The Best Club Anthems... Ever! 2K

What a strange mix-CD this is.

Foreshadowing a decade of these multi-disc "club anthems" mix CD's, The Best Club Anthems... Ever! 2K is a retrospective of the best club anthems of 1999 and early 2000, and like so many of these painfully mainstream releases showcases exactly what the electronic dance music scene in the UK was like at the time. Presented here are 40+ tracks spanning various styles from the omnipresent house, the euphoria of trance and the groovyness of UK garage; all mixed together by possibly a robot. Yes as is again so often the case with such mainstream releases, the mixing here is nothing to be wowed over, has no real personality (just tops and tail's each track) and sometimes feels a little "wonky".

But that's what you probably expect, what matters most is the seleciton you get. I've already mentioned you have three main styles covered with this release; house music does make up a lot of the tracks here and those presented range from boring, uninpsired remixes of "pop" hits (Day & Night (Robbie Rivera's Bombastic vocal mix)) to some new cuts that I haven't heard of yet (Blow Ya Mind by Lock 'N' Load is one such example). Being the early 2000's, melodic vocal trance also makes up for the other majority style present on the album, giving a great selection of tracks (one of my favourites being See the Light by DuMonde). UK Garage is the awkward child present here however; never really seeming to fit in with the other electronic genres and often making appearances on themed albums such as this, R&B/"Urban" compilations and straight up tweeny-bopper pop albums (like Pepsi Chart) - there's no real "deep cuts" here however, most likely to avoid upsetting the core audience who brought this release for the house and trance music. You get some UK garage standards from the likes of DJ Luck & MC Neat, Craig David and Artful Dodger.

As for the sequencing of the mix, well it's a bit odd - possibly because a robot has mixed it, or because little thought was given to such an art. The fist part of CD1 is utterly forgettable. Using some very popular tracks the release is bringing in plenty of the "yeah i go to my local club weekly and love MoS" crowd, a selection that feels like it is present on every "club" compilation from this era. However once the punters have been baited, we then move into some more interesting tracks (like Blow Ya Mind) most likely riding on the success of the Kevin and Perry Go Large movie. CD2 on the other hand starts with UK garage, almost like the compilers knew they had to get it out of the way now as if they stick it at the end of the mix the core audience will switch off early. As already mentioned there is nothing here that will surprise you, and there are plenty of better UK garage compilations that came out a similar time. The only purpose of the 6/7 UKG tracks can really provide is maybe a litmus test to try and locate more fans who would otherwise not indulge in such a style, maybe as it might not be "their scene". Of course UKG would eventually die off a nearly sudden death in the year or two proceeding this release, only to be recently resurrected in the early 2020's; allowing house and trance (and their many artistic offshoots) to take centre stage on mix CD's for the rest of the decade, not needing to worry about sharing the stage with UKG's successors dubstep (the OG kind, not Skrillex) and grime. Once the UKG portion is over we're back to a couple of "house" (and possibly one breakbeat, Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On, track) cuts to clean the pallette to allow for the finale of this mix being heavily entrenched with some really great trance tracks.

So is it worth a buy? Depends what you are wanting, if you want to explore then yes - you'll certainly get a lot of mileage out of cheap mixes like these if your understanding and knowledge of this era of electronic music is lacking. However if you're more of a veteran and you know who the likes of Sash, Fragma, Paul van Dyk, Novy and Agnelli & Nelson are then you probably already know you can get a lot more enjoyment out of another mix-CD.