the changing times

When I first started digging (read: buying sampled records) almost ten years ago, I was pretty diehard about getting original versions. I rarely purchased bootlegs or second pressings. Even to this day, I have only two reissued records on my shelf ("Coffy" and "Pass the Peas," if you were curious). Even buying reissues on CD was out of the question; it had to be vinyl.

Over the last few years, I've gotten pretty laxed about my buying methods, particularly in regards to buying CDs. I'll throw a few dollars to cop a mix-CD of breaks or a reissue.

Specifically in the last 10 months, I've found that the Daptone imprint has been putting out some pretty rare and very good reissues. There have been some that weren't very good, and maybe were put out in the hopes that soul nerds such as yours truly would buy them on name brand recognition, but, for the most part, Daptone has been pretty consistant with their releases.

It's sort of mind-boggling to accept this fact; after all, Daptone is the same label that has released albums by the hipster Aretha Franklin, Sharon Jones (who is a quite good singer, but whose fans are questionable at best). In turn, Jones' popularity has ushered in people like Jamie Lidell, whose whiteboy Stevie Wonder act is more akin to Jamiroquai than Issac Hayes -- plastic and absolutely dreadful.

Still, I will probably continue to throw wads of cash towards Daptone since they'll no doubt keep putting out ridiculously great albums such as "Soul Explosion" by The Daktaris and avoid shameless reissues (i.e. Victory Records).