Chase The Best

For those looking to find a crash course in "the funk" – a quick introduction to the fusion of R&B, soul, jazz, blues, good old rock & roll, and all-out outrageousness that creates the ultimate good groove – you can't do much better than the Funk Essentials compilations. Funky Stuff: The Best of Funk Essentials is the perfect portrait. With its contents drawn from the single-band Funk Essentials compilation albums, this clean, clear set provides incredible diversity while keeping the vibe connected. In other words, Funky Stuff is not only an introduction to the heaviest of hitters, but also a nifty, smooth ride for the already initiated.

This particular Best of Motörhead release is a double-disc set on the Sanctuary subsidiary Metal-Is, and it's one of the very, very few Motörhead collections that tries to draw material from throughout the band's career. The compilers couldn't secure the rights to everything, and as such, there's nothing here from albums like 1916 or Bastards. But there are tracks from the later Overnight Sensation, Snake Bite Love, and We Are Motörhead albums, plus four bonus live tracks dating from various points in the group's career…

Chase Rice’s sixth studio album is not so much a reinvention as it is a reveal, as the Asheville-born singer-songwriter serves up 13 tracks that offer a deeper glimpse into his life and artistry than on any previous release. That newfound vulnerability is hard-earned for Rice, who confronted some personal demons during the pandemic. Accordingly, he tells Apple Music, he believes I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go to Hell</i> to be his best work yet. “I would put my stuff up against anybody now,” he says. “And if it’s not as good as theirs, then at least I know it was the best that I could do.”

This double-CD set is not only the best of Bill Chase's output but – comprising all three of their albums – virtually their complete finished studio work, before the plane crash that killed Chase and much of the group. The mastering on this Wounded Bird reissue is excellent, with a full solid bass sound topped by soaring highs on the brass and no compression to speak of. It's not as though this catalog has been overused, in terms of its master tape library – apart from the hit "Get It On" – but it's still good to know that the stuff has been well handled in terms of being digitalized.