Album Review: Mark Ronson & The Business Intl Record Collection

Record Collection album cover. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 3/5
Verdict: Third album by producer to the stars does the business. Just.

Mark Ronson, the stylish, clever beat maker, whose last album was a blast of inspired and fun cover versions, has done away with the brassy and orchestrated soul on his third long-player and taken off into a more synthetic pop direction (with flourishes of British and American B-boy action too).

Once again he's kept it playful, with its incessant and cheeky arse-shaking beats, like those on opener Bang Bang Bang and the pastoral folk-meets-New York hip-hop of Lose It (In the End), featuring rabid raps from Wu-Tang's Ghostface Killah.

The problem is, tracks like The Bike Song (complete with cute bell-ringing) and Circuit Breaker (an extended instrumental interlude) are catchy and delightful, but gimmicky and verging on ad jingles. The latter pitter-patters, shuffles and strobes along like a sci-fi TV show theme until midway through when it flexes its sonic muscle and gets sinister for a solitary minute or so.

As usual there are guests galore - because this lad is hooked-up. While he made a name for himself with his own work, he was also the man behind the likes of Amy Winehouse's mega-selling album Back to Black, and songs by Lily Allen, Christina Aguilera, and Nas, among others.

Here the title track features an unusual yet impressive vocal team-up between Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon and grime star Wiley, and best of all is Boy George, who puts in a husky and particularly emotional appearance on Somebody to Love Me, which starts out aching before whipping up into the album's jaunty highlight. It's that song that sparks Record Collection's most memorable passage, which includes the cocky stroll of You Gave Me Nothing, and on to the flexing synth bop of Glass Mountain Trust, with D'Angelo sounding more like a member of TV On the Radio, or a wailing Prince, than the smooth soul man from his Brown Sugar days.

It's odd, sometimes Ronson's a jaw-dropping genius and all-round party starter, but sometimes his fidgety jiggery pokery is almost a little too cleverly constructed making it sound contrived.

So give Record Collection a spin before you decide whether to add it to your own personal record collection.

-TimeOut