Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele

Epic: 2000

Finally I’m tackling the one Ghostface Killah album Wu-Tang fans and general hip-hop folks alike consider his best long-player, Supreme Clientele. Remarkably, it wasn’t even thought as such for at first, the very definition of a slow burner. For sure the hardline Wu fandom was tripping themselves over it, but this came out when the Clan was losing their dominance at the top of the rap world, many albums from other members lacklustre compared to the fiery opening salvo that marked their ‘90s output. That Ghost’s sophomore effort would get slept on isn’t surprising, Mr. Killah’s stock as one of Wu-Tang’s best solo MC having yet to be established. It still burned in the underground though, and if anything, Supreme Clientele was the record that kept everyone talking, proving that not all things Wu was on the wane. Then Tony Starks would surpass the rest of his Clan fam’ in popularity, and everyone chimed in proclaiming they always knew Supreme Clientele was dope. Right, of course.

Disclosure time: I have not actually heard this album as most have. Rather, I have a misspressed, early version that shipped out with the initial wave of Canadian copies. For the longest time, I suspected something was wrong with my CD, the tracklist and sequencing wildly off cue compared to what was printed. It didn't matter too much, as the album was boss from front to back, but I couldn't figure why one nine-minute long track sounded like three different cuts one after the other. At the time, I thought it was an artistic decision, that Ghostface was operating on a different plane with this LP, throwing the very conventions of properly indexing one's albums out the window.

Nah, guy, it was just the wrong one I got, is all. So I lost The Grain; I gained the soul-drenched In The Rain instead. And I still get all the ace cuts anyway, even if they’re in a different order. The bouncy club jams One, Cherchez LaGhost, and Buck 50 are all still here. The killer, crusty Wu production of Mighty Healthy, Malcom, Wu Banga 101 and Stroke Of Death (the beat loop is a freakin’ spinback!) are all still here. Most members of the Clan show up (no ODB because jail, and no Deck, though he does provide a beat), with everyone sounding on point and in classic ‘90s hunger mode. The various skits are okay too (haha, they’re already dissin’ 50 Cent), and are nicely shuffled off to the ends of tracks in this copy rather than given individual indexes. Okay, that’s a personal preference.

Apparently such discrepancies have turned this first-run Canadian copy into something of a collector’s item, going for easy triple-digits in some quarters. Huh, In The Rain is a cool track (found only on this CD), but is it really worth a couple hundred bones?

In any version, Supreme Clientele is among the best solo Wu albums out there. Essential listening for any fan of the Clan.

Flowjob - Support Normality (2015 Update)

Iboga Records: 2006

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review.)

At the tail end of that very, very, very long original review of Support Normality, I quipped about how pricey these old, ace albums in the psy scene can get on the collector’s market. Hell, even lesser CDs have fetched remarkable prices at Discogs. From my pile alone, U-Recken’s Aquatic Serenade once sold for $143! The compilation Goa Spirit 3, $102! ICE MC’s Ice N’ Green, $81 (wait, what?). Several Ultimae albums have moved in the $75-$100 range, with plenty more psy leaning discs going in the tidy $30-$50 bracket. Flowjob’s sophomore album, Zentertainment, which I found weaker than their debut, brought home $40 for a former owner. Surely Support Normality then, a great collection of ultra-groovy progressive trance, would command a gracious price of… seven… teen… dollars? Are you kidding me? That’s an injustice! This should be going for well over $50! Did Iboga flood the market with too many copies or something? Am I blinded by some unaccounted bias? I’ll admit I was going through some interesting transitional times when I first came across this album, but still.

No, wait, let’s examine this. Did my situational living impact upon my reaction to Support Normality in a significant way? It’s no secret we often associate music with events in our lives, such that hearing a song can send a flood of memories from the time you first heard it. When I play this album back now, three immediate things come to mind: a rave where I had a bad 2CB trip, shitty Vancouver weather (even more so than usual), and being home wretchedly sick watching Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica. I can’t say these are at all pleasant memories on the surface, but they were significant, where after a year of big city bachelorhood, I was learning just what it took to survive in the Lower Mainland. Don’t be so irresponsible at parties, get some proper rainwear, and don’t binge watch such a depressing, brilliant sci-fi series. Oh God, the flood of feels, I tells ya’!

I suppose Support Normality provided a brief bright spot in that dour February of 2006. The chipper vibes, dubby synths, and oh-so infectious rhythms gave me a glimmer of optimism, rejuvenated my interest in electronic music in such a way that hadn’t happened since electroclash emerged onto the scene. Flowjob wasn’t doing anything I hadn’t heard before, but they did it with such finesse and skill, I was instantly hooked. They found a sweet spot that catered to my deep, dubby prog needs, the sort of music none of the genre’s standard bearers were crafting anymore, all content pursuing their own roads instead (tech, minimal, Mc.). It obviously didn’t happen like that for others, some probably bored by what Flowjob was selling. But no one can deny they have albums of similar connection to them as this one has with me.

PS: no, I’m not looking to sell anything from my collection, but if I was, hoo boy, would I clean up!

Sander van Doorn - Supernaturalistic (Original TC Review)

Ultra Records: 2008

(2015 Update:
Some credit must be given here, as Sander did embark on a different path from what everyone else was doing in trance at the time. It was still mostly rubbish, and had too many copy-cats following in step within the year, but that 'Dutch minimal' sound of his was unique, even if it was only a passing fad. As with so many of his Netherlands brethren however, ol' Doorn's become the copy-cat rather than the innovator, his recent productions mere Garrix clones with a bit of that classic Doorn bass thrown in. Predictably, his stock on the DJ Mag poll - the only important poll for Dutch DJs - has plummeted. Maybe he'll get back to his tech-trance roots now? Oh, who are we kidding, he'd totally torpedo his festival time slots if he stopped catering-

This album, then.

Riff's still a dope track, but so much of this is just a big ol' nothing of music, more so now since I can't imagine anyone playing anything off here except Doorn himself. The whole 'minimal' tangent in Dutch trance never had much success to begin with, producers quick to hop on whatever new bandwagon they could hitch themselves onto. So it goes.)


IN BRIEF: Much ado...

Lately it feels like trance producers labeled as “the future/saviors” of the genre have become a dime-a-dozen; nearly any name with some status or string of minor hits has been branded as such in recent years. Yet when Sander van Doorn broke out of nowhere a few years back, his tough tech-trance productions and energetic DJ sets hinted at the possibility that perhaps someone would finally live up to that hype. Then he released Grasshopper, and everything changed. It appeared the Dutchman had hopped on the minimal bandwagon, resulting in a plodding effects-laden wankfest of techno that split much of his fanbase. Some were looking forward to seeing where he might go with the sound, while others hoped it was just a one-off experiment. Later singles Riff and By Any Demand hinted at the former as 2007 wore on.

A year now from that polarizing single, Doorn has come forth with his debut full-length titled Supernaturalistic. It arrived with very little initial fanfare back in early March but has since gained steam thanks to the hard work of PR teams pushing it in order to maintain his star-status. However, the actual listeners remain divided as ever, as the Dutchman’s new direction appears to dominate much of the album. For make no mistake about it - musically, this is about as bare-bones as dance music gets. Doorn seems to have settled on this basic formula: introduce thumping beats, establish a simple hook, break it down and build it up with waves upon waves of effects, hit the peak, and then-

Oh, hey, that was fun. Let’s move on.

Is it really fair to criticize Doorn for being formulaic? Dance music in of itself is formulaic; I may as well complain about oranges being the color orange. Frankly, you can do plenty with formula, and even if he doesn’t stray far from it, Sander seems intent upon trying a few different things within his narrow arrangements. By Any Demand’s funky guitar lick, for instance, is certainly an attention grabber, and as a follow-up to the pounding opener-proper Riff, hints at something fresh and fun. Of course, this being the New Sander, once the breakdown/build passes and the beats drop in on us, the track-

Moving on.

From here, the musical ideas retreat further and further, as Doorn lets his techno influences dominate. There are sprinklings of trancey melodies here and there, but for the most part are held in submission. This wouldn’t be so bad if for one problem: for all the perceived dark, tough, and threatening tones Doorn supplies, the general atmosphere of Supernaturalistic falls well short of truly ominous techy vibes. It’s about as menacing as James Dean -as played by a cigarette-smoking chimpanzee (especially when compared to the 800-pound cyborg gorilla that is L.S.G.’s The Black Album, even a decade on). And when all these tracks end on such limp notes as they do after big builds filled with effects, you begin to wonder-

It’s those minimal influences.

Yeah, minimal’s aesthetic has pretty much worked its way into everything. That style, however, is built around subtlety, nuance, and status-quo. A typical minimal track seldom goes anywhere, far more content to cruise along and play with effects or atmosphere than take you on a musical journey. Sander, it would seem, wants to have his cake and eat it too; he wants to join the minimal bandwagon but is still intent on producing stadium-sized tracks. As a result, you have stuff like Grasshopper, The Bass, and Dozer, where the dooft-dooft-dooft beats pack massive punch, the effect-builds are epic, yet there is little release after it all goes down. It’s like Doorn’s trying to make concert-sized anthems out of minimal. Heh, leave it to the Dutch-

I heard some of you enjoy good hooks.

The strongest melodies are found in a couple of tracks that are little more than interludes (Lobby; Outrospective), and aren’t really worth getting into since Doorn doesn’t seem interested in going anywhere with them. However, when he’s not dickering around with effect-builds that amount to nothing, Doorn does come correct with stuff that’ll get right in your head. The riffs found in Apple and, er, Riff are great, such that they have power even when Sander somewhat scales things back in the second half of them. And many of the other offerings on Supernaturalistic contain strong opening ingredients before they are squandered afterwards. If anything, a capable DJ could use nearly any track here as an effective tension builder in their sets, provided they drop a track with some proper direction right afterwards. In that sense, though, it makes much of this album little more than glorified-

Frustrating, isn’t it.

Supernaturalistic is a lot of squandered potential. As the album wears on, the teases grow tiresome and the lack of decent dance-music release annoys. It’s fine for a few tracks but why would anyone want to sit through an hour of it is beyond me. There’s a ‘hidden’ recording tagged onto Outrospective, of the wrap-up a gig Doorn played at, and it pretty much sums up Sander’s debut: slight variations of the same thing over and over (“The Wet Bar is now closed; get out!”; “Thank you for coming, now get out!” “If you want an autograph, get in line; otherwise, get out!”), a few moments that’ll entertain (“Don’t bum-rush the stage!” - I have to admit the picture of a bunch of scuzzy, impoverished-looking clubbers rushing the stage as though Sander has food-coupons makes me giggle), maybe hinting it’s leading to a winning payoff, but ultimately amounting to nothing of consequence.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2008. © All rights reserved

Various - DJ-Kicks: Hot Chip

Studio !K7: 2007/2008

DJ-Kicks has been on the market for twenty years now, an incredible feat for any mix CD series. Wait, there isn’t any other with such an accolade! In terms of longevity, the closest comparison could be Pete Tong’s Essential Mix, but the Tongster never committed every entry to a physical format. On one hand, that’s a shame, because there’s been some incredible episodes of Essential Mix that are only available through unofficial, dodgy channels, and a physical medium would make archiving them easier. On the other hand, dear God, can you imagine the shelf space required if they were all on CD? Just keep that terabyte of info on an external harddrive, mang.

Of course, the vinyl and aluminum format has its limits too, printing runs only lasting so long before resources or interest fades. Still, with a respectable reputation and savvy marketing on one’s side, it’s easy enough to trot out the reissues, which Studio !K7 did for DJ-Kicks during their 2008 downtime. For sure there were some older mixes that could use exposure to a newer audience, but I’m befuddled by Studio !K7’s selection process here. Almost nothing from pre-2000 made the cut, while some incredibly (then) recent CDs were thrust back out on the market. Take this DJ-Kicks from Hot Chip, only a year old before being given the reissue treatment. Just… why? I can’t think of any reason this needed another version on the market, not to mention those from other recent mixes by Booka Shade, Henrik Schwarz, and Four Tet. Okay, maybe that last one – the Four Tet fanbase is rather ravenous.

In any case, Hot Chip, those highly eclectic electro-disco new wave pop weirdos, gives us a suitably eclectic mix full of electro, disco, new wave, and pop weirdness. And some tech-house too - everyone was obligated to play tech-house in the back-half of the ‘00s. Such variety is what happens when you invite five guys into the DJ booth though. Hell, even if this set only comprised the tastes of core members Alexis Taylor (the dorky one) and Joe Goddard (the cherub one), it’d still be all over the place. About the only route they could have gone was the mixtape method, and Hot Chip does just that. The opening salvo alone contains electro-pop soft-rock Nitemoves from Grovesnor, flirtatious back-and-forth hip-hop in Positive K’s I Got A Man, big beat soul-funk from Gramme’s Like U, and a mash-up of Subway’s Persuasion’s synth crescendos and choppy tech-house rhythms of Soundhack’s B1. Erm, I’m not sure which B1; Soundhack had a couple.

That’s what this DJ-Kicks entails: mini-sections of outlier tunes (Um’s The Man’s Got Me Beat, Young Leek’s Jiggle It, Nôze’s Love Affair) rubbing shoulders with trendy contemporary hotness (Dominik Eulberb’s Der Buchdrucker, Wookie’s Far East, Lanark Records’ The Stone That The Builder Rejected) and chintzy classics (Joe Jackson’s Steppin Out, New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle). If you don’t mind the stop-start flow of such a mix, then have Hot Chip’s DJ-Kicks a go.

Various - DJ-Kicks: Claude Young

Studio !K7: 1996

We're going way back into DJ-Kicks' history here friends. Back to the days when Studio !K7 was still mostly known for its X-Mix series and all those cool, trippy CGI video tapes accompanying them. No no, they really were cool, not dated at all. The power of retro will make it so! Ahem, anyway, the initial volley of jocks into this new DJ mix series featured a quartet of Detroit techno luminaries: Carl Craig, CJ Bolland, Stacey Pullen, and Claude Young. The first two are legends, no doubt. The third gestated within the underground for a while, but I've seen him having something of a career surge in recent years. And as for ol' Claude, man, where can I start with this guy? No, really, I'm asking that, because until this CD, I'd never heard of him before. How many Detroit Braggin' Points will this cost me?

Right, it's not entirely my fault, Mr. Young having mostly shied away from the mix CD format over the years. He’s also been all over the map regarding his album output too. Debut Soft Thru came out on Belgium Elypsia, sophomore Patterns The Album came out on Dutch Djax-Up-Beats, his third LP came care of Young’s own cynet:media print (based from UK!), and his latest effort of Celestial Bodies originates from Fountain Music in Japan. Maybe he’s got some proper Detroit vinyl under one of those many early aliases instead.

Whatever the case, folks don’t typically point to Claude Young as a legend for his productions, but rather his DJing, one of the most unique Detroit jocks to ever rock the decks. Approaching the art more from a turntablist’s perspective, he’ll often layer multiple dubplates, cutting back and forth between vinyls so rhythms mesh in ways never intended. So much poly’, mang, from tracks so minimal! Of course, in the post-Ableton era, such trickery is rather common, if not always expertly executed. Claude was doing it with the only tools any jock worth his salt needs though, and has earned all the props for it.

One of the likely reasons he hasn’t often committed these talents to the CD form is such turntablism is better suited in a live setting than recorded format. Young can pull all manner of sonic tricks from his bag, but if you’re not familiar with the tunes themselves, only an expert techno trainspotter will hear how a track changes up. Also, isn’t the whole point of turntablism the showmanship as well as the music being played?

Ah right, the music on this edition of DJ-Kicks. I haven’t talked it much, because there isn’t much to tell. It’s Detroit techno through and through (and lots of Mark Bell), going from the minimal stuff to bangin’ stuff to funkier stuff, all dope if you like your mid-‘90s techno. I found Young’s set took some time warming up, a bit heavy with the experimental cutting in the early going, but once the pace picks, hoo, it’s a fun ride, is what.

Various - DJ-Kicks: Brandt Brauer Frick

Studio !K7: 2014

Though DJ-Kicks has spotlighted DJs and producers somewhat off the beaten path, it's seldom that I draw a total blank on who's commanding the consoles. Even if they aren't immediately familiar, a quick Discogian search will reveal some information that sparks the memory synapses (oh yeah, Andrea Parker was on Mo Wax!). Such is not the case with this trio of dapper, fuzzy-faced German gents, Brandt Brauer Frick. I'm getting nothing on these guys, no appearances on familiar compilations, no namedrops from similar sounding artists, not even a whiff of recognition from locals who are all up in that European tech-haus scene. As far as my far-flung Canadian perspective goes, these guys are completely home-grown and insulated within Studio !K7's Berlin base, seldom exported beyond the eastern shores of the Atlantic. Or I could just be way out of the loop on this one. I mean, the trio have released three albums in the past half-decade, a tidy sum for any artist, and surely having generated some success as a result. Then again, considering this CD’s but a year old and already in among the discount options, just how popular can they be?

Whatever the case, I suspected I was in for something wildly eclectic upon checking out the track list (no blind leaps on this one, yo’). Twenty-eight tracks, a few familiar faces like Theo Parrish, Galaxy 2 Galaxy, Fantastic Man, and Machinedrum, plus a whole pile of new names to boot. Wee, just like the DJs themselves! As this is a three-piece group, I suspected Daniel, Jan, and Paul would go the tag-team route, showing off their various tastes of tech-haus, funky jazz, and other assorted trendy genre gobbledegook blends you’d hear out at Watergate. Hm, not so eclectic as I was led to believe, and sadly not for the better.

Despite having sections of sorts, Brandt Brauer Frick’s contribution to DJ-Kicks comes off disjointed and all over the place, and not in any esoteric mixtape sense either. The early portions go for their jazzy sound, but tracks come and go so quickly, with such jarring transitions of tempo and tone, little ever sinks in or flows. If you want to show off these cool, obscure tunes, let them breathe, got’dang it. This isn’t even a case of ancient vinyl being difficult to mix with current cuts, as nearly every track on here is from within the last few years.

Things don’t improve much once in the clubbier portion of this mix, where even a steady rhythm is denied by jumps and detours into broken beat jazz-house, quirky acid electro, and k-holed techno. There are a few clever blends and contrasts, but it doesn’t do the mix favours when the fading croon of Dean Blunt’s Galice at the end is the most memorable moments of the whole CD, only because everything prior has retreated to the cobwebbed back-corners of my cranium. Probably a better option with the vinyl sampler pack, this edition of DJ-Kicks is.

Various - DJ-Kicks: Andrea Parker

Studio !K7: 1998

Proving it’s never too late for serious knowledge to smack one across one's face, I was completely blindsided by this CD. For starters, I had no idea who Andrea Parker was, a fact in itself not too surprising since the DJ-Kicks series often taps DJs and producers well under the radar. However, that lack of information instilled a preconceived notion of what I was in for based on cover art alone. Forget even looking at the track list, I was certain Ms. Parker was gonna’ bring the soul-funk downtempo nu-jazzy vibes with this mix. Clearly that’s her musical calling, what with being adorned in the sort of garment worn to classical performances or high-end wine tastings, frolicking about shag flooring and vinyl backdrops. Plus, this was released when Studio !K7 was going through their downtempo jazz-dub phase with DJ-Kicks, featuring such names like Terranova, DJ Cam, and Kruder & Dorfmeister. Surely this lady from the UK would fall in step with this sound too.

And I’d be perfectly fine with that, but what I got was even better. Ol’ Andrea, turns out, has more in common with techno, electro, and booty bass (!) than anything so highbrow as jazz-dance. Hell, the second track on here is Dr. Octagon, the salacious nerdcore alter-ego of Kool Keith, followed upon by two Carl Craig cuts, and a whole lot of Detroit tuneage after. See, if I’d just looked at the track list first, I’d have known what I was in for, what with names like 69, Model 500, Dopplereffekt, Drexciya, and Bambaataa throughout. On the other hand, it’d have ruined the fun surprise of all expectations being so utterly smashed. It’s getting rare such purchases can do that, and isn’t that the whole point of the dig to begin with?

That all said, Ms. Parker’s set isn’t terribly surprising in of itself. If you like your vintage Detroit techno and electro, you’ll like this, with plenty of familiar names (those namedropped above) and outliers rounding things out. Visions Of Mars from DJ Panix is some mighty mint electro, and darn obscure too, given it was all John Litchfield and Mark Burrows did with this alias (not that they were highly prolific anyway). There’s also a little breaks action in this mix, care of Renegade Soundwave’s classic The Phantom and lesser known Da Tunnelz from Sons Of The Subway.

As DJ-Kicks mixes are often released to coincide with a chosen jock’s other projects, Ms. Parker throws her name into the electro hat with her own track Unconnected at the end, sure to be one of the highlights from her debut album, Kiss My Arp, of the same year. Wait, let me confirm that with Lord Discogs… *checks* What, this track came out before this mix, on the fifth volume of the classic Trance Europe Express series? Damn, this woman keeps with the surprises - I gotta’ check out more works. Ooh, this IDM/electro/bass label of hers, Touchin’ Bass, looks promising…

ACE TRACKS: November 2015

Well, that was a fun little trip through music seldom covered here. It was fun, wasn’t it? Well, whatever the case, you are rest assured I won’t be doing something like that again, at least as my music collection currently stands. Oh, there will definitely still be the odd quirky, week-long venture into the unexpected, but nothing that entails so much country and rock ‘best of’ CDs. Who even buys such things anymore? It’s all about the online stream, mass torrent dump, or collector’s box sets these days. Anyhow, since I’ve done a technical alphabetical backtrack in my reviewing queue, I’ll be going through another little string of releases before resuming my endless sojourn through ‘S’. Nothing much, just a few DJ-Kicks mixes I picked up on the cheap. The rest of my backlog will have to wait for after revisiting System 7’s debut, which should come around before the year’s out. I hope.

Until then, here’s the ACE TRACKS I’ve enjoyed this past November.



Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
David Bickley - Still Rivers At Night
Purl - Stillpoint
Jesper Dahlbäck - Stockholm Mix Sessions & 2

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock (and country): 23%
Most “WTF?” Track: Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show - Freakin’ At The Freaker’s Ball (should be an anthem at every fet-life event)

Reviewing so much different non-electronic music probably doesn’t do any favors for a blog called Electronic Music Critic. On the other hand, it does make putting these playlists together more fun, finding out what unexpected music makes for remarkable bedfellows. Why obviously moody drone ambient must follow (Don’t Fear) The Reaper!

A shame some of the more obscure ambient didn’t make the Spotify cut, but there’s a decent enough assortment of tunes throughout this to keep one engaged, plus a big ol' chunk of ambient at the end. You can’t beat a combination of Faithless, M.I.K.E., Sub Focus, and Loverboy for your instant earworm love. And hey, a little dub techno thrown in don’t hurt either, eh?

Willie Nelson - Collections

Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment: 1994/2004

This, above all else, is about as country as I'll ever get. Yeah, there's that Johnny Cash CD, but he always flirted with rock and blues too (why, he even, Walked The- *slap*). There's Neil Young too, but his country dalliances are incidental to his larger body of work, hardly representative of the music as a whole. Willie Nelson though, there's no escaping his roots, the guy about as country as country could cu-

I suppose if there's any particular style of the Western scene I can get behind, it's the “Outlaw Country” side of things. Along with Johnny and Willie, this also included Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson – a supergroup dubbing them The Highwaymen – offering a rebellious slant to the staunch traditionalism of Nashville. Other ‘outlaw’ sorts included Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser, and Hank Williams, Jr., and it gave country a much needed kick in the cajoles after so many years of the same ol’ twang. They cultivated an image of being out on the open road, away from the homestead, exploring the great untamed lands of America while longing for their one true love wherever she may be. Also, a lot of reckless substance consumption. That's probably why I decided I should get Willie Nelson's Collections, his lax stance on marijuana use an easy sell for a Sykonee who was still a little chronic in his life. Okay, and he has a sweet, soothing croon to go with his music, a kindly old uncle vibe that you look forward to seeing out on a ranch somewhere in Arizona.

Collections mostly covers Willie’s career from the mid-‘70s through the ‘80s, about when he adopted the grizzled, bearded hippie look we associate with him now. What, you thought he was like that right from the get-go? Hell no, mang, just take a gander at his album covers from the ‘60s. Guy looked about as preppy a country singer could back in those days, which I can’t help but wonder whether it was forced upon him by RCA. It might have explained that early ‘retirement’ as the ‘70s took hold. In any case, after a brief stint with Atlantic Records, he joined up with Columbia, completing this transformation to the outlaw crooner of yore and a’fore.

The music on Collections is vintage Willie. Um, I suppose. I don’t know jack about his songs. A couple I do recognize off here, like On The Road Again and Georgia On My Mind, probably heard in movies or other ‘best of’ showcases for Mr. Nelson’s material. A decent assortment of country is on here, from ballads (Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain, Always On My Mind) to honky-tonk (Nothing I Can Do About It Now, City Of New Orleans), and songs with orchestrated production (My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, Living In The Promiseland). To my untrained ears though, these all just sound like country standards with Willie’s distinctive voice singing. Considering many of these are covers, maybe that’s all there is to it.

Marvin Gaye - Collections

Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment: 2001/2004

It’s just not fair. Marvin Gaye had turned things around in his life, looked primed to take the ‘80s by storm after struggling for much of the previous decade. Columbia got him out of his Motown contract, plus all the promotional perks that came with being on the label, and he provided them with an instant classic with Sexual Healing, for which he won all sorts of awards and accolades for. If he could keep that mojo going, the three album deal with Columbia might have brought us a trilogy of the greatest modern R&B music ever written, no small feat in a decade that saw the emergence of tons of smooth, soulful crooners. But no, the cruelty of the fates decreed that he'd be murdered by his own father in an argument, denying the world the heart-warming tale of musical triumph over bitter tragedy. No wonder that Marvin Gaye biopic has struggled to get greenlit – who'd want to watch something so depressing?

As a means of completing that three album contract, two posthumous records were released by Columbia. The first, Dream Of A Lifetime, used various recordings from the Midnight Love sessions (aka: the Sexual Healing LP) in making a follow-up to that highly successful album. The third, Romantically Yours, gathered earlier sessions from aborted projects during Gaye's Motown days, creating something of a throw-back candlelight soul album in the process. It stands quite in contrast to the previous two, using traditional instrumentation over the electronic beats and production of Midnight and Dream. These weren't cash grabs either, producers and long-time collaborators Gordon Banks and Harvey Fuqua aiming to honor Gaye’s memory, with the albums intended as a love-letter to his fans.

Thus, when it came time for ol’ Marvin to have his honorary Super Hits/Collections, there wasn’t a heck of a lot for Columbia to choose from. Obviously Sexual Healing is here, but what else from these albums generated some chart action for the Gaye estate? Funky Sanctified Lady was the other major one, which features vocoder action no less. More interesting is the original title, Sanctified Pussy, which can still be heard from Gaye in a muffled sort of way.

That’s about it for singles though. I haven’t a clue how Columbia went about compiling this CD, why they chose the tracks they did. It’s a very small sample of Gaye’s discography, though does provide a respectable overview of his talents, even if more than half of this track list is heavy with the early ‘80s funk and soul. And if you’re looking for his vintage sound, the latter portions with orchestras and lounge jazz croon is fine. I guess.

Sorry, I don’t have nearly enough experience with his ‘60s and ‘70s output to know if songs like Walkin’ In The Rain and Stranger In My Life hold up. Y’all are probably better off springing for a comprehensive greatest hits or box set (again) if you’re after a proper Gaye experience.