Bob Marley & the Wailers, Marvin Gaye, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Rick James, and James Brown

Bob Marley & the Wailers

Exodus -- Deluxe Edition (Island)

Marvin Gaye

Let's Get It On -- Deluxe Edition (Motown)

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

The Complete Duets (Motown)

Rick James

Street Songs -- Deluxe Edition (Motown)

James Brown

Live at the Apollo Volume II -- Deluxe Edition (Polydor) Universal's reissue arm is in full swing these days, stamping out a second batch of its "Deluxe Edition" 2-CD repackages, and like the first pressing, which included expanded versions of undisputed classic LPs Catch a Fire and What's Going On, Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye once again set the standard. The recording Time canonized as the best album of the 20th century, Exodus may not be the Wailers' ultimate musical accomplishment, but 1977's last word on liberation is the disc that more or less constitutes Legend, the hits compilation that continues introducing truth seekers by the tens of thousands to Marley's legacy each and every week 20 years after his death. With alternate, long, and version (aka instrumental) versions of songs tacked on, plus a 35-minute concert extract from the album's tour, Exodus isn't so much improved as it is elongated, and since Marley's catalog is much like the Beatles -- short, sweet, finite -- the extended groove is ever more pungent. Bulked up from its original 32 minutes to 147, the follow up to Marvin Gaye's career/artistic breakthrough What's Going On, 1973's Let's Get It On is in fact improved upon by almost two hours of added material. Whereas its incandescent predecessor burned with the passions of war while begging for peace, Let's Get It On blisters with lust and the soul-wrenching torment an abused preacher's son wrestled with in his sexuality. Painstakingly piecing together the work that led up to and flowed from Let's Get It On, its deluxe edition is an awe-inspiring testament to Gaye's delicate genius -- almost all of it previously unreleased. Just hearing the soul singer's honeyed voice on this impassioned material for two and a half hours is enough to make anyone succumb to original sin. While not part of the deluxe edition campaign, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, The Complete Duets, should be. Collecting the pair's three LPs together, this 2-CD set opens with the towering "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and doesn't come down for more than two hours. The two were never better than that first LP, United, follow up You're All I Need pieced together/overdubbed after Terrell was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor, but their last effort, Easy, much of it ghost-sung by Valerie Simpson (who along with soulmate Nicholas Ashford wrote the pair's best material) is precious nonetheless. Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby. Liner notes to Rick James' revamped 1981 breakthrough Street Songs would have you believe Motown's latter-day soul pimp bridged Marvin Gaye and Prince, but even the 77-minute live throwdown constituting the entirety of this deluxe edition's second disc won't dispell the knowledge that Mr. "Super Freak" was merely a flash in the hot pants. James Brown gives hot, bountiful booty on Live at the Apollo Volume II, and while not nearly as combustible as its seminal better half from '63, another 20 minutes of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" is always deluxe, never redux.

(Exodus)

(Let's Get It On)

(Complete Duets)

(Street Songs)

(Live at the Apollo Volume II)