Description
Charles Bradley – Victim Of Love – Compact Disc
Charles Bradley’s Victim of Love is his second studio album, released on April 2, 2013 by Daptone Records (via its soul imprint Dunham Records). It’s a record that matters because it captures Bradley’s story at full intensity: he didn’t release a debut album until his 60s, and by the time Victim of Love arrived he was suddenly touring hard and being treated as one of the great modern soul voices—someone who could channel the classic era without sounding like an imitation.
The sound is rooted in the Daptone approach—analog, band-in-a-room soul with tight horn charts, gritty guitars, and a rhythm section built for deep pocket rather than studio gloss. Most of the album was recorded with The Menahan Street Band, Daptone’s core house band, and it has that label’s signature feel: warm, present drums; bass that moves like a heartbeat; horns that punch and sigh; and mixes that leave room for a human voice to dominate. Compared to Bradley’s debut No Time for Dreaming, the second album often feels a little broader in arrangement and pacing—still raw, but with a slightly expanded emotional range.
The title track, “Victim of Love,” sets the tone immediately: heartbreak delivered with the force of a testimony, not a performance. That’s a key thing with Bradley—his singing is intensely physical, full of strain and release, and the record is built to showcase that without smoothing it out. Across the tracklist he moves between originals and carefully chosen covers, including a version of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” that’s notable because it’s not played as an “unexpected cover” gimmick; it’s treated like a soul standard, with Bradley pulling the lyric into his own lived-in emotional language.
The writing is heavy on classic soul themes—betrayal, endurance, devotion, loneliness—but Bradley’s biography gives those themes extra weight. Many listeners and reviewers connected to how the songs sound like they’re coming from someone who’s actually survived what he’s singing about, and Daptone’s production style reinforces that authenticity: you can hear the air move around the band, the grit in the horns, the slight imperfections that make it feel human rather than retro-stylized.
If you’re building a Charles Bradley shelf on CD, Victim of Love is a key piece because it shows him as more than a remarkable late-blooming story—it shows him as a fully realized album artist. It’s modern soul made with classic tools, but the appeal isn’t nostalgia; it’s the directness of the performances and the clarity of the songwriting, delivered by a vocalist who sounds like he means every word.
Brand new, never played and still in the factory plastic
Track Listing
Strictly Reserved For You
You Put The Flame On It
Let Love Stand A Chance
Victim Of Love
Love Bug Blues
Dusty Blue
Confusion
Where Do We Go From Here?
Crying In The Chapel
Hurricane
Through The Storm
