DAPTONE 7-INCH SINGLES COLLECTION Vol. 2 (Daptone) Rating: NN
Daptone would be a much more successful operation if they invested 10 per cent of the brainpower they use to make killer throwback funk records into plotting a comprehensive label vision.
While it makes sense to digitally make available their vinyl-only singles tracks to people who don’t own turntables, releasing a generic non-hits set that amounts to a Lee Fields and Charles Bradley split album with a couple of extraneous songs thrown in as filler isn’t the smartest way to present the material. The lengthy gaps between tracks suggest no one bothered to listen to the set before it was mastered.
They should have split up the songs and issued a sorely needed Lee Fields retrospective and a long-overdue Charles Bradley debut disc, featuring his amazing The World (Is Going Up In Flames). What remains could’ve been used for a solid Daptone label comp that shows off the finest work by marquee artist Sharon Jones, perhaps an outtake from the Dap-Kings sessions with Amy Winehouse and some new recordings to set up forthcoming releases. That Como Now set of a capella gospel singing due in August may not sell itself.
