Breakdown - The Very Best Euphoric Chillout Mixes Vol.1 - Various Artists > Reviews > Top quailty chillout mix

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
Value for Money

Advantages:	n/a
Disadvantages:	n/a

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Picture this, you’ve been out dancing the night away for at least 6 hours, your full of the joys of alcohol (or other things…) and just don’t want the night to end. When you get home and pop the kettle on you don’t feel like sleeping but with the ringing ears that the club gave you, you don’t fancy the uplifting sounds of hard house and ‘bang bang’ music well then this is the album for you. (I also found it brilliant for going to sleep too and just generally unwinding and chilling and a female friend of mine likes to get ready to go out with this in the background, something about ‘preparing’ herself for the night ahead, I don’t know women are a mystery to me!)

After deciding that my CD collection needed bringing up to date, the last CD I bought prior to this months wage packet was Moby’s ‘Play’ shamefully last year, I was on a mission. Along with a few other dance compilation CD’s (there are some good tunes out there at the minute) I opted for mellowness, with my disappointment of ‘The Chillout Sessions’ (see a previous opinion) I listened to this CD with a certain level of shall we say caution. Imagine my horror when I got my nice new CD home, ready to be enthralled I placed it into my stereo and nothing, it didn’t work! Another trip to Woollies, the third of the day and the second returned CD I wasn’t a happy bunny. Off I trundled home and sat down preparing myself for the music…

Anticipating something much along the same lines of the disappointing ‘Chillout Sessions’ I was pleasantly surprised, this album blew me away, which is something difficult to do, especially seen as how I am a hard house type of person. Scanning the songs on the CD, that’s how I like to be introduced to them you see, listen to a bit of each song and then go back and listen fully, I was surprised by the number of big club tunes that appeared, and the quality of the chilled versions. I was delighted to see the song ‘Silence’ By Delerium, as this is one of my favourite songs of the minute and always gets me up onto the dance floor, the remix, by Michael Woods is mind blowing. It will transport you out of yourself, as stupid as you may think that sounds and at the risk of coming across as a bit ‘sad’ I have never heard anything like it before. The voice of Sarah McLachlan shines in this version of the song and you can get lost in her every word.

Every song on this album is brilliantly mixed and superbly mellow, although every song will not please everyone I think it does have the utilitarian appeal (the greatest good for the greatest number – will appeal to a mass audience). There are chilled versions of big club anthems of the minute and the just gone past such as:

Thrillseekers – Synaethesia
Lustral – Everytime
Energy 52 – Café Del Mar
Matt Darey – From Russia with Love
Delerium – Silence
Massive Attack – Teardrop
Prodigy – Poison

To name just a few and fans of the movie ‘Gladiator’ will recognise the first song on CD1, after wondering what the hell it was all the way through the film I now know and have it to hand!

A very good CD that I would recommend you go out and get if your into dance music but want to unwind!