Various Artists - Wipeout XL

"You want bowel-churning mega-bass that shakes the room, demolishes the ceiling, and freaks out the cat?" ask the compilers of this grade-A U.K. techno disc. The curious should answer with an unequivocal, "Hell, yes." Sonic slabs from Orbital, the Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Prodigy, Leftfield and the Future Sound of London, among others, add up to a definitive appetizer tray of drum & bass flavors. --Jeff Bateman Amazon.com

Great game, even better soundtrack!

I will admit, after purchasing this game, I found myself sitting in front of my Playstation hearing 3,2,1, GO! and then placing the controller on the ground in front of me listening to the great music coming from my 13" TV. After a while, the game simply became a visual to a near perfect soundtrack. If you enjoy heart racing, adrenaline pumping electronica then this is the soundtrack for you. Highly recommended however Coffee + This Album may = excessive speed on the road. Buy at your own risk :) January 3, 2007

Required listening for EDM fans

If you are into electronic dance music this CD not just a good album, but required listening. Actually it's great if you are just starting into the genre and want to hear the music that catapulted it. Based on a video game soundtrack Wipeout XL takes what the Playstation game (Wipeout 2) did with the music genre and moved it another level. The Wipeout 2 games was heralded as not only an excellent arcade racing game, but a game that had one of the coolest soundtracks ever. This is because the game designers decided to get a broad range of artists together on their game project. The result was a video game with a soundtrack that defined electronic music in the 90's.

What Wipeout XL did was take that style of music and put it on a CD so people can just pop it in and jam without having to either rip the tracks off the game or play the game cd on a stereo system. There are track differences between the two. For one the games staff writer, Cold Fusion, doesn't have any tracks on it so that takes out two songs. From there a couple other songs were replaced for whatever reasons (personally I think Future Sound of London's Herd Killing is just too dissonant for anything but a title scroll for the game). But don't fret, because what they replaced them with is definitely worth your while.

Some of the new tracks on this CD are exclusive to this CD only. That's right. Exclusive mixes. I don't mean crappy freak mixes that don't deserve proliferation I mean some killer mixes that you MUST have in your collection. Here's my opinion on some tracks:

ATOM BOMB and V-SIX by Fluke is not the regular version. It's one of those exclusive versions I was talking about. And this is the coolest mix of Atom Bomb I have ever heard (and I heard lots). Totally new beat and feel, but definitely the same song. V-Six is an exlusive song you won't find anywhere but here. Not even remixes. It's aggressive and driven like a lot of his dancier tracks. The CD is worth getting for these two tracks alone.

LOOPS OF FURY and LEAVE HOME (Underworld Mix) By Chemical Brothers, while not exclusive mixes, they are songs you won't find on any of their albums. They were released on singles only. Either way Loops of Fury to me is the ultimate big beat song. Powerful drums on top of a driving bassline with a mess of fun noises dancing around the groove. Leave Home is just powerful, but more minimalist. Still great on the dance floor. This CD is worth it for these two tracks alone (Did I just repeat myself? See where I'm getting at?).

2097 by Source Direct can only be found on the Wipeout CD's (game and XL CD). At least it's not on any of their albums. It's some crazy drum and bass that you might not be able to dance to, but it sure is interesting listening to what do they the instruments.

Other good tracks (not exclusive) are Orbital's P.E.T.R.O.L., Future Sound of London's WE HAVE EXPLOSIVE (very popular), and the lyricless FIRESTARTER by The Prodigy. TIN THERE and MUSIQUE are a little repetitive but manageable. Photek is very much like Source Direct, only not as interesting in their drum-&-bassiness.

If you are just getting into modern electronic music then this would be a perfect primer for you. If you have been into it for a while there are some tracks here worth getting that are either not that easy to find or you just won't find elsewhere. Either way this is an excellent CD that's worthy to be in your collection. May 12, 2005

Not as good as the original

Basicaly the only decent stuff I see here are tracks 1,4,7 and 8. Seven is the coolest theme ever - the one from the WipeoutXL game intro video(the whole reason I got this CD) and the first track is also mixed in there somewhere. Number 4 is just a more or less decent techno track, while 8 is Prodigy's "Firestarter" without the vocals. Track 2 was a dissapointing dulled-down version of Fluke's "Atom Bomb"(I'd give the CD 4 stars if they just put the excellent original one). So there you have it, unless you desperatly want the WipeoutXL intro flick music which wasn't included on the game CD - don't bother. Better get the WipeoutXL game itself - it's out for PSX and PC and has the great game and music all in one(skip the first data track). You can also play the PSX version with an emulator and get the same resolution. But the PC version is the best. November 7, 2003

State-of-the-art electronica

To call this a "techno" CD is misleading. Sure there's some of that, but this is really a genuine electronica CD with the likes of Photek, Source Direct, et al making an appearance with some, shall we say, unique tracks.

Electronica today (2003) isn't quite what it used to be back when it was new and clearly still experimental and at the top of its form. This 78:18 CD offers up some classic tracks that will last forever. I have a lot of CDs from various electronica artists that have songs on this compilation (Fluke, FSOL, Orbital, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy) and others that don't (namely Crystal Method) and they're all great but none quite capture the diverse essence of what electronica can encompass. This is that CD!

The version of Atom Bomb on here is a cleaned-up AND remixed version of the original on Fluke's own Risotto CD. None of the other reviews really pointed that out. June 10, 2003

Ha ha ha ha... WIPEOUT!

When I bought this however many years ago, nobody bothered to point out to me that it was the soundtrack to a game. But perhaps that's the greatest compliment anybody could give it--that the music stands on its own without any hard-sell.

Maybe you bought 'Exit Planet Dust' but if you missed out on the Chemical Brothers' (in my opinion) best single "Loops of Fury", you could atone buy picking up this disc. The instrumental version of "Firestarter" is better than the original, and "PETROL" is not representative of the Orbital album ('In Sides') it comes from, but still kicks.

The whole 'Electronica' wave was over-done and rightfully put in its proper place on the musical scheme of things, but in retrospect, there were some singles you had to own, and this is a superb compilation of them.

Made to be booming out of your convertible, even if it's a k-car. July 25, 2002

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