Customer Reviews

Live 1

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This CD will "turn you out!" While not as realisticly "clubby" as Vol. 2, Vol. 1 has a an experience unto itself. What's that? --Well it's the adventure of going through shrieking and sexy jungles of drums and falling airliners. Each song spends a while in the trance room and at the end of the hall you find great celebs/artists like Cyndi Lauper, Annie Lennox, KD Lang, and Cher ready to pounce. Junior has the mindful ability to take the utterly "pop" sounds of a vocal artist and stir a macabre mixture that haunts the soul. The music he mixes becomes his own stringy, sultry, dark-eyed child, whether "pop" or otherwise. Cyndi Lauper's "Come on Home" is a painfully emmotional drum'n'bass concoction with horrific sounds that seem to hint to Brainbug's "Nightmare" one year later. Joi Cardwell's "Reap" is a good and yet chilling reminder of her live late-nite performances. Her relentless voice complements one of the strongest basslines I've ever heard --both of which makes this classic one of the best-- as the roots of "House" music are clearly heard. (You can lose yourself in this CD. It's great for the subway -people really wonder what's got into you).

This CD inaugurates a very useful formula that Junior replicates in later releases: the two-CD set that starts as primarily underground nonvocal tracks and ends with vocal anthems. Disk One does contain some vocals (such as "Wombo Lombo," a great song that very usefully builds on the energy left in the wake of the utter classic "Dream Drums"), and Disk Two does contain a fair amount of nonvocal gems (including the exquisite "Clear" by Sonny Campbell). But this set would be worth getting if for no more reason than to revisit the stylings of the late, great Vicki Sue Robinson on her anthem "House of Joy." The Annie Lennox track and Kama Sutra's "Storm in My Soul" are also excellent. Both CDs lose substance by the last track or two, but you will have gotten more than your nickel's worth by then.

Disc 1:
1. Intro
2. Kimana Tana - Lifeforce
3. Y.D.W. - S'n'S
4. Excess - X-Pact
5. Burning Up - Angel Moraes feat. Sally Cortes
6. Mr. Fantasy - Johnny Hanson
7. Check This Out - Cevin Fisher
8. Dream Drums - Lectroluv
9. Wombo Lombo - Angelique Kidjo
10. Wave Speech - Peter Lozonby
11. Come On Home - Cyndi Lauper

Disc 2:
1. Clear - Sonny Campbell
2. Live It Cool (Just Do It) - Lydia Rhodes
3. Phunkee Muzeek - Shazzam
4. House Of Joy - Vicki Sue Robinson
5. You Got To Pray - Joi Cardwell
6. Storm In My Soul - Kamasutra
7. No More I Love You's - Annie Lennox
8. If I Were You - K.D. Lang
9. Reap (What You Sow) - Vernessa Mitchell
10. One By One - Cher
11. Ab Fab (I Am Thin And Gorgeous) - Jennifer Saunders as "Edina" & Joanna Lumley as "Patsy"

This album was way ahead of its time in 1997 when I first started to listen to it (my friends would ask, what the heck are you listening to?)... Today, 10 years later, the sound is more relevant than ever. This is Junior at its finest and at its BEST!

Junior manages to put some predominantly instrumental tracks on disc 1 that keep the energy moving forward, but there are also some real boring ones. Wombo Lombo is a great female vocal in a hard to find Junior mix clocking in at more than 8 minutes! And Cyndi Lauper's Come on Home ends the disc in its junior mix. It's not one of her best. Disc 2 opens with boring repetition, but then moves into a streak of winners. Only complaint about Live it Cool is that I wish it were a longer cut of the track! And Phunkee Muzeek begins with the only worthy mix of the song, but junior chooses to segue into a weak mix of it half way through! House of Joy by Vicki Sue Robinson is reason enough to get this whole compilation, here in nearly its full length junior mix. And the slammin vocal mixes keep coming from there, straight through to the end, with a host of longer versions. Track times are:

CD1

1. intro (1:14)
2. Kimana tana (7:13)
3. YDW (5:42)
4. Excess (8:07)
5. Burning up (2:57)
6. Mr. fantasy (5:20)
7. Check this out (2:15)
8. Dream drums (7:55)
9. Wombo lombo (8:17)
10. Wave speech (6:05)
11. Come on home (7:23)

CD2

1. Clear (7:29)
2. Live it cool (6:16)
3. Phunkee muzeek (5:09)
4. House of joy (7:49)
5. You got to pray (6:07)
6. Storm in my soul (7:57)
7. No more I love you's (6:55)
8. If I were you (5:21)
9. reap (7:54)
10. One by one (8:06)
11. Ab fab (4:38)

This was a fun 2 CD set... it contains a lot of commercialized (read: sell-out) stuff that in my opinion is not his best stuff. But nonetheless, it is still a good (happy) compiliation.

This disk was a total dissappointment to me. I felt like I was at my local club with the same old dj. What was up with that Jr. The records just sounded like they were put on and just played all the way through without any mixing skills. I could even do that for a beginner. The tracks were slammin' but "WHAT I SAY WHAT" was that.

This is a very sad collection indeed! You get none of the spectacular mix work that Junior is known for,(and he is a GREAT D.J!) you get none of the fun funked up Tribal like songs he is known for spinning and gone are the drum heavy spicey mixes that send you into orbit. A once over gives you the impression that some dork of a record exec got his/her hands on it and required Junior to "broaden" the appeal..this one will have you searching for the Spice Girls on it as its the only thing missing. Save your money and wait it out for Junior.