From their inception in 1958, the O’Jays were a singles group. In 1972, they released Back Stabbers and changed all that. With their accomplished songwriting, the album — reissued by Legacy Recordings under their new “Total Soul Classics” tag — transformed the O’Jays from just another Philly soul group to superstars.

While the O’Jays themselves are stars in their own right on Back Stabbers, the real genius of this record (and, honestly, most of their career) is the songwriting duo of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The ’60s and ’70s mainstays of the Philly soul scene, they wrote or co-wrote eight of the 10 tracks on the album. Couple that with lush arrangements from producers Thom Bell and Bobby Martin (among others), and you have one hell of a soulful, yet astringent, record.

Just as the album title implies, there’s an elevated sense of bitterness throughout. Indeed, Back Stabbers explores the early ’70s from the perspective of a scorned individual during Vietnam and Watergate. The title track cuts right to the heart: “They’re smiling in your face/ All the time they wanna take your place/ The back stabbers.” That may not be the anthem with which to unite a divided country, but damn it if it isn’t true.

Also significant is the opening verse to the (awkwardly titled) single, “992 Arguments”: “I can’t even go down to the corner/ To get myself a cold, cold beer/ ‘Cause when I come back to the house/ Your mouth is the only thing I’m gonna hear.” Saturated in sexism, yes, but the rest of the song discusses the reason behind such a stark depiction of couplehood. After declaring that “all this fussing and fighting” has to end, the narrator wonders, “Maybe we just weren’t meant for each other/ You know, we might have made a big mistake.”

It’s this austere environment the album paints that is truly at the heart (figuratively and literally) of the album. But the record is perhaps most remarkable for its final track, the pleasant, upbeat “Love Train.”

The song is the group’s first No. 1 hit and thus a ballsy move to save it for last, but it’s a great way to sum up the record as a whole. Most of Back Stabbers builds an argument that the world of the ’70s was not the best time in which to live; most of the time people were pricks.

But it’s “Love Train” that, after all this cynicism, tries to express an optimistic outlook on life. Sure, it may seem on the surface that the O’Jays try to have it both ways, but it’s the all-too-human, drenched-in-honesty plea to humanity that makes the dichotomy work: “People all over the world/ Join Hands/ Start a love train.” Yeah, it’s schmaltzy, but it’s also one of those truly celebrated songs that wants humankind to just get along. And who doesn’t appreciate that?

At a time when soul mainstays like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder were making socially conscious albums, the O’Jays refused to be left behind. Out of that defiance came Back Stabbers, a record that David Ritz proclaims in the liner notes to be “more than a group of great tunes” and is instead a “full-blown portrait of […] modern life.” Amen.

5 out of 5 stars