James Brown: The Singles Volume 5: 1967-1969

Whether or not you want a set of the complete James Brown singles has a lot to do with how much you obsess over all aspects of his musical personality -- not just James the funk innovator, but also James the song interpreter, James the soul-blues organist, James the bandleader, and James the A&R man. It's a tough slog for all but the most dedicated Brown freaks, but as musical history, it's tough to argue against this kind of extensive archivism.

You can't accuse them of not knowing which way the wind is blowing, from a business standpoint -- Hip-O Select knows as much about pinpointing a very exclusive audience as they do about American popular music, and that's saying something. This, like the previous four two-disc sets bearing the name, collects everything James Brown recorded and released as a single (a or b side) in a very distinct period.

What makes Volume Five (only 5000 copies, so get one now) so intriguing has to do with the era in question: while Butane James and his Famous Flames were splitting the funk atom -- as they'd learned to do with 1967's "Cold Sweat," recorded just before this material -- the world was learning how to deal with its own upheaval. This is, after all, the man who embraced both the black-power movement and Richard Nixon, and you can hear him grappling with his split decision on tracks like "Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud," "America Is My Home," "You Got To Have A Job (If You Don't Work You Can't Eat)," and even "Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto."

More interesting still, however, is his musical schizophrenia -- even if funk was clearly the future, Brown seems perfectly at home doing straight covers of the musical standard "If I Ruled The World," string-laden R&B like "I Guess I'll Have To Cry, Cry, Cry," and endless instrumentals like "The Soul Of J.B.," "Maybe Good Maybe Bad," and "Here I Go." Most of it works, with the possible exception of "Tit For Tat (Ain't No Taking Back)," which sounds like it's aimed squarely at white teen hipsters. And there are relatively few hidden gems; the best of this stuff hit he R&B charts in its day. But there's just so much James to go around that you still probably haven't heard "Soul Pride" or "Goodbye My Love." And his most creative, "Popcorn"-laden funk phase was (and therefore is) still to come.