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It's a decent enough soundtrack...

Olukayode Balogun | Leeds, England | 12/02/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"... but as anyone who's watched the movie will know (or anyone who knows anything about it would probably have already guessed) it's a soundtrack full of oldies and oldie-inspired new material. Nothing 21st century here, I'm afraid, so if you're not a friend of the oldies like I am, this one will probably not be for you.



But more relevantly, as many previous reviewers have already pointed out, there are some songs from the movie that do not appear on this CD. Most notable (for me) is the Bobby Bland song "Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City" but luckily, I already had it somewhere else. (Specifically on Gold Digging- As, which I highly recommend, especially to any Jay-Z fans interested in where he got some of his samples from).



So I went ahead and bought it anyway, primarily for the Anthony Hamilton tunes. "Do You Feel Me" is a beautiful 70s groove by Hamilton, produced by the legendary Hank Shocklee and written by the great Diane Warren. I've always believed that Hamilton was from the wrong era and that if he had been born a couple of decades earlier, would've been absolutely huge. Or at least a lot bigger than he is now. Compliments too to Warren, who proves why she's the songwriter to go to. She captures the essence of 70s soul perfectly and Shocklee's production is the icing on the cake.



"Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" & "No Shoes" are two blues tracks by Lowell Fulson and John Lee Hooker respectively and surely Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" needs no introduction.



Hamilton's second contribution, "Stone Cold" is a funky little James Brown-inspired number. I Can't get enough of it at the moment. "Hold On I'm Coming" by Sam & Dave, "I'll Take You There" by The Staple Singers and "Can't Truss It" by Public Enemy also ought to need no introduction.



"Checking Up On My Baby", "Club Jam", "Railroad" and "Nicky Barnes" are all by Hank Shocklee and they range from folksy to funky but are all rooted in the blues and are all instrumental. The final two tracks "Hundred Percent Pure" and "Frank Lucas" are by Marc Streitenfeld and are typical moody atmospheric soundtrack pieces with lots of horns, strings and eerie sound effects. They round off the album nicely.



Sometimes I watch a movie and the music in it is so good, I just have to have the soundtrack. I'm not sure that's what happened here and would probably have bought this CD whether I'd seen the movie or not. To be honest, the movie wasn't really my kind of movie at the end of the day. This is definitely my kind of music though. How weird is that?"