Customer Reviews

That's the Way of the World

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

That's The Way Of The World was the soundtrack to film that featured a young Harvey Keitel as a record producer and Earth, Wind & Fire as a band with big potential. The band is dropped in favor of what record company executives feel was more commercial group and they gone on to major success. The film mirrored EWF themselves as the album propelled them to the top of the charts. After several years of moderate success despite making excellent records, this soundtrack album showed all the band's talents and mixing of jazz, soul, funk and positive themes. "Shining Star" opens the album with a pumping beat that set it up to the number one position of the charts. The title track starts off with a slow, smooth beat and then erupts into a harmony-fueled explosion. "All about Love" has some jazzy elements while "Africano" explores some world rhythms. "Yearnin', Learnin'" is an underrated song in their catalog and "Reasons" is a powerful ballad. That's The Way Of The World tanked at the box office and was quickly forgotten, but the album hit number on the charts and made EWF superstars.

Though it's not the stellar mind-blowing sound of the two SACD live albums "Gratitude" and "...Alive in '75", this remaster is much richer aurally. In comparison the regular CD version sounds harsh and has less fidelity at higher frequencies. The SACD version reminds me a lot of the sound quality from a very good LP setup.

This album was originally a soundtrack for a long forgotten film. In fact I have never seen the film. However, the songs have been quite the opposite - unforgettable classics.

Earth Wind and Fire have always been extremely talented musicians and posses amazing vocal harmonies. What is not always realized is just how out in front they were with combining the elements of jazz, and horns, infused into smooth R&B dance tracks and ballads.

This CD contains some of their best work - namely the songs "Shining Star" and "That's the Way of the World". Both are classics and are worth the price on their own.

The additional, previously unreleased, tracks are excellent, with my only complaint that they are too short. Of particular interest is the track "Caribou Chaser (Jazzy Jam)", which showcases the ability of this band to play jazz with the best of them.

Most everything they released from the early 70's through the mid-80's is simply classic music from one of the best bands ever. Now that these great albums are being re-released with extra bonus tracks, its time to revisit them again.

...from consistent playing as a youth. Even as I listen to the songs today on CD, I remember parts in each song where the record would skip. I didn't own a whole lotta records back then so I intimately knew each song. EWF was always more spiritual than political in their approach to songwriting and at the same time they seem to be embraced by the party people who may have missed the message in their music.

In the 'hood where I grew up, everyone digged EWF; blacks, Latinos, Samoans, you name it. "Reasons" was THE slow jam to slow dance to with the girl you liked. But the one song I played over and over was "Happy Feelin'". I was just drawn to that funky new instrument, the kalimba, that was solo'd in the song's choruses. And it was an up-tempo number that you could boogie to (that was the term we used back then).

This album is a must-have if you are serious about collecting R&B/soul music from the 70s. It catches them at a time before they too fell into the trap of commercialism.

This album is a certified classic, ...this album is very much on par with Stevie Wonder's best 70's material. From the opening lines of "Shining Star" to the last note (a beautiful falsetto by Philip Bailey)on "See the Light", this soundtrack helped to define what R&B and Funk was all about while beginning one of the greatest and most influential periods in music history.
Maurice White is a true musical avatar, like Stevie, he was able to blend several different types of musical influences while maintaining an underlying African foundation upon which he built such masterpieces as "That's the Way of the World", "Yearnin Learnin" and one of my personal favorites "Africano".
The Elements are, without question, one of the greatest musical forces at any point in music history and my favorite band of all time. Soaring vocals, majestic melodies & harmonies, outstanding musicianship and awesome lyrics are what made Earth, Wind and Fire a group not just for the 70's but for all ages.

This album made earth wind and fire a pop group. Shining Star, That's the way of the world and reasons are hot. However, the songs are just as good.

"That's The Way Of The World" finally nailed down the formula which had been developing in Earth, Wind And Fire's sound over their last two albums; the result was a massively successful #1 smash that spawned several hit singles. The album basically takes the premise of side one of "Open Our Eyes"--alternating uplifting funk rockers with slow ballads--stretches it through the length of both sides, and adds a sheen of production polish through the use of sweeping string arrangments. The results include all of the group's finest singles ("Shining Star", the title track, "Yearnin' Learnin'"), the best instrumental since "Power" ("Africano") and a majestic closing number "See The Light" which features some great harmonies and keyboard work. The overall sound is uplifting, slightly mystical, highly commercial and completely definitive. If any complaint can be lodged against TTWOTW, it is that it also marks the beginning of an increasing slickness which would eventually steer itself toward disco as the decade progressed; funkmeister George Clinton railed against this sound with good reason, but at least on this album the formula is still largely on the safe side of the funk/disco divide.

This CD does not approach the vinyl sound quality sounds pretty poor bass and unimpressive brass, which is the hallmark of EW & F. Not the best possible remastering

I think this was EWF's big breakthrough, the soundtrack to a film about the band, and I know that they deserved it. Like a lot of EWF's work, this is a mix of funk (the deserved, P-Funk-like hit "Shining Star"; "Happy Feelin's") and ballads (the moving sermon "All About Love"; title song, with great vocal interplay; "Reasons", with Bailey's wonderful falsetto), and the ballads are for the most part much better than the funk - "All About Love", the title song, and "Reasons" are among the best things the group ever put out, but the brassy "Yearnin' Learnin'" is kind of dry, and the enthusiastic but dull "Happy Feelin's" falls flat as well. Neither is bad, but they're both in the fourth or fifth class of EWF recordings regardless. The only bad song is the endless world-music jam "Africano" - "Kalimba Story" minus the melody. The one funk song that does work out, "Shining Star", is one of the group's very best songs, brimming with hooks, adding on a great bass-line and guitar intro and a Stevie Wonder-like "big-man" vocal part - the jazzy "See the Light" is good too, but again far too lengthy for its own good. And pretty much every song ends with a soundtrackish organ blurb that really gets annoying after the second time it happens. Still, this is a good album, it's just not as good as some other choice EWF albums - Gratitude, All `n' All, Spirit.

Put this album in the time capsule. This band had one of the most amazing string of albums ever. The career arc, just in terms of hit singles, overall sales, etc, is astonishing. This album was the peak. As far as most people were concerned, it was EW&F's debut, but it was actually their sixth album, the fourth for Columbia. Their albums show an amazing evolution from a fairly loose, fairly generic 70s funk/horn band to an unbelieveably disciplined production juggernaut. The production came to rival and surpass anything heard before. It easily rivaled bands like Steely Dan, known for their production prowess. After this album there was a long plateau; several top selling albums and singles, before a long graceful decline. The production actually continued to evolve, but the songwriting had definitely peaked by the mid-to-late 70s.