During Paul Justman's film documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, based on Al Slutsky's book of the same name about the session musicians who played on Motown recordings in Detroit from the late '50s to the early '70s, one of the interviewees is heard to comment that once those musicians, who dubbed themselves the Funk Brothers, finished cutting a backing track, it almost didn't matter who sang over it. It is no criticism of the singers who appear on this soundtrack album, which consists mainly of the new performances of Motown hits that punctuate the film, to say that the music heard here bears that observation out. The singers have been well chosen for the songs. Me'Shell NdegéOcello, for example, offers a contemporary gloss on Smokey Robinson's "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and channels Eddie Kendricks on the Temptations' "Cloud Nine," while Gerald Levert makes like Levi Stubbs on the Four Tops' "Reach out I'll Be There," Joan Osborne lives up to Martha Reeves on the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave," and Bootsy Collins brings humor and outrageousness to the Contours' "Do You Love Me" and the Capitols' "Cool Jerk." But the legend on the back of the disc, "Starring the Funk Brothers on all tracks" is well put. This is a cohesive group, not just some studio professionals. The band is mixed louder and much more clearly than they were in the 1960s, when their sound was compressed, toned down behind the vocalists, and presented (at least on the AM radios on which it was most frequently heard) in mono. While the Motown sound was the product of its singers, songwriters, arrangers, and producers as well as the musicians who played the instruments, their contribution has been undervalued, and this recording demonstrates that amply. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide