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Chilled Soul Vol. 17: Old School Magic

Forty-four records from the seventies and eighties, sequenced by somebody who clearly knows which album track is better than the single.

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Chilled Soul Vol. 17: Old School Magic

This is the volume where the series turns backwards, and it is the best-curated set in the run. The reason is straightforward: almost none of these are the obvious choices. Where a lazy old-school playlist reaches for the ten records everyone owns, this one reaches past them to the album cuts and second singles, and the result is a set that sounds familiar without being predictable.

The temperature is consistent throughout — slow to mid-tempo, heavy on Philadelphia and Chicago, strings and Fender Rhodes everywhere — and it holds across forty-four tracks, which is not easy.

What to listen for

Michael Henderson's "Valentine Love" in the slow version opens the set, which is a statement of intent: Henderson was Stevie Wonder's bass player before he was a singer, and this is a connoisseur's opening track rather than a crowd-pleaser.

Keni Burke's "Risin' to the Top" is one of the most sampled basslines in hip-hop and one of the great grooves of 1982.

The Isley Brothers' "For the Love of You" is the centrepiece and arguably the finest thing they recorded — listen to how little the drums do.

David Ruffin's "Walk Away From Love" is the post-Temptations solo record that deserved to be much bigger, and The Dramatics' "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" is the Detroit entry.

Stevie Wonder's "All I Do" and "Rocket Love" are both from Hotter than July and both are better than that album's singles.

Gary Taylor's "Tease Me" is the deepest cut here by some distance — a songwriter's record from someone whose name almost nobody knows.

Teddy Pendergrass appears twice, and "Be Sure" rather than the obvious choice is the better of the two.

Bobbie Houston's "I Want to Make It with You" is a Bread cover, which is exactly the kind of left turn that makes this playlist work.

Go deeper

Keni Burke's You're the Best and Michael Henderson's Goin' Places are the two albums most listeners here will not own and should.

For the method, take any artist on this list and listen to the album the track came from rather than their greatest hits. The seventies was an album era in soul music too, and the compilations have flattened it badly.

Why the choices matter: almost every track here is the second or third song someone would name from the artist rather than the first, and that is the discipline that makes the set work. A playlist of the obvious records is a jukebox; a playlist of the better records from the same albums is an education.

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