The Topics: Giving Up - 1975


A little known but pretty impressive seventies soul album was this by The Topics, a group so obscure that I can’t source a single picture of them. Their music is sort of Manhattans-ish, with some nice vocals delivered by seemingly different vocalists. The album goes down as something of a cultish gem of a rarity. 

The best track is probably the excellent seventies soul of Gotta Get You Back. God And You is a good one too and you might expect the cover of Wichita Lineman/Rainy Night In Georgia to be cheesy but it’s actually pretty good. I really like the punchy gospelly soul of At Last It’s Over. The vocalist on here, and the backing are very impressive. This deserved more credit than it got. The same applies to the lush, orchestrated soul of the title track, Giving Up, the harmonious Bookin’ Up and the gritty funk of Movin’ On Down The Line. 

This is a nice little album to dig out every now and again, and not really a bad track on it.

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