Album Review: Various Artists- Motown Remixed (Motown)

Writer: Oliver Scott 

When the Chapman brothers exhibited a set of original Goya etchings they'd 'defaced' with cartoons, the art establishment, who'd barely raised a well defined eyebrow at their giant models of concentration camps or 1970s charity figurines, were appalled. 'Desecration' was the word. There's a librarian in all of us, wanting to keep the past preserved like a fly in amber. Talking of holy cows, the Beatles aside, there is probably no better loved body of work in popular music than sixties Motown.

I'll confess, it never occurred to me that "Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' Tears of A Clown is okay, but what it really needs is a 'Hot Snax remix',. But then again, would anybody in the late sixties have thought that I Know You got Soul was alright, but might be improved by some guy called Rakim going on about having a dope beat to step to? Flies in amber again. If Berry Gordy famously modelled his record label on a car production line, what do we make of this latest 'cut and shut' job?

Well, it starts fantastically, with ZTrip reclaiming the Jackson Five's I Want You Back from a million wedding receptions by chopping up the original studio tapes of THAT guitar intro and dropping in the sound of drumsticks counting in the band. The world wobbles on its axis, believe me. I think that's the key to the success of this project - the artists didn't just sample off the records, but got access to the original master tapes, which takes things to a new level. For instance The Randy Weston Experience – aka The Roots'
?uestlove and some pals – add their own drums and keyboards to Gladys Knight's I Heard it Through the Grapevine but keep James Jamerson's original bass line, which works really well.

Moving on, while DJ Spinna (I think it might be illegal to do one of these remix albums and not ask him along) and King Britt understand the dancefloor dynamics of Keep on Trucking and Edwin Starr's War respectively, the shining star for me is Easy Mo Bee's take on the Temptations Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me). Putting minimal bassy shuffles and string flourishes under the vocals, it suggests some parallel universe where Phil Spector's Wall of Sound was transplanted from LA to Detroit. Brilliant stuff. I like MPG's Lets Get It On too.

As ever, the quality level slips and not everything works - DJ Smash's version of Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm looking scornfully in your direction - and the aforementioned Hot Snax turn in a dreadful big beat/drum and bass mix of Tears of A Clown which I don't even want to think about for a moment longer. But on the whole, this album rocks. I Just Want to Celebrate indeed...

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PUBLISHED: 11 July 2005

RELEASED DATE: 6 June 2005 (UK) / 24 May 2005 (US)

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