VA - Mastercuts Breaks [3CD] (2005)

When Mastercuts' soul and funk comps kicked back into gear, in 2005, roughly a decade after the initial spate, the label tended to live up to its old standard. However, it also released a number of cheap and misleadingly presented sets. Mastercuts: Breaks falls into the rip-off category. Nothing indicates that several tracks on this three-disc set are wildly inferior re-recordings and live versions. In fact, only a few of the selections -- including Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman," Cloud One's "Disco Juice," and Minnie Riperton's "Les Fleur" -- come in the expected form. Rest assured, no producer will ever swipe the drum-machine stutters from the 1992 version of Roy Ayers' "Running Away." The same can be said of the plastic-sounding re-recording of Heatwave's "Boogie Nights."