Bit of Trance, it's bangin' innit. For the perfect driving tunes, my choice is Trance House music. It goes great with fast paced driving, within the limits of course officer!! It's great to play before a night out on the town too !!
I'll be reviewing all the new music cd's I listen to, so watch this space!!
EUPHORIA: VERY BEST OF
When it was announced that Euphoria would return in the form of a 3CD limited edition album, like every other Euphoria fan out there, I was ecstatic. There was no Ibiza Euphoria this summer and the last 'proper' Euphoria was released way back in November 2002. Obviously there was a lot of hype going around, especially looking at the track listings, but was it worth the wait?
The first CD starts off with Olive - You're Not Alone, a great choice to kick things off. That's followed by a top remix of Delerium's After All, another superb tune to get the blood flowing. Soon after comes Solex and Close To The Edge, a fantastic track by Michael Woods, and is one of my favourite songs of the year. Next up, Plummet, Damaged, and no introduction needed here. Skipping a few tracks and we hit the club remix of Divine Inspiration - The Way, Jurgen Vries & CMC - The Opera Song and DT8 - Destination, all of which form a great threesome in the middle of CD1. If you like your hard trance then they don't come much bigger than Michael Woods' remix of Lost Tribe - Gamemaster, one of the biggest tunes of the year in club world (just as it was in 1997 and 1999). That man Woods pops up again with a mix of Ian van Dahl's Try, and near the end is Oxygen with Am I On Your Mind.
Disc number two then, and we enter funky house type of music. The club mix of Tomcraft - Loneliness is excellent stuff, and Benni Benassi features with the original mix of Satisfaction. We then come across a golden oldie; Kira with I'll Be Your Angel, which has been remixed by Minimalistic. Matt Darey returns to action with Moody, a great song from him, and is followed by the spine-tingling vocals of Poloriod - So Damn Beautiful. Marcella Woods teams up with Darey for Voice Of An Angel, a top track not to be missed. Then there's Minimalistic and Magic Fly, remixed by PPK, and the CD is finished off with Darren Tate (Prayer For God) and Paul van Dyk (Nothing But You).
The highlights of CD3 include Oakenfold's superb Hypnotised, Mandrake's Universal Soul, Mr Darey with Nocturnal Light, and a vocal mix of Ian van Dahl - I Can't Let You Go. There's also a remake by Mandrake of Robert Mile's legendary Children, and not to go unnoticed, Divine Inspiration's remix of Just Be Dub To Me by Revelation.
Overall it's a really good compilation; CD2 is a little different than the usual Euphoria discs, but very good nonetheless. CD1 is probably my favourite though, and is packed full of top trance tunes from the past year. How does it compare with the other Euphoria CDs? While it might not be the best one ever, it's certainly up there with the greats, and is without a doubt the best Euphoria to come out in the last couple of years.
As the title says, this is another hit-and-miss offering from the Clubmix stable. One CD contains house/housey pop, and the other has cheesy trance, so you can probably tell that my favourite is the former! The problem is that from track 14 onwards, the house CD veers into dodgy trance, and it doesn't fit in with the overall feel of the mix. Personally, I preferred what they did with Clubmixes 2002, Ibiza (2002) and Summer 2003: one CD was fully dedicated to house and the other to trance. Instead, we have an awkward mis-match of styles which spoils it. Indeed, when it was like this, the house CD was often better than the equivalent Ministry offering (21st Century Disco).
Anyway, the first half of CD1 has the usual mix of decent pop remixes, pop-house and a few less-known records, complete with the silky smooth mixing which is a hallmark of the series. But then it all goes downhill, with tracks that would fit in better on CD2. I won't even comment on CD2, as it really isn't worth it!! Suffice to say, on previous Clubmix albums, the trance was less commercial than it is on this one, possibly due to the involvement of the All Around The World label (hence why the likes of Ultrabeat and Flip & Fill are on here).
All in all, if you like the sort of music which is dominant on CD1, I urge you to get this, as it is good stuff. And no-one can force you to listen to the 'trance for kiddies' which makes up the rest of the album (unless you like that sort of thing, heaven forbid...)
EUPHORIA: VERY BEST OF
