Having eagerly pinned it down at Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange, the opening track alone made this LP worth my investment. For any who have yet to encounter Outstanding by the Gap Band (otherwise known for their magnum opus Oops Upside Your Head, and whose lead vox Charlie Wilson can be appreciated in Kanye’s Bound 2), be forewarned that its riff will circulate your subconscious on that endless conveyor belt usually reserved for the Call Me Maybe du jour. Fortunately, this offering comes guilt-free for any stalwart of funk and soul music, and has since been sampled by Biggie, Ashanti and Ice Cube among others. It fits into a 9-track compilation from British record label StreetSounds, purveyor of urban club and dance music for a mighty six years between 1982-8. Its impressive output featured staples of the 80s scene, from Luther Vandross to Cheryl Lynn, Janet Jackson to Zapp. As for Edition 3, gems that surface under the needle include Richard Jon Smith’s Baby’s Got Another, Kashif’s I Just Gotta Have You and the B-Side finale Steve Arrington’s You Meet my Approval. Yet the real triumph of the StreetSounds compilation series lay in its knack for collating tracks that, in a pre-playlist epoch, transition as seamlessly as a concept album; you’ll be hard-pressed to leave before the full duration is over.
