There's No Place Like America Today

Mayfield's seventh studio album was produced by Mayfield, with arrangements by Rich Tufo and woodwinds from Harold Dessent. It has seven songs, opening with Billy Jack and including When Seasons Change, So in Love, Jesus, Blue Monday People, Hard Times and Love to the People.

The cover is based on Margaret Bourke-White's 1937 photograph At the Time of the Louisville Flood. The billboard slogan in the original read There's No Way Like the American Way, and Mayfield's cover adapted it to the album title. The Quietus described a line of black people queuing below a billboard of a smiling white family in a car.

Reception

The album reached number 120 on the Billboard 200 and number 13 on the soul chart. Petridis wrote that Mayfield's optimism seemed to desert him here, that he slowed his songs to an agonized crawl and stripped the arrangements back, and that it was a stark and harrowing picture of life in the United States. The Quietus, in 2015, called it a masterwork, said Mayfield showed no interest in assigning blame, and found its central message in the words "look to yourselves."

Matt Mitchell of Paste wrote in 2024 that it was sorely underrated and called it bleak but comforting. The album is listed in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and NME placed it at number 373 on its 2013 list of the 500 greatest albums.