Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings ‎– Give The People What They Want (LP Blue Vinyl)

The more albums Sharon Jones releases with the Dap-Kings, the more formulaic their structure appears. This is the group's fifth and, like its predecessors, it draws up a list of vintage-soul styles and methodically ticks each box. Opener Retreat! is their strident, fire-cracking, Motown-heyday tune, Jones's voice scratchy with scorn. The relaxed taunt of You'll Be Lonely covers strutting, sassy, late-1960s funk, and Now I See is a dancefloor stomper so precision-tooled you see talcum powder billowing from its chorus. Get Up and Get Out shifts back a few years to cutesy, girl-group-doo-wop, and People Don't Get What They Deserve, as its title suggests, is a protest against social inequality that Curtis Mayfield would have been proud to sing, set to a tightly righteous guitar line and indignant blasts from the horns. No matter how contrived the sound, however, there's no writing this troupe off as lazy pastiche: like Amy Winehouse's Back to Black – on which the Dap-Kings were backing band – Give the People What They Want breathes passionate new life into the past.

Label: Daptone Records ‎– DAP-032

Country: Netherlands

Media Condition: Mint (M)
Sleeve Condition: Mint (M)

Number 68 / 300