The Sharon Jones survivor story is well-known to her loving fans: Jones beat pancreatic cancer in 2013 and circumvented the music industry more than a dozen years earlier. She’s never been short on insight or frankness when confronting those matters, as seen at the 2014 EMP Pop Conference keynote panel and her recent appearance on Billboard's Soul Sisters podcast. The documentary Miss Sharon Jones!, directed by two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA; American Dream), is an unflinching verite account of both those fights. It’s a must-see for fans, but also an insightful intro for neophytes who’ve only heard the Dap-Kings on Amy Winehouse records.

So what do those neophytes get when they pick up the soundtrack? It’s odd to categorize the release outside the context of the film itself. This isn’t quite a Greatest Hits, and if it were, there’d be plenty of omissions worth griping about: no “Stranded in Your Love,” no cover of “This Land Is Your Land,” no appearance of the debut Daptone single “Got a Thing on My Mind” or anything else from her name-making 2002 debut Dap-Dippin’ With...? But burdening the album with those kinds of gripes is mostly a matter of unfair expectations. A bigger question is why the Miss Sharon Jones! soundtrack doesn't take advantage any of the live performances that appear in the film. With a reputation earned in part due to her F-5 tornado stage presence, that’s a big letdown.

But it’s damn near impossible to put together even a mediocre Sharon Jones compilation, and the soundtrack looks at her career from a unique angle. As a kiss-off to a no-good man retrofitted to her defiant stand against her disease, “Retreat!” belongs at the top of the tracklist. It’s become an anthem that embodies what she and the Dap-Kings do in the face of turmoil—and may very well be, after all this time, her signature song. The film also seems to posit 2007’s 100 Days, 100 Nights as Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ signature album, with five of its 10 songs (including the Motown-inflected “Tell Me,” the Etta James-ian soul-blues of “Let Them Knock,” and the slinky title cut) making up nearly a third of this soundtrack. And cuts from succeeding albums I Learned the Hard Way and Give the People What They Want round things out, making Miss Sharon Jones! more of a synopsis of her and her band’s last 10 years than the deeper examination fans might hope for.

Yet despite the tunnel-vision tracklist that relies too much on the movie’s narrative, there are a couple surprise gems lurking in this collection. “Longer & Stronger,” lifted from another soundtrack (2010’s For Colored Girls), is a Southern soul ballad that reveals Jones’ resilience against the bullshit, even before she faced her health issues. Hearing her testify that “Longer and stronger, that’s how I live/The more I get, the more I got to give” is all the evidence you need. And the closer “I’m Still Here,” newly recorded for the soundtrack, is the autobiographical soul of the album that ties in her upbringing, her struggles, and her perseverance into the force she’s become today. Naturally, its brassy arrangement and Jones’ enduring voice make for one of the most vibrant and energizing tracks on the album, and maybe the group’s entire catalog. It’s a vital primer for those who haven’t familiarized themselves with Sharon Jones, and a reaffirming bolt of lightning for the fans who have.