Customer Reviews

Ultra Chilled 5

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

 

 

A big fan of the Ultra Chilled compilations since their stellar first effort, this latest incarnation is deeply disappointing. Not only does it feature old songs (The Postal Service? Nina Simone?), it includes music that was already used--"Angels" by Wax Poetic and Norah Jones (albeit in a SLIGHTLY different form)--on last year's Ultra.Chilled 04.

Ultra.Chilled used to be a great way to discover up-and-coming artists, or explore some lesser-known names in the genre. By including mainstream artists like Moby (and to some extent, The Postal Service), the series has become about as creative as the NOW compilations.

More importantly, the music collected here is poorly mixed, and just plain unenjoyable. These two discs are the very opposite of what they should be--easy listening. Not surprisingly, the strongest track is from Federico Aubele, who's signed to Eighteenth Street Lounge music, the label created and maintained by the geniuses behind Thievery Corporation. Instead of this album, I'd recommend anything on the ESL label, purveyor of some of the spiffiest and most polished chillout music around.

It does feature a somewhat different, more eclectic, variety of songs than featured previously on this series, but it works very well for me. Much like the "Back To Mine" series, this set shows that there is a lot of variety to what can be called chillout. And just like the previous volumes in this series and the "Back To Mine" albums, this one has been a big hit with my friends at cocktail parties.

I was absolutely thrilled with volumes 1-4 in this series. This was, stylistically, more jazzy than chill. It has been a couple years since they released a chill colection. I think that after the feedback they got on this one, they gave up. Nooooo- Just bring back the producers on 1-4!

I have all of the Ultra Chilled series and while I usually enjoy 80% of the music on those collections, with about half of that entering my permanent rotation, there were only three songs in this version that I could even sit through.

Those were the tracks done by Jon Hopkins, Bent, and Federico Aubele. The rest were not strictly chill, dreadful as music and some were depressing (a few tracks regarding death, including one where the singer is "waiting for suicide" or some such angst).

There is a bit of jazz, electronica, blues, dance and alternative music in Ultra Chilled 05, but little chill and nothing exemplary.

I just wanted to reiterate the other one stars... if you liked the first UCs, then you may be disappointed. The emphasis seems far less on electronica and more on an eclectic mix of low key music. Some of it isn't bad, but I feel like someone stuck a lot of remakes of old jazz songs into what had once been a compilation series of forward looking trance/electronica, etc.

As owner of Every single Chill/Lounge music CD I am aware of, this was the biggest dissapointment in a long time. Ultra Chill series 1-4 was outstanding. While Ultra Chill 05 is not a complete disaster, I could not find one song worthy of a 5/5 star rating. Quite a few 4 star songs and lots of 2-3 star songs. Some of the better songs were repeated on older Chill discs or present on other series of lounge discs. There is a lot of Jazz and Latin chill on these two discs, which I also like, but the Jazz/world/latin chill tracks here were repeats or nothing great.

I think the person that rated this 5 stars doesn't own a lot of lounge/chill and is probably a lot easier to please. I'm very dissapointed. Maybe this 'genre' is all dried up! :) Oh well...
I'm off to listen to "Chillout Seesions 8"... Hopefully it will be a lot better. I highly reccomend Chillout seesions by Ministry of Sound. Chillout sessions 1-7 are outstanding... Time to go listen to the new 8!

I love this series of CD's. My husband and I own every one thus far and no one disappoints. They tend to go into rotation more than any CD. The perfect background music for social gatherings too.

A very refreshing compilation of chillout tunes, though I could live without "Glorious" from Sa-Ra.

If you're a fan of chillout, I'd highly recommend this compilation.

I didn't like it. I own Ultra Chilled 01 and 02, and really dig them both...but this one really isn't my style at all - didn't like any of the sounds I heard.
Thought it would have been as good or better than 1 and 2, but it wasn't.