Mayer Hawthorne — A Strange Arrangement

Legend has it Peanut Butter Wolf, head honcho of indie hip-hop label Stones Throw, didn't believe the tracks Andrew Cohen had created for his Mayer Hawthorne alter-ego were his own. He assumed Cohen had simply dug up some ultra-rare, and pretty damn amazing soul records and set them to some beats. After being proven otherwise, Wolf quickly signed the young Detroit musician.

It's not just that every song on Hawthorne's debut sounds like it could have come out of Motown or the Atlantic studios in the mid-'60s — that's been done before, to best effect on Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It — It's that they sound like they were smashes.

The breadth of styles and acts Hawthorne borrows from is even more astounding. "Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'" sounds like a lost Supremes hit, while other crooners cop Smokey And The Miracles in the best way possible.

If there's criticism to be made, it's in the concept itself. Retro throwbacks do nothing to help push the boundaries of music and art forward. But when it's done this well, sometimes it's hard to really care, though.