Sky's the Limit (The Temptations album)
| Sky's the Limit | ||||
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| Studio album by The Temptations | ||||
| Released | April 22, 1971 | |||
| Recorded | 1970–1971 | |||
| Genre | Soul/Psychedelic soul | |||
| Length | 43:26 | |||
| Label |
Gordy GS 957 |
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| Producer | Norman Whitfield | |||
| The Temptations chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
Sky's the Limit is the fourteenth studio album by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label released in 1971. The album includes the #1 hit "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)", the Top 40 hit "Ungena Za Ulimwengu (Unite the World)", and the original version of "Smiling Faces Sometimes", later a Top 5 hit for The Undisputed Truth.
In addition, Sky's the Limit features the final Temptations recordings for founding member Eddie Kendricks, the main lead vocalist on "Just My Imagination". During the recording of the album, Kendricks departed the group for a solo career. His best friend Paul Williams would soon follow him out of the group due mainly to health issues.
"Unite the World" (its main title "Ungena Za Ulimwengu" is a Swahili translation of its parenthetical title), the album's first single, was the first Temptations single since 1964's "I'll Be in Trouble" not to make the Billboard Pop Singles Top 30. Its relative failure signaled the beginning of the end of the Temptations and Norman Whitfield's psychedelic soul recordings; while more Sly and the Family Stone-inspired psychedelic records would turn up on the next four Temptations albums, Whitfield began, for the first time in three years, once again releasing soul ballads as singles for the group. The first of these was Sky's the Limit's second single, "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)", which Whitfield and Barrett Strong had written in 1969 but shelved. "Just My Imagination" became the group's third number-one hit.
The album tracks show Whitfield's gravitation back towards a ballad format: fully half of the LP is made up of such tracks. Previous Whitfield co-compositions such as "Gonna Keep on Tryin' (Till I Win Your Love)" (originally recorded by Edwin Starr, later The Temptations; from The Tempts' Cloud Nine album), "I'm the Exception to the Rule" (recorded by The Velvelettes in 1964), and "Throw a Farewell Kiss" (also a Velvelettes original) were revived and recorded for this album.
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