One of the best releases of 2008!
First off, forgive the rambling nature of this review. My brain was totally scrambled when I wrote it, and only got unscrambled recently.
Anyway, it took me way too long to get around to this one. I feel like such an idiot for letting the entire summer slip by before I listened to it. Oh, hey, Al Green's got a new album out? Great! After I finish with my seventeenth listen to the entire Radiohead catalog, I'll give it a shot! Oh, wait, I've also got that big pile of obscure Coltrane records to listen to... and all of Al Green's older stuff... and new albums by R.E.M., Counting Crows, Elvis Costello, Weezer, Van Morrison, Coldplay, and Beck... I am terrible with new releases. And I haven't even gotten into all of the albums by artists I like that are coming out sometime during this year's second half. Including a new batch of Van Morrison re-releases! And, hopefully, a Stevie Wonder album! (Though I'm not holding out too much hope - it was due out in January, after all. It'll probably brilliant, though, because it's Stevie Wonder). Given how long it took me to get around to this one (and I've got no clue why, as I was listening to a lot of Al Green this summer), I probably won't even have half of those under my belt until 2009 or whenever. So yeah, I've been a little preoccupied lately. And I really wish I had listened to this one earlier. Because it's good. It's even more retro than Everything's OK (another good album!), but I have no problem with that whatsoever, because Green gave us a great set of songs, and his voice is still in top form after decades. Lush ballads like the title track, "Take Your Time," "You've Got the Love I Need" sit next to ace pop gems such as "What More Do You Want from Me?" (Jazzy guitar licks! You've got me hooked!) and "Just for Me" and funk such as "No One But You," a very welcome return to songs in the style of "Love and Happiness." ?uestlove of the Roots produces, but he doesn't even try to make it modern. He also drums, and his drumming is very sturdy, reliable, and good. A few guests crop up here and there, and they add a lot: Anthony Hamilton adds gritty counterpoint vocals to the title track and "You've Got the Love I Need," Corrine Rae Bailey shows up to make "Take Your Time" a sweet duet, and John Legend (the only one of the three guest vocalists I had heard of beforehand) sings on "Stay With Me (By the Sea)." By the way, John Legend sounds a lot like Al Green, and there is no way that's an accident. The vocal inflections of old come back on the title track and "Too Much," and that is cause for celebration in my eyes. Plus the vocals on "Wild About You" are very, very soulful. And, um... good album! A bit generic, but who cares? Al Green makes generic sound good!
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