Give The People What They Want is certainly an appropriate title for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ upcoming release. After more than a decade of nearly constant recording, collaborating, and touring as one of the most formidable and consequential live acts performing today, they know what their audience wants from them.
They know, because it’s what they want, too.
This Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ je ne sais quoi – which has attracted everyone from Prince to Beck to John Legend to Michael Bublé, not to mention countless fans – is found both on stage and in the recording booth. In the three years since the last release, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings have played major festivals, arenas and clubs all over the world including The Hollywood Bowl, The Sydney Opera House and multiple sold-out nights at the Apollo Theater in New York City. The band has also been featured on multitudes of television shows from The Colbert Report to Tavis Smiley and The Tonight Show.
After two year of touring behind 2010’s lauded I Learned The Hard Way, the band reconvened at home in Bushwick’s Daptone House of Soul Studios to begin work on their fifth album.
The ten songs delivered here are seasoned with the unbridled soul you’ve come to expect, even need from the 11-piece band, yet there’s a freshness in the band’s performance and songwriting that gives the group’s fifth studio album a unique feel, unlike anything they have released to date. “Retreat!," a dark up-tempo mover whose ominous stomping and lush arrangement will demand your full attention, “We Get Along” a classic anthemic feel-good number, and "Stranger To My Happiness" a perfect example of the studio expertise that defines the band and their sound. The sharp danceable funk grooves stick to your bones, the fervent, impassioned singing goes straight to your heart; and those sweet soul hooks stay in your head for days on end. What more could anyone ask for?
Give the people what they want, indeed.
Track Listing
1. Retreat!
2. Stranger to My Happiness
3. We Get Along
4. You’ll Be Lonely
5. Now I See
6. Making Up and Breaking Up
7. Get Up and Get Out
8. Long Time, Wrong Time
9. People Don’t Get What They Deserve
10. Slow Down Love
