Simply Party

Simply Party is a British box set that gives you four different opportunities to party to the music of your choice. Each disc sticks to a theme: Rock & Roll, Funk, Soul and Latin. And while none of the individual discs attempts to make any grand statement or prove definitive in any way, each is good fun, although the Latin disc proves to be something of a head-scratcher as it sticks to a handful of artists (nine songs out of its 17 are by Ritmo Alegria) at the expense of so many others that could have been chosen. The rock disc is mostly about '50s and early '60s classics: Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti," Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue," the Champs' "Tequila," etc. A few of the tunes could arguably have gone into the soul category instead, but that's a nitpick -- it's a pretty solid disc of oldies as is. You can't go wrong with a funk playlist that features Funkadelic, the Meters, and Curtis Mayfield doing "Superfly," and the soul set goes beyond the obvious to include tracks by the likes of Betty Harris, Ann Sexton and Evelyn Thomas in addition to the usual suspects. Concentrating mostly on the post-'60s soul sound, this makes for the most unusual and desirable of the four discs in the set. ~ Jeff Tamarkin|