The Bottom Line
- Anthony Hamilton's "Do You Feel Me?"
- Plenty of flavorful Old-School Soul
- Public Enemy's "Can't Truss It"
- Two Marc Streitenfeld instrumentals
Description
- Movie soundtrack
- 1970s-era Soul
- Occasionally funky
Guide Review - Various Artists - "American Gangster: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"
The most notable of the songs, of course, is the aforementioned "Do You Feel Me?," but there's also another Anthony Hamilton song, the James Brown-soundalike track "Stone Cold" and four instrumentals by producer Hank Shocklee, who until this point was probably best known as a member of the production team for hip-hop group Public Enemy. Shocklee's four songs, the extra-funky "Club Jam," "Railroad" and Nicky Barnes" and the brilliant juke joint-styled "Checkin' Up On My Baby," sound so much like vintage-era songs that most people won't even know that they're original, 2007 recordings.
Of the five actual classic songs on the soundtrack, all are great, but Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" and Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin' " are the most compelling after all these years and in fact, almost sound ready-made for the movie. If you enjoyed the soundtrack to the movie Dead Presidents, this is right up the same alley: good old-fashioned, stick-to-your-ribs type Soul music that stands the test of time.
That's not to say that everything's all good on the soundtrack. Public Enemy's angry, incendiary "Can't Truss It," which was originally released in 1991, sticks out like a sore thumb, despite the fact that it was co-written and co-produced by Shocklee, and two Marc Streitenfeld instrumentals that close the album are well-placed in the film, but don't match the tone of the other songs on the album. But despite it's relatively small flaws, the soundtrack to American Gangster is definitely worth spending some time with if you enjoy '70s Soul.
