Exemplary Contemporary (150 - K7)

Member Name: I Like Blue

Product:	150 - K7
Date:	24/01/05 (285 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent eclectic collection, Limited Edition, Honey

Disadvantages: Not for those stuck in one genre of music

Although I may cite The Stranglers as my favourite band I can assure you my music tastes are actually pretty wide and varied. The exception is Country & Western. Apologies to any fans of that genre reading this but I have never been able to warm to it. In particular I do like Dance music, well most dance music anyway. Techno, House, Trance or whatever you like to call it I like it. Nowadays it all seems to come under the general genre heading of Electronica.

That opening paragraph might seem like a bit of waffle but it does relate to the rest of this review, honest.

Whilst looking round the dance music section in my local HMV I chanced upon this album. Now, I was taking a chance here because although this album was in the dance section I wasn’t that familiar with either the songs or the label. I had heard of the !K7 label but not actually heard any songs by the artists.

I’m not going to bore you with the details about !K7 and what they are about; if after reading this review you want to know more then you can read about it at www.k7.com. Basically, though, !K7 promote music artists and groups who perhaps don’t get the recognition and airplay they deserve, and they promote music as an art rather than the need or desire to promote music to ‘fit’ commercially or, in particular, chart music, where, quite honestly, it all seems a bit bland and quite hard to distinguish one boy/girl group from another or one rapper from another.

If, like me, you like music with a bit of character and doesn’t just go through you without meaning or effort then !K7 150 is definitely worth a listen.

This is a compilation album and rather than give it a kind of meaningless title it was simply named 150, which represents the fact that the album is the 150th release by the !K7 label. Being a compilation album it isn’t quite a ’Best Of’ but more of a consolidation of !K7’s work bringing together music from the past, present and a kind of preview where !K7 are going.

I have to admit that initially what attracted me to this album in the first place was that the copies of the album on sale at HMV were in a limited edition grey felt case. After giving the album a ’test’ listen in-store I decided to buy it as the music intrigued me enough to part with the then price of £11.99.

The version of this album I own has 3 Discs. There are 2 music CD’s and a DVD. Again, like I said earlier, whilst this album, and the music of the !K7 label, is loosely attached to the Dance/Electronica genre !K7 150 contains an eclectic collection of music that covers Blues, Jazz, Soul and of course Dance.

Now, before continuing with the review I must tell you that I was considering writing a near track-by-track review but decided against it for a number of reasons. Whilst that style might suit single albums or albums by single artists I feel it would lose meaning on such an album as this, with many various artists, that, and if including the DVD there are over 40 tracks on this album to review! Instead I have opted for an overview of each disc or else the review would be unnecessarily long.

Disc One is what I tend to class as the more blues, jazz and soul of the two music discs. The majority of the 14 tracks are excellent although I have to admit I don’t always listen to all of them as some of them are what I’d call ‘mood’ songs and I have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to them. These songs include [6] Recloose’s ‘Can’t Take It’, [7] Vikter Duplaix’s ‘Sensuality’, [8] Spacek’s ‘Motion Control’ and [9] Herbert’s ‘Suddenly’.

The rest of disc one I can listen to anytime and to narrow that down further I do have some favourite tracks. These include [3] Nick Holder’s ‘Sometimes I’m Blue’, which, although slightly repetitive, is driven by a simple drum beat, double bass and piano and has that irresistible ‘foot-tapper’ element. Then there’s the slightly darker [4] Kruder & Dorfmeister’s ‘Black Baby’ followed by [5] A Guy Called Gerald’s ‘Humanity’. Although I mentioned it in the previous paragraph [9] Herbert’s ‘Suddenly’ is another favourite and I say that as I do listen to that song more than the others mentioned.

The last 3 songs on disc one are also favourites and they are [12] Earl Zinger’s excellent ‘Song 2Wo’, then there’s [13] Rae & Christian’s mix of ‘Wake Up Everybody’ which features Bobby Womack and finally [14] Shantel’s ‘Inside’.

Disc Two is more ‘dance’ themed although not in the same context as say current chart ‘dance’ music. Like Disc One there are 14 tracks and again there are only 1 or 2 I personally find weak and rarely listen to and they are [7] Princess Superstar’s ’Do It Like A Robot’ and [9] Funkerstorung’s ’Grammy Winners’.

Of the rest of the tracks my favourites include [3] Playgroup’s (DJ-Kicks Electroca$h Mix) excellent cover of Depeche Mode’s ’Behind The Wheel’, then there is [4] Tiga’s also excellent cover of Nelly’s ’Hot In Herre’, followed by [8] Swayzak’s ’I Dance Alone (Silicon Scally Mix)’ a pretty good dance track in its own right, next is [13] Peace Orchestra’s ’Double Drums’ and finally the excellent [14] Terranova’s ’No Peace’, which is probably one of my favourite tracks of the whole compilation, and strictly speaking not a ’dance’ track at all but more of a deliberately slow and melodic ballad.

The final disc of course is the DVD and here, yet again, are another 14, video, tracks, all previously unreleased. On start-up there is a song/video menu where you can watch tracks individually or you can select ’play all’.

8 of those 14 tracks are the video versions of the tracks on the music discs. The other 6 video tracks include the story based video of [2] Rae & Christian’s ’Get A Life’ brilliantly sung by Bobby Womack. Then there’s the very suggestive and ###### [3] Tosca’s ’Honey’, which um, yeah, good musically and like I said, very suggestive - near naked women dancing very slowly and deliberately, even provocatively, then someone tips a load of honey over them but the girls don’t seem to mind as they carry on dancing. Very nice. Next is another quite ###### track with [6] Peace Orchestra’s ’Shining’ then we have the excellent [8] A Guy Called Gerald’s ’Fever’, [11] Tosca’s ’Wonderful’ with the final video track being [14] The K&D Summer Sessions, which is a video showing highlights of Kruder & Dorfmeister’s tour in the USA in 2001, to music of course.

A very highly recommended collection of music and video. However if you are the type of person who is stuck in one genre of music then this probably isn’t for you. If you appreciate all kinds of music then this is a definite buy and similarly if you are looking to broaden your music tastes then this is for you. If your looking for something a little bit different and are bored with your current music collection then, again, you must give this a go.

There aren’t really any tracks on this collection that I don’t like and on the whole I was more than pleasantly surprised with my chance purchase. I bought this album back in November 2003 and listen to (and watch) it regularly. Of course dooyoo didn’t have it to review for ages until I suggested it and since it’s been added I’ve been meaning to submit a review but never got round to it. Now I’ve done so it is a relief to finally get this review down on cyber-paper.

What surprises me the most I suppose about this album is Bobby Womack. Now apart from knowing him as part of Womack & Womack all those years ago I’ve never really heard him sing or anything by him for that matter - until this album of course. Singing as a featured artist on the two Rae & Christian tracks he is really good especially on the video track ’Get A Life’. Each time I play that track, and I don’t mind saying it, his voice sends a shiver down my spine. I’ve never been a big listener of soul music but I think Bobby Womack has started to change my mind on that.

Now, I bought this at HMV for £11.99. Currently though Amazon are selling it for £10.99 but that’s only on import and it is only the 2 x CD version and not in the grey felt presentation box. When checking I did notice that somebody was selling the version I have through Amazon’s ‘collectable’ page for £25!

HMV online don’t even have it listed anymore whereas if you visit play.com they have the limited edition version, like mine, for a mere £10.49! I’m telling you it’s a tenner well spent and if you don’t like the album then you can come and pour honey all over me, um, not the blokes just the girls, okay?

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