Ultimate Soul CD

If you call a compilation Ultimate Soul, it better deliver on that lofty promise. To be fair to the creators of this four-disc set, they've done a very good job in gathering together 68 tracks from the golden age of soul (think mid 1960s to the mid 1980s). Along the way, you'll find songs from almost every soul legend going - think Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Dione Warwick, Alexander O'Neal, Luther Vandross, Bill Withers and Shuggie Otis, for starters - as well as nods to key developments in the soul music story (the Motown sound, disco, boogie, electrofunk, '80s soul, and so on). Naturally, the majority of the selected tracks tend towards the well known, but there are a few curveballs, album tracks and alternative selections included to keep things interesting.