- Record Label: Columbia
- Release Date: Sep 28, 2010
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Record Collection is more than just an homage to style: The writing is diverse and thoughtful, and the contributors are used in such a way that they're allowed to show off without showing up the songs.
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On Record Collection, Mark Ronson again recruits a motley crew of vocalists, including R&B recluse D'Angelo.
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The ultimate irony and triumph of Record Collection, is that on an album all about how Ronson's own obsessive music tastes have defined his life, we finally hear him step away from the turntable and produce one of the best albums of his career.
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MojoThere's no desperation here, just the sound of a fortunate man having a huge amount of fun. [Oct 2010, p.95]
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The highlights here are too many to mention. With Record Collection, Ronson proves that he can succeed without gimmicks. And in doing so, he reaches newfound heights.
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Wisely, the album flows like a mixtape rather than a stab at artistic self-definition, with Brooklyn funk band the Dap Kings laying down a unifying groove and Ronson's love of vintage '80s synthesizers providing a stylistic through line.
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It could be a messy grab bag, but Record Collection hangs together as an album. Ronson is the rare DJ-producer who is as fluent with melodies as he is with beats.
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Record Collection is an accomplished piece of work, but you have to wonder whether Ronson'd be able to achieve something of a similar magnitude and quality if he was left alone in a recording studio; no guests, no help, no connections.
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And so paranoia produces, if not a great album, a respectable transition from love-him-or-hate-him brass-toting berk into a genuine, bonafide pop maverick.
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The problem with having so many different voices writing and performing is that Record Collection sounds like just that – a lot of different things plonked on a shelf that have their time and place but sound distractingly disparate when grouped together.
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As on Ronson's last album, Record Collection is sometimes bogged down by interesting but ultimately pointless brief instrumental interludes. But like anyone's record collection, Record Collection has more hits than misses. It's future pop with a foot firmly in the past.
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Ronson's strength has always been in surrounding himself with like-minded artists, both burgeoning and established, and that's largely true on Record Collection, a typically ambitious if uneven effort.
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Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Ronson can certainly put an album together.
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Three albums in, it's hard to imagine a Mark Ronson album not brimming over with a crowd-pleasing, inter-genre collection of guest stars.
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Q MagazineYou could forgive the incoherence if every song punched its weight, but too often design-by-committee dilutes rather than enhances individual strengths, producing generic electro-pop filler. [Oct 2010, p.106]
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Ronson approaches pop almost like a hip-hop producer. He's assembled a cavalcade of guest collaborators too numerous to name, but for the most part his focus keeps Record Collection from feeling overcooked.
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While that title may suggest a navel-gazing bedroom-auteur beatshop, Record Collection proves a surprisingly gregarious album, varying up the sounds and styles and making better use of cameos by his famous friends.
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Evidently it's his source material that defines him, and this time it's disappointingly weak.
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UncutElastic raps from Q-Tip and Spank Rock, plus some ballsy vocals at last from Rose Elinir Dougall, save the venture from total ignominy. [Oct 2010, p.105]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 11
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Mixed: 2 out of 11
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Negative: 1 out of 11
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Jul 29, 2011