The record in context

In 1999, at fifty-nine, Tom Jones released Reload, an album of duets and collaborations with a younger generation — the Cardigans, Robbie Williams, Portishead, Stereophonics, and the German DJ-producer Mousse T. The album went to number one in Britain and sold millions worldwide. Its biggest single, “Sex Bomb,” written and produced with Mousse T, was released in early 2000 and reached number three in the UK. A man who had his first hit in 1965 was suddenly all over the dance charts, thirty-five years later.

The achievement is worth stating plainly: very few singers manage even one reinvention, let alone three. Jones had already survived the 1980s with “Kiss”; now he was surviving the dance era by out-singing it. “Sex Bomb” is not a novelty record and not a nostalgia trip. It is a contemporary club track that happens to feature one of the great voices of the century — and the voice, remarkably, sounds completely at home.

Listen closely

Start with the groove: a sleek, late-1990s dance production, all crisp beats and slinky bass, the kind of track built for clubs at 2 a.m. Now listen to what Jones does over it. He does not soften his delivery or play it cool; he sings it like a Tom Jones record, full chest voice, total commitment. Listen to the chorus — the title phrase delivered with absolute, unironic gusto. The joke, if there is one, is on anyone who thought a fifty-nine-year-old crooner had no business on a dance record. He is not guesting on Mousse T’s track; he is taking it over.

Now listen for the details that make it work as a collaboration rather than a collision. Mousse T’s production leaves room — the verses are relatively sparse, the beats crisp rather than overwhelming — and Jones fills that room the way he has always filled rooms: with personality. Listen to the little ad-libs and asides scattered through the track, the spoken interjections, the laugh in the delivery. He is playing a character — the incorrigible charmer of “What’s New Pussycat?” grown older but not one degree cooler — and the character fits the track perfectly.

Finally, consider what this record proved. “Sex Bomb” showed that the Jones voice was not tied to any arrangement, any era, any genre. Brass bands, Bond orchestras, synth-pop, club beats — the instrument works everywhere because the instrument is the personality. Thirty-five years after “It’s Not Unusual,” the same trick still worked: put the voice in front of anything, and the voice wins.