This is another no-frills Goldmine release, but this time the company upped the ante; while Goldmine c.d.’s usually contain mostly rare 7” singles, 45 Phobia consists entirely of outtakes and a few album cuts. The vocal tracks are all competent vintage soul with a few terrific highlights, including Sharon Soul's "Girl Crazy" and Tommy Knight's credible Levi Stubbs style delivery on the lo-fi sounding, but still exciting "Don't Bring Back The Memories". Johnny Sayles' upbeat love song "I'm Satisfied" is another high point on 45 Phobia.
Since this collection comes from surviving studio tapes, there are a few instrumentals on here, like the sublime “Satisfy Me Baby” and the spare “Say It Isn’t So” credited to the Popcorn Orchestra, which presumably refers to whomever producer “Popcorn” Wylie had hired for the recording session.
Another factor that makes this a more interesting soul compilation is the inclusion of a few oddities that have some peculiar element, like the violin on Robert Knight's "Branded" and the high school marching band motif of The Charades' You Better Believe It.
Once again, this disc is lean on running time (50 minutes) but it contains so many rarities that serious soul fans should still keep an eye out for 45 Phobia.
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