- Record Label: Daptone
- Release Date: Apr 6, 2010
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Their fourth album isn’t substantially different from their first three: Jones’s delivery, alternately muscular and tender, and the band’s total empathy with the genre’s rules elevate each tune to lost-classic status.
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I Learned the Hard Way, her fourth album with the Dap-Kings is pure joy, even when heartbreak sends her voice digging deep. This isn't just old-school; it is school.
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When the puttering “Better Things” opens with cocktail chatter and a snappy trumpet solo, I Learned The Hard Way brings back the days of working-class pop stars in three-piece suits, crafting songs so catchy that they had to be allowed into the club.
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It suits them well that as musicians that have worked their entire career just to get noticed; for their newest album, I Learned the Hard Way, to be a beautiful representation of what real, honest and true soul music really is.
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What pushes I Learned the Hard Way towards being something truly brilliant as opposed to just very, very good is how well it works as a cohesive, well-rounded whole.
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Jones' voice is an instrument shaped by age, not youth, and Hard Way proves she's just hitting her stride.
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I Learned the Hard Way (Daptone) is a master class in soul singing, songwriting and arranging.
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Jones and the Dap-Kings make the kind of music that moves them, and their feverish passion is contagious.
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Jones deserves special credit for treating her subject matter consistently and with an even hand throughout I Learned The Hard Way. She can express both hurt and her trademark, take-no-shit defiance.
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I Learned the Hard Way is yet another work of impeccable late-’60s nostalgia by the flagship act of Brooklyn label Daptone, where soul revivalism is a way of life, from crack horn section to period recording tools to throwback art and typography.
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As usual, Jones’s powerful voice box hogs the spotlight, but the simple, strong arrangements do a lot of heavy lifting.
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It all comes together to make an album that stands up as a varied and well-sequenced work, and as a collection of songs you can scatter through a shuffle and dig just as deeply.
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I Learned the Hard Way is her fourth album with the Dap-Kings, and to say that it does nothing differently from its predecessors is essentially, among Daptone believers, high praise.
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Hard way or not, Jones and the Dap-Kings clearly have learned over their previous three records. And those lessons they’re passing on here--though they may hold back a touch on their usual soulful punch--are lasting ones.
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For the few of you who have not already been won over, I Learned The Hard Way will make you a convert. For everyone else, the album excitingly perpetuates Jones' reputation as one of soul's all-time greats.
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All this would be surface charm if the group didn’t deliver songs, and they do--songs that swagger and stir the soul, fitting within tradition without being beholden to it, songs that prove that Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings are the real deal.
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First lady of Daptone Records Sharon Jones is back with her fourth album, I Learned the Hard Way, swaggering though 12 tracks of classic R&B like the ass-kicking, name-taking mother figure you've always wanted.
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Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are back with their fourth album I Learned the Hard Way. It’s another authentic, heart-felt album filled with heartache and daily struggles.
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I Learned the Hard Way is the sound of a revival band revived, stepping out of the shadows of its idols while remaining true to the essence of its form.
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This fourth album shows Sharon and The Dap Kings at their most polished, funky and soulful. Mrs Jones sure has got a thing goin' on.
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MojoThe palette-widening Northern urban soul colours supplied by The Dap Kings' equally convincing playing and arrangements are evry bit as key to their fourth album's sucess....Never unnecessarily flash, Jones is in tremendous voice from start to finish. [Jun 2010, p.102]
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The Dap-Kings' most complete album closes with the stripped-down gospel thump of "Mama Don't Like My Man," a far cry from the rough funk of 2002 debut Dap Dippin' and a move that proves Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings have learned a thing or two since then. The hard way, naturally.
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The added vocalists flesh out the simple bed of guitar and handclaps on the crestfallen "Mama Don't Like My Man," and play her pragmatic foils on "Money," barking, "Whatcha gonna do?" while she pleads in a Tina Turner rasp for the green stuff to stick around.
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In honesty, a whole album of perfectly-executed retro soul can be a little wearing, but the craftsmanship carries it through, and the sheer joy of hearing a band go against the grain in the way that this band do, makes I Learned the Hard Way fully deserving of your time.
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"I Learned the Hard Way" finds an eminent R&B band playing within its comfort zone and Jones continuing to distinguish herself as a multilayered frontwoman.
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Even if the album is stagnant from an artistic point of view, Jones and the DAP-Kings really do their damnedest to make it seem fresh.
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Sharon Jones sings with force and feeling, but there's only so much she can do to breathe life into music so in thrall to the past. Call the Dap-Kings a band if you want--they're really connoisseurs.
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Recorded on 60s equipment, there are funky licks, handclaps, "funky drummer" beats and songs that describe the "game of love" and even "hurting so bad". It's almost comically textbook at times, but made with love.
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UncutFor all the effective arrangements, most of the songs sound a bit anonymous. [Jun 2010, p.92]
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Q MagazineIt's good, but then again no better than a genuine, crackly, long-forgotten B-side or buried album track that a specialist reissue label might have unearthed. And there, ultimately is the rub. [Jun 2010, p.127]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 13
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Mixed: 0 out of 13
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Negative: 1 out of 13
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Nov 22, 2011
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uptonk.Apr 12, 2010Perfect. Seasoned and knowing. Just an incredible disc from beginning to end. Sharon is simply the best.
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VincentD.Apr 7, 2010Soulful, beautiful, even breathtaking - this album delivers on all fronts. A triumph in what it achieves in the genre.