Review
The Best Of Dance ’91 turned out to be a very successful compilation for Telstar and one that lasted right through the decade. The 1992 edition was advertised as containing “32 hottest club hits”, three of which were new releases at the time.
A #1 at 01: Snap’s Rhythm Is A Dancer in its rather low key Purple Hazed 7″ edit. A staple of MTV’s Party To Go and no cancer rap. The compilers also use the Band Mix of Ebeneezer Goode which is equally under the radar and contains a lengthy instrumental intro. A more immediate groove gets underway with Kriss Kross’ addictive Jump and En Vogue’s funky My Lovin’ while KWS made Please Don’t Go an instant time capsule with is know-it-anywhere opening key and memorable video. NR1: The Chippendales and the anodyne exercise beats of Give Me Your Body. We’re back to hot jams with Clivillés and Cole’s urgent A Deeper Love and Smart Es toytown rave of Sesame’s Treet. Disco juice.
“Would you like me to seduce you?
Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
George Michael’s animalistic Too Funky features the following models in its video: Eva Herzigova, Linda Evangelista, Nadja Auermann, Emma Sjöberg, Estelle Hallyday, Shana Zadrick, Tyra Banks, Beverly Peele, and Emma Balfour. After Bizarre Inc’s bouncy I’m Gonna Get You, Kym Sims pops up again with the classy R&B groove of Take My Advice. This is followed by some progressive house from Spooky – Land Of Oz (Poppyfield Mix) before Take That’s driving breakthrough It Only Takes A Minute. Then it’s uplifting soul from The Pasadenas I’m Doing Fine before sophisti-pop’s slight return: Curiosity’s Hang On In There Baby. The first half ends with a statemate; yet another mix of The Orb’s Blue Room. Although not stated in the sleeve notes, this one appears to be unique.
CD2 kicks off with a riot; the jump-up magnificence of On A Ragga Tip. To Ce Ce Peniston and the third hit from the Finally LP – a smokin’ Keep On Walking. Halycon days for Opus III and It’s A Fine Day. Liquid’s Sweet Harmony is melodic hardcore, the ultimate piano anthem while Urban Hype milk another children’s classic with A Trip To Trumpton. The latter was based based on the original Trumpton music by Freddie Phillips with heavy use of samples such as “Time for Trumpton”, “Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble & Grubb!”. A breakbeat classic and produced by Jack Smooth. Undercover’s evergreen Baker Street comes next before Kicks Like A Mule’s severe darkcore of The Bouncer. And just on the midpoint is Jonny L’s spooky and wicked Hurt You So.
The bangers keep on coming with The Prodigy’s jittery Everybody Is In The Place and Altern-8’s full-on masked hysteria of Evapor-8 (Inciner-8 Mix). Engineered by the Fat Controller with PP Arnold on vocals. Say it loud. Elsewhere Messiah burn up the floor with the blistering I Feel Love while Digital Orgasm imbue Running Out Of Time with an escapist vibe. We switch to Benelux now with Praga Khan’s booming Injected With A Poison and 2 Unlimited’s heady Workaholic. Meanwhile Shabba Ranks was making average-sized waves as Mr Loverman reached #23 on the UK charts. The lilting dancehall favourite wouldn’t hit the mark until the following year. The final comedown belongs to Primal Scream. The Screamdelica trip which started with the Loaded 12″ in February 1990 came to an end exactly two years later when the Dixie Narco EP was released. The euphoric Movin’ On Up was the lead track. It’s really beautiful.
“My brightest star’s my inner light, let it guide me,
Experience and innocence, bleed inside me,
Hallucinogens can open me, or untie me,
I drift in inner space, free of time,
I find a higher state of grace, in my mind”.
Favourite tracks
Jonny L – Hurt You So
Altern-8 – Evapor-8
Urban Hype – Trip To Trumpton
Primal Scream – Movin’ On Up
Lest we forget
Liquid – Sweet Harmony
A Pop Fan's Dream 
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Hi Paul, agreed that it was strange to open with remixes of two of the biggest dance tracks of the year. The Purple Haze remix of Rhythm is a Dancer appeared on Rave Alert, while Ebeneezer Goode was used on Rave Nation. Both tracks appear on Greatest Hits of 92 in their single format, so strange to put these other versions on here.
Serious geek hat coming up! There’s one real curiosity with On A Ragga Tip. At the start, about 14 seconds in where the kick drum and hi-hat would normally get going, the hi-hat is missing for a single beat. On the versions used on Greatest Hits 92 and Rave Alert, this doesn’t happen; we hear the normal single edits.
So where does this mysterious edit come from? I have no idea. The original mix of this contains 4 bars of kick on beats 1 and 3 then hi-hat as per the edit, so it couldn’t have been a cut, but on the wrong beat. I’m not aware of a release of the track longer than the 5:11 original mix, so that might rule out a longer version being edited. The only way this mysterious beat could have happened is for it to have been inserted deliberately. I’ve tried to recreate this and the only way I could do it was to copy 1 beat from the previous 4 bars, insert it and cut one beat from the original. Very unusual. I did once try to explain this to Mrs C but she lost interest within nanoseconds!
Hi Andrew – wow, did not notice this. I wonder was a unique edit created by some sort of accident. Were you using Audacity to re-create?
I use Mixmeister as a rule. Makes things a lot simpler, though very occasionally tracks don’t have a perfectly rigid tempo and then Mixmeister doesn’t work as well. I’ve got an old copy of Audition that I use if not. I use Mixmeister whenever I have the urge to knock up a compilation, too. I’ve never really given Audacity a go, though funnily I have started this evening. Got a new Rega USB phono stage for my deck so I’m ripping some vinyl.
As for On a Regga Trip (sic) (or should that be Rega trip given that, spookily, the track that just started playing on Rave 92 as I type), I guess we’ll never know. My suspicion is that it was created in Telstar’s laboratory of mysterious edits. I heard it the first time a friend of mine played the album and my ears pricked, like whenever I hear an out of tune note on a piano. Telstar also used this version on 100% Reggae but never again. It got quite a lot of appearances on compilations in 1993 due to the ragga/reggae rebirth. No idea why.
Thanks Andrew – not used Mixmeister; must give it a go. Audacity is good but the ripped projects (AUPs) take up loads of space – best archived on separate drive.