of Hayes' songs. It's still quite sweet and gentle and works well. It's followed by By The Time I Get To Phoenix, which kills me with the long monologue that introduces it - it then goes into the same vamping song that the other songs offer. At times it works and sounds good enough, but too often it drags it out in a way that doesn't add much and it feels like a more constrained form, as we'll get from soul at other times, will work better. At the same time, with the way it defines soul, it takes a step forward, so I guess you win some and lose some here.