At the Top

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At the Top
Four Tops - At the Top.jpg
Studio album by
Four Tops
Released1978 (1978)
Studio Sigma Sound, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Genre Soul music [1]
Length37:06
LanguageEnglish
Label ABC
Producer
Four Tops chronology
The Show Must Go On
(1977)		At the Top
(1978)		 Tonight!
(1981)

At the Top is a 1978 studio album by American soul music vocal group, Four Tops, released by ABC Records. The album was the last the group recorded for ABC and was followed by a brief hiatus from recording. Four Tops had experienced a decline in their album sales in the 1970s and also had difficulty booking touring dates, so they initially planned to team up with former Motown associates Holland–Dozier–Holland, but they instead recorded this album with Philadelphia soul producer Norman Harris at his Sigma Sound Studios. [2]

Contents

Reception

Editors at AllMusic Guide scored this release three out of five stars, with reviewer Andrew Hamilton characterizing release as "a quality Four Tops album", but "the songs, productions, and singing deserved a better fate", with "lightweight promotion" from ABC. [1] The 1992 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide rated this release two out of five stars. [3]

Track listing

  1. "H.E.L.P." (Norman Harris and Ron Tyson) – 5:55
  2. "Bits and Pieces" (Bruce Gray, Leroy Green, and Harris) – 4:10
  3. "Seclusion" (Harris and Tyson) – 4:28
  4. "Put It on the News" (Harris and Tyson) – 4:21
  5. "This House" (Harris and Tyson) – 4:41
  6. "Just in Time" (Harris and Tyson) – 3:47
  7. "Inside a Brokenhearted Man" (Jerry Akines, John Bellman, Victor Drayton, and Buddy Turner) – 3:26
  8. "When Your Dreams Take Wings and Fly" (Gray, Green, and Harris) – 6:18

Personnel

Four Tops

Additional personnel

Chart performance

At the Top peaked at 73 on the R&B charts. [4]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Hamilton, Andrew. "The Four Tops – At the Top". AllMusic Guide . Retrieved May 10, 2023.
  2. ↑ Williams, Jean (January 28, 1977). "4 Tops Reborn: Group Seeks New Life; Trying Holland–Dozier–Holland's Skills". General News. Billboard . Vol. 90, no. 4. p. 97. ISSN   0006-2510.
  3. ↑ DeCurtis, Anthony; George-Warren, Holly; Henke, James, eds. (1992). The Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely New Reviews : Every Essential Album, Every Essential Artist. Random House. p. 260. ISBN   9780679737292.
  4. ↑ "US Albums". AllMusic Guide. Archived from the original on November 30, 2012. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
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