Gold

Title and artwork aside, Gold is the same exact release as 2002's Anthology, from the track listing on down to the chart-placement statistics and Amy Linden's liner notes. If you are absolutely convinced that a one-disc compilation containing Cameo's best-known songs is all you need, so be it, but you'll be missing out on a very deep catalog that can't even be contained by this twice-as-long overview. The common misconception with Cameo is that their mid-'80s pop hits adequately represent what they were about, despite the band's stockpiling of nine good-to-phenomenal funk albums before the mainstream found out about them. It hasn't helped that most of those albums have not been as readily available as, say, Funkadelic's back catalog. (A uniform overhaul of this band's discography is long overdue.) Until then, compilations like this one will have to do the job. And it does do the job admirably, given its space limitation. The heavy emphasis on the singles means that most casual funk fans will get exactly what they want, but there are several album cuts waiting to be heard by unexpecting ears. ~ Andy Kellman