Various Artists - Back to Black: 1900-1999 (CD)

All Music Guide

Back To Black is an imposing achievement. A ten-disc box set that chronicles the history of black music in the 20th century, it spans one hundred years in 220 tracks, beginning with Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" and ending with DJ Luck's "A Little Bit Of Luck", touching on every conceivable style and artist between those two points. Moving from early blues, through jazz and big band swing, the birth of R B, the rock roll years, early classic soul, deep soul, Nu Wave soul, disco, Black Pop, early and late hip hop, to the edge of the current urban scene, this collection seems to simply have everything, from Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Count Basie, Muddy Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Nina Simone, Miles Davis to Public Enemy, D'Angelo and Arrested Development. Also included are forays into black gospel, Jamaican ska and reggae, Motown, Stax and Philly soul, and one is struck by the seemingly endless ways that polyrhythmic patterns and melismatic vocals can be reshuffled, reinvented and reapplied, always breaking fresh musical ground. It is impossible to imagine Western pop music without this stuff, and one wonders if there would even BE a Western pop music without these contributions.

- Steve Leggett , All Music Guide