Like you, it caught me off guard at first but that's only because I had a narrow view of who I thought The Time was and what they should sound like. This whole album has me realizing, as great as I always thought they were, I sold them short. We all knew they could burn a stage down... but as a collective in the studio they are just on a level I had never even imagined. A song like Hey Yo just shows how ridiculous these guys are at this point. As you said, it really isn't what we think The Time sounds like... but taken just on it's own merits it's a very well done "modern" sounding song. We all know what Prince and other "old" acts have sounded like when they moved outside their box and have tried to "update" like this... it hasn't been pretty. If a more recent act had dropped this we wouldn't have thought twice about it. But when you really listen, they are doing more in there than your run of the mill rapper or R&B producer would have done on the same track. This album has me feeling like they can do just about any style that's popular now and do it better than their modern day counterpart.

I actually had to bar myself from this album for 3-4 days just because I was playing it too much. Coming back to it with "rested" ears really has given me a new perspective on this whole project and the group.
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Reunion Radio Podcasts
Bringing Together Five Decades of R&B/Funk/Soul/Dance

http://reunionradio.blogspot.com/