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49 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Disc 1 -Melodic Trance; Disc 2 - The REAL Politics of Dancing!, September 22, 2005
Those of you looking for an experience similar to Politics of Dancing 1 will be scratching your heads after popping in Disc 1 of this 2 disc set. It's slower, melodic trance, and nothing like POD1. Track 1 is a very bland track, and to tell you the truth, so are 2, 3, & 4. Things don't pick up until track 5, and things really get going with the stunning vocal track Burn on track 6, however it runs a bit too short for my liking (actually only 4 songs on here go longer than 5 minutes). Things get real boring again with the not so hot track Alone. Luckily, 2 scorchers are up next with Lolo's Why and Purple Haze's Adrenalin. The rest of the disc features some decent tracks, but there were 2 vocal tracks I did not care for at all: Filo & Peri's Closer Now, and White Room's Someday. They really don't sound good.
Even though it doesn't say so in the liner notes, I am pretty sure that PVD had a hand in re-editing just about every track on here, just like Politics 1, because nothing is listed as a remix version, yet most tracks vary from their original form. Most of the tracks are fine, including his twist on Adrenalin, which is great in any form, however there are a few duds, and on disc 1, he destroys an otherwise classic bit of melodic vocal trance: The Unknown by White Water featuring Melinda Gareh. The original is pure bliss with a incredible melody that glides through and carries the vocals, but by changing that, he made it into a very dull track.
Disc 2 brings us back into familiar dance floor friendly territory and heralds back memories of Politics 1. It's a high energy trance pace that never lets us, and the beats are non-stop. It saves this 2 disc set, as you can tell so far that I am not very high on disc 1.
I do have 2 gripes about disc 2. The first is that I got the Other Side CD single a prior to this coming out, and I was blown away by both the original version, and the even better Martin Roth remix. What I didn't care for was the guitar riff in the track, and luckily, it is only in the track for a quick few seconds. This is one reason why I didn't care for the radio edit, because it starts with the guitars. Well, PVD has re-edited the original and made is start with the guitars, ughhh! The trancey start of the original version would have started this disc off much better.
My other gripe about this disc is 2 tracks he really did not re-edit well. Mark Norman's T34 is not so bad, but he still lost some of the impact of the super fast original by slowing it down a tad. The real horror was when I heard Marco V's More Than a Life Away -- OMG he butchered it bad!!!!!!!!!! The original is THE hottest trance vocal track of the summer, and it's a crazy, blazing fast techo speed trip, with even trippier vocals. Well, he slowed down the speed of the vocals, and the entire track, and made it sound like crap!!! I couldn't believe it! Unfortunately, most of you may be hearing this track for the first time, and think this is how it shoud sound, as it's appeared on a bunch of other mixes already released in Europe but not here yet (like Ferry Corsten's Creamfields and Cosmic Gate's Back 2 Back Volume 2). I urge you to wait to hear it elsewhere, because this is not how this truly incredible tracks should be heard.
With that aside, Disc 2 is still a screaming ride of relentless high energy trance, and is a full of the neverending dance floor beats that made the first Politics so special. Have no fear if you thought disc 1 was different, because it's Paul back in true form here (except for his unforgivable butchering of More Than a Life Away).
Overall, I give the first disc 3 stars and the second disc 4 stars, averaging up to 4 stars. It's a good thing he re-edited everything here to freshen things up, because when I first checked out the tracklisting, I saw no less than 12 tracks I already had from other mixes released this year. It's all good except for the bad reworking of the 3 tracks I mentioned, and a little let down on disc 1 with some boring tracks. Disc 2 is really the stand out. Still definitely worth picking up.
If you want some even better trance mixes released this year:
Cosmic Gate - Back 2 Back Vol. 2
Art of Trance - Tales of the Unexpected (note: disc 1 is prog. house)
Ferry Corsten - Creamfields (note disc 1 is electro house)
Kyau vs. Albert/Talla 2XLC - Technoclub Next 2
George Acosta - The Lost World
Markus Schulz - Miami '05
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PVD Trance 2CD sets means 2CDs! TPOD2 is massive., October 29, 2005
Got your Armin van Buuren - State of Trance 2004 and 2005? Well done, you know how the third renaissance is the best yet. Got your Paul Oakenfold - Creamfields? Great stuff. What about Mark Shulz - Miami '05? Now you're getting into the 2005 collection. The State of Trance mixes happen to be some of the greatest trance ever. Oakenfold cooks up some whipping beats also and Mark Shulz launches himself into the same category as these top artists... so what about the daddy? How does his "The Politics of Dancing 2" (TPOD2) make it? Well the best thing about a PVD dual disc release is that PVD ensures that his Disc 2 is as good as Disc 1. This is really what PVD does best. Disc 2 is never an experimental. It is a fully fledged trance album and usually as good as Disc 1 if not better. PVD follows in the path of Carl Cox's techno layout of a Disc 1 build-up and a Disc 2 up and up, doing the same with his great trance compilations and TPOD2 is no different. Paul Oakenfold can deliver on a CD2 whereas Van Buuren and Shulz tend to experiment there. With that said and done Van Buuren has the best CD of any of them, and a nod from PVD can be detected here in remixes of what Van Buuren has covered.
The Politics of Dancing 2 is a fully fledged album, not a sequel. It is PVD putting himself back in the competition again (as if he was ever out of it; instead waiting until after the summer to release his pulsations) by mixing faster and bigger beats, lots of bass, bass, bass, with CD1 containing 17 mixes and CD2 showing off 14, for a grand total of 31 tracks! That is about 1/3 more than any of the other top artists offer even though the running times are roughly the same. Still it is about the mixing and PVD does it oh so well. There is a summer feel to most of the club house hits, upbeat, maybe even a little pop at times, lots of melody with the third renaissance reducing its use of vocals to find its grass roots in trance as electronica, here TPOD2 keeps those vocals appropriately minimal except where they work (as it is supposed to be) to infuse what is as progressive as anything anyone is doing right now. It is art, nothing less, although some might perceive first interpretations as experimental, it is just a matter of your ears getting used to what is going on (trance!) and is well worth training yourself into. Albums like these are made for long distance iPod intercity treks. Best tracks include "Translantic", "Dream On", especially "Burn", "Adrenlin", "Closer Now"... you know when you start quoting half the album as the best tracks that you got a winner. TPOD2 is a must have for any trance collection. 2004/2005 happens to offer the best trance ever. The third renaissance is peaking right now. PVD does it again. TPOD2 is a must own. Album cover art is very nice. Disc 2 contains some PC multimedia. Enjoy.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hear me out first, May 26, 2006
I can't mix to save my life but the one thing I have which, depending on the person's perspective could be a gift or a curse, is an uncanny ear for music. I don't need a review to tell me a review or a rating from Rollingstone or yahoo or a friend's endorsement to tell me when music is good or not. I am the kind of person that can hear six seconds of a song and regardless of its genre spend years feverishly looking for the artist. (And I eventually find them because I am that tenacious). It was Oakie's epochal tranceport that got me hooked on trance in the first place. Sasha and Digweed's initial mixes followed. Involver was my eye opener and I felt Oakie returned to glory from the despicable commercialism of pop with Creamfields.
Now I have been a loyal PVD fan since his official debut album seven ways and his remix of Humate's love stimulation still makes me sway. I own and treasure Out there and Back, most of his previous production work and the initial politics of dancing. While his music, like every other uber-dj on the planet, lacked that humane element that you find and take for granted in Sasha and initial Oakie mixes, he still had this formula of perfection that set him apart from even the best (and when I mean the best I mean the likes of Armin Van Buuren, Ferry Corsten, Sasha, Deep Dish, Carl Cox Oakie,ATB, BT and james Zabiela and even the king of cheese and all that is unoriginal DJ Tiesto.) Simply put, I really did believe this Berliner to be the Lord of Trance.
That said, I have to admit that POD II is my LEAST favorite PVD cd purchase in years. It is just as disappointing as Fundacion NYC. I dunno. Maybe a friend of mine is right. Maybe it is more than just a fluke and is more like an actual trend. It is not the production work. It is not even the track selection which is impressive. It is certainly not the mixing. It is not even the cropping up of tracks that seems to be antagonzing everybody. After all the same technique was used on POD I and it worked like you would not believe. It is something more obscure and difficult to define. While every trance lover will spew testaments about this album to you I suspect (and I don't think this is presumptous) that when the buzz dies down they too will feel the absence of that something. Far be it from me to define what that something is. If I coulkd this review would be shorter. I'll give it a shot though.
If you have ever heard Sasha's Ibiza mix there is a point in the album in which he mixes from the Jimy and Sarah "talking" track to Stage One. on the second disc there is this point in which he mixes the first BT track all the way in to the Cass and slide classic (I'm still scratching my skull over how he did that). On PVD's OTB there is this point when out of the initial cosmic samples the the trance riff Vega rises seemingly out of nowwhere. On tranceport, Oakie's legendary mix from the Sasha vs The light purple track by Gus Gus to Ascension's someone. On PVD's seven ways it is the transistion between the opening track home to the next track. On creamfields it is the peak of the perfect wave track just before the Shane 54 mix. It is everything on the Mark Schulz 2005 outing. it is Hybrid's Symphony, the petter track playing of UNKLE and richard file on Involver. It is that undefinable intangible but nonetheless vital "something" about this strange genre that I have come to recognize and respect.
Paul Van Dyk, you are simply amazing and I love what you did at 1015 in SF but in all honesty, this cd does not have it.
Recommended for trance lovers. All fans of the initial birth of the genre stay far away from this. wait till it gets cheaper or something. Bad choice for initial PVD purchase.
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