Various Artists - A Dance Album For People Who Don't Really Like Dance Music (2001)

I can't say that dance music is one of my favourite genres, but every now and then a track comes along that piques my interest, and 'Sandstorm' by Darude was one such piece when it emerged in 1999. It was different enough to stand out from the pack and quickly became a favourite of mine if I wanted to blast something out of the stereo while driving. 'Barber's Adagio For Strings' by William Orbit, from the same year, was another track that made me stop and take notice, by using a classical piece of music as the basis for a dance remix, and so suddenly there were two dance instrumentals that I liked. Gradually I heard more tracks that had that something a bit different about them, such as the only two tracks that The Tamperer ever released, one of which had the most ridiculous lyrics, Robert Miles' lovely 'Children', or the classic Basement Jaxx banger 'Red Alert', but the thing that linked them all was that they had a memorable melody, and weren't just a drum and bass workout. I knew that I would never want to buy a dance music album just to own these few recordings, so I collected just the tracks that I liked and compiled them into an album that I could enjoy, even though I would never count myself as a dance music fan. Most of the tracks are fairly well-known, as hearing them on the radio would have been my only introduction to them, and so the collection turned into a sort of 'greatest hits' for me, but it's telling that the majority of these tracks were released in 1998 and 1999, making those years the apogee of the dance music scene as far as I was concerned. Even after revisiting this album some 20 years later, there aren't any more recent tracks that I would have wanted to add to it, so if, like me, there are only about a dozen pieces of dance music that you've ever really liked in the past quarter of a century, then give this a try and relive that productive period for the genre at the end of the last century. All together now....'WHAAAAT's she gonna look like with a chimney on her.....'.   

Track listing

01 Sandstorm - Darude (1999) 

02 On The Beach - York (1999) 

03 Children - Robert Miles (1995)
04 ResuRection - PPK (2001)
05 Feel It - The Tamperer feat. Maya (1998)
06 Sunchyme - Dario G (1997)
07 Red Alert - Basement Jaxx (1999) 
08 Barber's Adagio For Strings - William Orbit (1999) 
09 Phat Planet - Leftfield (1999) 
10 If You Buy This Record (Your Life Will Be Better) - The Tamperer feat. Maya (1998)
11 9pm (Till I Come) - ATB (1998)
12 Ecuador - Sash! (1997)