Review of Club Classics: Universal Stories of Dance

Introduction

"A retrospective history of clubbing and dance music around the globe, capturing the true spirit of the era" - a bold claim for this 2 disc set. Disc one is a DVD which mixes the tracks listed above with some specially commissioned visuals designed to accompany them. This is an interesting move, since about 50% of the tracks actually had their own visuals in the form of their videos.

Disc two is a CD which features a "classic acid mix", but this is not the commercial side of acid that you saw on Top of The Pops like D-Mob`s "We Call it Acieed". This is the more underground side, the real stuff that so many people copied and toned down to try and bring commercial success.

Video

A full-frame transfer to showcase the specially commissioned visuals. The visuals consist of a series of short films that look like a film student`s project. That`s not to say that they are bad, just that they have a certain look about them. There`s nothing wrong with the image from a technical point of view.

This mixture of visuals complement the audio quite well, although I`m intrigued that this got through the BBFC as "Exempt from classification" as there are one or two sections that they might have looked closer at (a pregnant woman dancing in bra and pants, a woman cavorting on a bed playing with a gun).

Audio

A choice of DD2.0 stereo and DD5.1. I listened to both, so let`s talk stereo first. It sounds quite good, but it does appear a little muddy at times, with treble a bit subdued.

The DD5.1 soundtrack should be taken with a pinch of salt, since the center channel is never used. The rears are also only used for reverb effects, so it`s hardly an all-encompassing surround track. And it too sounds muddy and lacks treble. There`s plenty of bass, but it does overpower at times.

I had best results passing it through my amp in one of its home cinema modes. This seemed to stop the bass drowning things out, and increased the treble a bit. Your mileage may vary.

Features

The main extra is a subtitle track which runs over the main feature, and gives a comprehensive history of dance. Despite being a subtitle track, this often fills most of the screen with information, but it`s always readable and doesn`t clash.

The information it imparts is pretty good. They`ve done their research, and apart from a few things that I`d argue with, there`s plenty of goof stuff here. It covers the many genres of dance, famous clubs, drugs, songs, DJs, and also news from through the years (e.g. the Criminal Justice Bill, the death of Leah Betts).

Conclusion

An interesting idea and fairly nicely executed. You could probably read all the information in the subtitle track in a magazine somewhere, but to mix it with visuals and sounds is a good idea. My only grumble is that it could have been a lot longer, and they could have included a lot more classic tracks on the DVD.

It`s a shame that the soundtrack isn`t as good as it could have been, but perhaps your amp can compensate for that like mine did. You`re unlikely to get this stuff on DVD anywhere else, so unless you`ve still got the vinyl versions (I`ve still got some of them), this is as close as you`re going to get to owning some of these tracks.

This is a good package which covers its subject well. If dance music and its many genres aren`t your thing, you`ll be avoiding this one, otherwise it serves as an interesting retrospective.