I've seen Paul Van Dyk in person and let me tell you he does NOT disappoint and neither does this cd! Track 11 is a definite favorite! If I close my eyes and hold the headphones close to my ears it's as if I am back at Nation all over again! AWESOME!
March 26, 2008Paul Van Dyk is one of the worlds greatest DJ's. i have yet to listen to an album by him that i did not enjoy.
January 28, 2008 |  | One of the best trance albums out there |  |
Here PVD defines directions, becomes uncompromising and original. On this disc he defines himself musically but sadly, he doesn't follow this path on his later releases. Its one of those albums you either love it or cant stand it. First Politics Of Dancing is quite good, but his later work smells like trade off's between PVD and cheap blonde whining trance born in the whore houses of Amsterdam....Im still Out There, R U?!
September 29, 2007i didnt even buy this cd just heard snips of it at random and it sounded good this is an old cd and still cutting edge thats why paul is number 1 right now. some of the other masters i.e. sasha, armin van buuren, tiesto, started with proper music format and then just jumped to a whole new mature so called sound. i mean is it a mid life crisis i dont know but if you spin new music format in front of me you better be ready for my criticism because it aint gonna be good. if the beats are off, sound rotation off, sound structure off, bass off, treble off, pitch off, i or any so called professional musician will raise are hands and say hey what they hell is going on you guys played perfect now you play like shrek 2 all of these so called masters cds can be shelved with the shrek 2 music anthology its that bad. the most terrible sound ever created by it or what or who would have to be attributed to the shrek 2 sound track, i still have sound nightmares from that cheese whiz oozing from the crazy minoet or sonata blarred from those god dam creatures. those so called masters are beginning to sound like the shrek 2 musical dynasty and im not the only musician sitting back and laughing maybe im wrong and i need a hearing aid but if it sounds funky its gotta be funky but dam thats like a terrible sound but if the masses want to hear the new shrek sound format than so be it but i will cover my ears
December 15, 2006| | | paul tierney, low-life critic | |
Ladies and Gents, read the Amazon review of this CD, by one Paul Tierney, and weep for the guy, he's just a talentless hack. First of all, Van Dyk unlike everybody else in this genre, is not just a mixer, he is also a composer (I know Van Buuren and Tiesto have written their own stuff, but it is, shall we say, less than impressive stuff). Van Dyk's material is first rate (check out "Spellbound" on his later Reflections CD for another superb example of his composing ability). Second of all, this is one of the most fabulous mixes, the tracks fit brilliantly together, and it is all his own creations. Third, so far as the "same old stuff" charge by Tierney goes, just check out the last track, technically it is "We Are Alive," one of van Dyk's best known ORIGINAL compositions. Van Dyk has basically "inverted" the song, bringing forward stuff kept in the background in the original, stripping it down to a stylized few musical pulses---basically he takes his star tune and creates a new track out of it. Hardly hackneyed. The title composition also makes for an outstanding, irresistible peak song in the mix. There is nothing else like this track "out there" or "back." Really, I would love to know what Mr. Tierney thinks is original.
In Mr. Tierney's defense, many of the tracks on this CD were floating about in the community before the album came out. But that doesn't make CD1 any less impressive; indeed, the reverse is so. Van Dyk does use some of the same sound effects here as in some of his other works, and it would be better if he hadn't, but that is small change compared to the achievement of this CD.
CD 1 is the big draw, described above. CD 2 starts with a little trio of great tracks, then veers into some moderate remixes of older van Dyk hits. There is less mixing, but solid music. The highlight on CD 2 is "Tell Me Why (Club Mix)".
This is a must-own CD for anyone interested in House/Trance. It was the first mix I ever listened to (the second was Armin van Buuren's "004", which like "Out There and Back," features a fabulous mix on CD1, and solid backup stuff [mostly mixes of late 90s classic trance tracks] on CD 2). Those two have set quite a bar for later listens to meet, really only Digweed's Fabric 20 has come up to that level, with perhaps van Buuren's State of Trance '05 CD1, and some of the Hotel Costes stuff, coming close (such as, in the Costes series, the excellent Saks CD).
Hey Mr. Tierney, why don't you switch over to "reviewing" country music or Pee Wee Herman's greatest hits, where you belong?
May 22, 2006More reviews at Amazon.com ...
(190 reviews)