People's Choice - Golden Classics (CD)

All Music Guide

Golden Classics isn't so much a greatest-hits collection as it is a repackaging of People's Choice's first album for Philadelphia International, with a few B-sides thrown in for good measure. That album, 1975's Boogie Down U.S.A., recast the sometimes-gritty funk group in the Gamble Huff mold, featuring a four-on-the-floor pulse and an overall smoother production. Joined here by members of MFSB, it's not surprising that they sound like a tougher version of that group on their crossover pop and RB hit "Do It Any Way You Wanna." The studio gloss sometimes works against the gruff voice of Frankie Brunson, but ultimately prevails on instrumentals like "Boogie Down USA" and minimal vocal tracks with the lyric reduced to a basic chant, like "Party Is a Groovy Thing." Certainly the strongest album of People's Choice, and as such, the best place to start listening.

- Wade Kergan, All Music Guide