A sorely underappreciated group, Morris Day’s frenetic electro-funk outfit The Time have always been forced to peer from beneath the purple one’s cloak, snatching stage time and film cameos where they could, and fighting for recognition in the face of Prince’s prolific genius. Like his more famous mentor, the dapper Morris Day was a seasoned R&B performer who had thoroughly assimilated the teachings of great showmen like Little Richard, Sly Stone, and George Clinton. The slinky, futuristic groove’s of The Time’s 1981 debut prove that Day was not content to merely imitate his heroes, but was determined to craft a forward looking amalgamation of Sly’s wild eclecticism, James Brown’s monstrous rhythms, and Zapp’s electro decadence. The chimera like result of Day’s labor was a forty-minute long party pressed into wax. Like many of his contemporaries, Day was more interested in lacing dance grooves than in the subtleties of songwriting, and the shimmering synth-lines of “Cool”, the frantic call and response of “Get It Up” and the wild showmanship of “The Stick” make The Time one of the finest R&B albums of the eighties.