Customer Reviews

Ultra 2008

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

 

 

There's definitely a nice mix of popular, electro house, and trance tunes on here, but the real treat is the amount of mixes that are hard-to-find on CD and are played out here in fairly long versions. Keep these kinds of releases coming Ultra! Track times and notes:

CD1

1. who knew...pink (7:42) (Basically the entire full length rockin' bimbo jones mix)
2. 4 in the morning (thin white duke mix)...gwen stefani (4:58) (You get almost 3 minutes more of this unreleased mix on Ultra Trance 7)
3. Wait for You (Jason Nevins mix)...Elliott Yamin (5:08) (5 minutes of the unreleased nevins mix of Yamin's R&B jam)
4. never again (dave aude mix)...Kelly clarkson (6:28) (THANK YOU Ultra for supporting kelly's latest release and giving us nearly the FULL remix by dave aude, who takes this hard rock track into dance punk territory)
5. stranger (jody den broeder mix)...hilary duff (4:37) (great commercial electro house mix that wasn't released commercially--which is why it should be longer than 4 and a half minutes)
6. in my arms (bimbo jones mix)...plumb (6:45) (nearly 7 minutes of bimbo jones remixing plumb. Electro pop perfection)
7. love today (moto blanco mix)...mika (6:04) (This is Mika at his most Scissor Sisters. This mix is VERY 1990s. Lots of piano. Not crazy about it)
8. calabria...enur (4:40) (What's with the 90s sounds? This has that deep house repetitive horn riff vibe. Nearly 5 minutes of it is more than enough)
9. Young Folks...Peter Bjorn and John (4:14) (Wow. This CD is suddenly all over the place. I feel like it's the 60s and I'm listening to Herman's Hermits of Paul Revere and the Raiders or something. But this Amy Winehouse vibe is getting big I guess. But I would NOT consider it dance music)
10. Again...Kim Leoni (5:07) (This song definitely comes to the rescue. Nice electro house vibe with catchy female vocals)
11. Do it Again...Chemical Brothers (5:45) (chemical brothers experimental electronica with a nice dance groove)
12. Love Is Gone...David Guetta (6:50) (David Guetta does what he does best--hard electro house with rockin' male vocals and super catchy chorus hook. This is pretty much the full length mix.)

CD2

1. Rise Up...Yves Larock (5:58) (personally, this rasta vocal house track is too light and uplifting for my tastes)
2. Heater...Samim (4:53) (horrible instrumental filler. I can't even describe how boring)
3. Guilty...De Souza (5:41) (this is a big disco house diva vocal anthem)
4. I Want Your Soul...Armand Van Helden (4:57) (The master of staying with the times delivers a modern house track with a retro 80s freestyle feel. Super catchy female vocals)
5. Sun Is Shining...Yanou (4:57) (Not sure we needed a new version of this rasta house song, but it's got some thumping beats)
6. This Time...DJ Antoine (5:12) (male vocal electro house stomper)
7. Not Enough...Roger Sanchez (5:11) (sanchez brings it with a slammin' female vocal track)
8. Bring the Noise...Public Enemy vs. Benny Benassi (5:54) (why does this song have to be on every dance compilation? Flava FLAV! (set to a dance beat))
9. Walking on the Moon...Delano & Crockett (4:01) (nice cover version of the Police classic. Great rasta vocals and electro house riff)
10. Break My Fall...Tiesto with BT (7:59) (gotta love this duo when they get together. Trance/electro fusion)
11. Anthem...Filo and Peri with Eric Lumiere (9:03) (mellow, trance feeling male vocal track. WOW, 9 minutes! Great cool down as we come to the close of the disc.)
12. Freefall...Jeckyll & Hyde (8:55) (Pretty euro trance instrumental. Nice way to end the disc.)

this is an excellent compilation cd you must have this one.this is some of ultras best work this cd starts out great and ends great. good for headphones

This product arrived in time and is a great CD to add to the collection!!

If you're a dance radio listener and want to pick up most of what you've heard in early '08, this collection will be a good start.

That being said, skip the MP3s if you listen to your music on anything more than small computer speakers. The tracks are definitely encoded at 256k, but you'd never notice if you compared them to a 96k or 128k file. Do yourself a favor - buy the CD and rip them yourself in iTunes, WinAMP, or any other encoder with better encoding options like VBR and a more aggressive method (Q=0). This is my first - and last - MP3 purchase at Amazon.

The compilation had a good dozen or so songs which are enjoyable to listen to, but some of the other fillers just took up space which other artists could fill. The remix of break my fall, wait for you, and freefall are my favorites. A good cd but there are other better Ultra Cds out

I like most of the disks from Ultra and this one is no exception. The only track I didn't like was the Public Enemy one. Even though I'm not going to run out and start bying music by Pink, Hilary Duff and Kelly Clarkson, I gotta admit their mixes on this disk are really good.

This CD is good Techno. No ifs ands or buts. This CD will make you nod your head. What more can you ask of dance music.

I purchased this download, but when I listened, I knew something was wrong. I got a refund because the "rip" seems to have been done at 64k. DO NOT DOWNLOAD. If anything, just purchase the CD. Like I said, good songs, bad rip. I hope Amazon fixes this!

I purchased the Amazon MP3 downloaded version of this CD and the sound quality is pretty bad. It doesn't sound much better than the highly compressed preview samples. Amazon claims 256K MP3 encoding, but I suspect the tracks on this CD have been re-encoded multiple times as they are loaded with compression artifacts. They sound like 64K.

I've heard a few tracks off the original CD and they sound much better than Amazon's MP3 version. The Ultra 2008 MP3 tracks have that tinny, shrill, "under water" sound to them.

I think there are still too many problems with Amazon's MP3 offering. Players report the MP3 encoder as "unknown" and I suspect it's something optimized for speed rather than sound quality.

Sadly, there's no way to know the sound quality of Amazon's MP3 offerings without buying them. And in this case you're forced to buy the entire CD which requires installing Amazon's MP3 Downloader--one more thing to clutter up your PC and potentially cause problems.

Amazon's MP3 offering would be great with higher quality encoding and if you could buy entire CD's without being forced to install their questionable software. As it is now, they have a ways to go before they'll get any more of my money for their MP3s.

The bottom line: Just because it says 256K doesn't mean it sounds good.

Though i do not own this cd, I am a dj an Im very familiar with all the songs on here. If you are looking for a cd that will satisfy you with what is up to date and hitting in Dance music then I recommend this cd. You have a little bit of everything here from Commercial House remixes of Top 40 songs to some Hard Hitting Club Anthems. This cd is definately worth the $$$, do not go for the download option.