Diehard James Brown fans stop here, you don’t need to know anything further about this CD. When any great dies, their back catalogue suddenly becomes a target for the money hungry hoping to capitalise on the increased popularity of the great, post-death. Sometimes there are good releases; unfortunately most are generally poor, leaving fans with a bitter taste in their mouth. Couch Records have just released a remix album of some of the Godfather of Soul’s greatest hits; introducing James Brown’s ‘Dynamite X’.

Opening up with a butchered version of ‘Sex Machine’ is likely to get any listener offside, except for those who like cheesy pop. Brown’s vocals are sped up and an overused artificial drum roll is painful at best. An extremely poor opening indeed. Better is dZihan & Kamien’s remix of ‘Give It Up Or Turnit Loose’, a nice gritty guitar line adds something interesting to the original instrumentation as do the electronic undertones. The basic formula for the remixes on this album are simple: 1. Take good vocals and sexy instrumentation, 2. Cut up and distort said vocals and instrumentation and rearrange, 3. Add some electronic beats, 4. Add some filters. Ta da! Bad remix. There are too few remixes that actually add something new to these tracks, which is understanding to an extent, given the quality of the original, a case of the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix its’.

Fantasista adds a bit of Latin feel to ‘Give It Up Or Turnit Loose’, using the sax solo to good effect. The ‘Listen To The Muro’ mix of ‘Funky Drummer’ wouldn’t be so bad, sans the tacky introduction: “Hi everybody today we will interview James Brown. How are you doing Mr Brown? Whooah….” You know the rest. Hearing James Brown with a squelchy electronic underlay is actually quite interesting in the Co-Fusion mix of ‘Soul Power’ but the bleeps just don’t have the punch of the Soul Generals. For me the highlight (comparatively), on this disc is the Cornelius rework of ‘Call Me Super Bad’, a nice stripped down version of a classic track with some sombre keys that eventually open right up into an explosion of horns.

This isn’t such a bad album but as mentioned anyone with any passion for James Brown will be disappointed if not insulted by the butchering of some of his greatest music. However, if you aren’t a huge fan or just dig a bit of funky music then you will probably enjoy this album, after all it is pretty hard to stuff up when you have such great material to work with.