CD 1 starts with some excellent tracks from Justin Timberlake and Javine but sadly seems to drown in mediocre dance tracks for the last half. CD 2 features more indie/rockier music to start, with Robbie's "Come undone" and Coldplay's sublime "God put a smile on your face" and ends with more pop tracks such as S Club's final song "Say goodbye".
The down side has to be the awful novelty track from The fast food Rockers.
As usual, many big hits are included - R Kelly, Justin Timberlake, Girls Aloud, TATU, Robbie Williams, Busted... the list goes on and on. It's good to see that once again the album branches out - whilst keeping pop as the overall base, it explores more diverse styles from artists who aren't as famous, but but still produce good music - dance (Benny Benassi / Plummet etc), garage (Lisa Maffia), rap (50 Cent), indie (Thrills)and r&b/hiphop (Jay-Z).
Before going any further, I'd like to just say this - this is a truly AMAZING compilation and would be happy in anyone's collection. Having said that however, there are tracks some recent smash hits missing - Evanescence, Beyonce, the more recent Justin Timberlake [Rock Your Body], Christina Aguilera, Delta Goodrem, Big Brovaz etc. Some of these can be found on Hits 56, and if you want more of the full picture it might be a good idea to buy that too.
Going through the album, there isn't that much that would be worth dropping though, so overall it is well worth the 5 stars I give it.
We start out with the biggest hit so far this summer - R Kelly's Ignition Remix. It's always important on compilations to have a strong start, so that's excellent. We then progress through another smash hit, and my personal favourite on the album - 50 Cent's In Da Club - to some more big pop hits - Justin Timberlake, Wayne Wonder, Javine, Kym Marsh, Girls Aloud, TATU, S Club 8 (formerly Juniors) and the Fast Food Rockers - it's all good, if mindless, entertainment - just right for summer.
We then get onto the dancier side of things, with XTM & DJ Chucky, Bhangra Knights and Tomcraft to name a few, followed by some R&B/Garage from Tiga and Lisa Maffia, then some less known dance, yet equally good, from many acts like Benny Benassi, DJ Sammy, Deepest Blue, Scooter, Plummet and Paul Van Dyk. The whole first disk is well worth listening to, and plays well as a whole or as individual tracks.
Disk 2 focusses mainly on indie and guitar pop - Robbie Williams, Busted, Amy Studt and others make a strong start. In the middle it gets a bit tedious, but worth a listen all the same, and then rounds off with ballads from Emma, Sugababes etc and R&B/Hiphop from Jay-Z, Mariah Carey & Cam'Ron, and Ja Rule & Ashanti. Overall it is strong too, but I prefer disk 1 personally.
So overall a great album then, and well worth every penny - I've already listened to disk 1 about 5 times through and disk 2 once, and I only bought it on Monday! This really is the soundtrack to the summer. BUY IT NOW!
