Spinners-Pick Of The Litter (1975)


 

Artist: Spinners

Title: Pick Of The Litter

Label: Atlantic

Format: LP

Catalog Number: SD 18141

Year of Release: 1975

Country and Year of Edition: US 1975 Presswell

Sell Price: $5.99

Sell Date: 8/17/26

Condition: VG/F 

Discogs Last Sold: 8/22/26 NM/VG+ $15.05

Low: $1.38 1/6/26 G/F

Median: $2.94

Average: $5.39

High: $30.00 6/19/26 M/M

Current low price: $0.99 G/VG

Curren Number on Sale at Discogs: 118

Have/Want: 903/81

Where Sold: Greensboro, NC

Time It Took To Sell: 2 years

Where and When Bought: Whatnot auction lot

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B+

Sad To See It Go: No

With Dave Marsh's recent passing, I have to reflect on the "canon" that he had a hand in building for Rolling Stone and beyond that.  Pick Of The Little was unquestionably a part of that, even if the Spinners overall discography didn't get the respect that Wonder, Gaye or Green got from chiseling the then recent history in granite for posterity.   The library and bookstore shelves of the early 80's tended to have two major discography works: The Rolling Stone Record Guide and Christgau's 70's Guide.  RS had their 5 star list and Christgau had an A-list.  A canon and an alternate canon.  With RS this Spinners album Pick Of The Litter was deemed short list, the lone "5-star" Spinners album.  Used copies of this RIAA Gold record #8 Billboard with a 26 week chart run easy to find, cheap and plentiful. This made it's way into my collection in the early 80's for about $2.99 although the copy that sold came from a recently purchase lot.

I remember putting "All That Glitters Isn't Gold" on a mix-tape at Friendly's for a Black ex-military supervisor that liked Soul and hated Rap circa 1986 or so.  It was a personal mission that I could make a mix tape for anyone with any taste even if I wasn't "the Soul guy" beyond having some records I knew and liked.    I was the everything guy and still aspire to that as an ideal.   That song that stuck out at the time was singing about talking to his mama switched into quoting the narrative "Hey, Mama!"   When I was a teenager I thought there were no "hits" on this album.  I don't know how the hell I didn't acknowledge "Games People Play" (aka "They Just Can't Stop It The (Games People Play)") when I listened to the album start to finish, but it didn't register the way it instantly does now as an inescapable megahit remembered from childhood.  The other top 40 hit on Pick Of The Litter, "Love or Leave" still doesn't ring a bell as anything I remember in 70's real time, but it stood out as one of the better tracks on the album before I checked out Mr. Billboard to see what the actual hits were.

"Right, wrong...they just can't stop it!"

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