Review
K-Tel followed up The Hits Of House Are Here and Rappin’ Up The House with Hip House – The Deepest Beats In Town. It was 1989 and the market for dance compilations was really picking up. There are no sleeve notes for this one and the design is credited to Main Artery. At 52 minutes duration, it’s primarily all 7″ mixes. Don’t let that deter you – it’s brilliantly sequenced and plays like a party record. I have to say it’s really great to get all of these radio edits together in one place. A wonderful snapshot of the era.
As it was on Deep Heat is now and ever shall be – we kick off with Respect. There’s a lot of common ground between the two compilations as we continue with the old skool roof sweat dance of Royal House’s Yeah Buddy, the blinding fury ‘n’ stabs of Stakker Humanoid and Fast Eddie’s fantastically evocative Hip House. Next comes Raze and the timeless Break 4 Love; as it’s the 7″, more than half of the epic intro is missing. More: Joe Smooth’s gorgeous Promised Land sliding into Milli Vanilli’s slick Girl You Know It’s True. Keep on dancing to Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock’s while She Rockers drop the mean hip hop grooves of On Stage. Top of the class for the Turntable Orchestra’s You’re Gonna Miss Me – moody piano, rubber bassline and telephone conversation. Next are Swan Lake and the freestyle rhythms of In The Name Of Love. A big up for Longsy D’s House Sound and the melting acid skank of This Is Ska. Memories of Fibber McGee’s.
Eddie Richards first came to prominence as a DJ at London’s Camden Palace. He then took a residency at Clink Street where he played a major role in introducing house music to the UK. Under his Jolly Roger guise, he dropped Acid Man in September 1988. It’s chock-full of samples e.g. I Have A Dream, Say What Time Is It plus a little Cheech and Chong. Plus a relentless 303 and pummelling vocal. Ware’s the house. When it hit #22 in the charts, a Top Of The Pops appearance was on the cards but that week the BBC banned the word acid so it didn’t get played anymore. Eddie recalls: “It was stupid, it didn’t have anything to do with drugs, people were taking ecstasy not acid. It was called acid because that was a description of the type of twisted sound, it wasn’t anything to do with drug taking in the UK. They just didn’t understand it, it was just a stupid reaction.”
Favourite tracks
Turntable Orchestra – You’re Gonna Miss Me
Longsy D’s House Sound – This is Ska
Lest we forget
Jolly Roger – Acid Man
A Pop Fan's Dream 
I think I nearly bought this but IIRC went for Deep Heat instead, probably as it had more tracks on it, many of which are also here (and a couple would later appear on Deep Heat 2)
So many happy memories, particularly Royal House, Turntable Orchestra, Fast Eddie & Jolly Roger.
Andy – it sums up a short window of glorious tunes very well.
Incidentally back in 2013 – when I was toying with a compilations blog – this was the first proposed review
https://popfansdream.blogspot.com/?zx=901e11202341439