Sam & Dave "Soul Men" [1967]

If you really want to listen to singers who incessantly tug on your coat to get your attention -- i.e. "Lookee here" -- you don't need to buy a record, you can just go to the party street of any bad neighborhood in America. You may get your wallet stolen, but you at least won't have to hear the chicken-grease tenor and hoarse baritone of Sam & Dave (their act ended sometime in the 80s, probably after watching the crap John Cusack flick "Tapeheads"). In fact, you wouldn't ever had heard of these guys had they not been among the stable of Atlantic Records wage slaves in the 60s, farmed out to the white boys at the Stax studio so they could figure out their songs for them. Basically, the music biz was a factory even back then, with Steve Cropper and his gang working the assembly line, putting pieces of Sam & Dave together and taking a cut of the action. The end result is the outright bastardization of gospel music combined with the appropriation of whatever Otis Redding did OK (all three things). The white people made a killing; Sam & Dave were forced back out onstage every night for decades in the same ugly jumpsuits. If you don't think there's anything wrong with this, then go ahead and buy all the Sam & Dave records. It's on your head now.