Music
Review: Ian Van Dahl-Ace
Written by: Kage
Alan
Album
Rating:
B+
Dance music, especially European dance music, has a
bad reputation for all
sounding the same. Well, some of it does. Yadda yadda
yadda… A mix artist gets a hit and everybody jumps on the
bandwagon trying to duplicate it, much like the boy band craze in
North America. Fortunately, for as many artists who do get
ragged on, there are those who actually turn out a decent album with
just enough variety, clever hooks and decent vocals to leave us
tapping out a funky beat on the floor while we're driving or sitting
or whatever else it is we're doing.
When thinking about the album, one word comes to mind; "ooh
baby!" Okay,
that's two words. If there was ever a cure for the recent lack
of female
vocal dance music with a techno beat, this is definitely it. The
first track
sets the flavor of the entire album. This is dance and it
doesn't pretend to
be anything other than that. "Reason" is a sweet
little number featuring
Annemie Coenen. While her vocals aren't as strong as Marhsa's
(who sang the original incarnation of the song) on "Castles In
The Sky", she does a fine
job here and on several other tracks. "Will I?" is an
impressive follow-up
track to the opening. The lyrics are simple, but the beat makes
up for any
shortcomings. Come to think of it, the beats and rhythms of each
song almost
always make up for whatever is lacking in lyrics. Annemie adds
just the
right amount of flavor to the songs to make them stand apart not only
from
each other, but also from similar sounding artists.
I would list some of my favorites, but oddly enough this is one of
those CDs
where I can pretty much listen to the whole thing through and not skip
around. With the exception of one slower track called
"Lonely", everything
is made for the dance floor and the songs last anywhere from 3 ˝
minutes up
to 8. The original version of "Castles In The Sky"
with Marsha's vocals is
included on a second CD along with the video for "Reason".
The nice thing is
that the CD isn't priced any higher than if it was a single disc.
This
strikes me as an odd move since record companies will sometimes
include a
free bonus CD that the retailers will then jack the price up on in an
effort
to squeeze more money from the consumers. They didn't this time,
so I'm
suspicious.
There isn't an incredible amount of depth to be found on
"Ace", but then we
don't always need that either. My only real criteria for dance
music is
melody, harmony and a beat that hopefully isn't repeated over and over
in the
same exact way from one track to the other. In that respect, Ian
Van Dahl
has succeeded, though I'm sure there will be detractors who think
otherwise.
Oh, well. It's my opinion. Deal. I enjoy the album so much
that when I'm
not listening to Secret Garden's latest, this is the one I've got in.
Yummy!
COMMENTS
Date: Friday, September 20, 2002
Time: 1:11 AM EST
Subject: Feedback
name: Amber Irving.
email: amberi@netconnect.com.au
to: question
comments: I was wondering if Ian Van Dahl will have any more
singles in Australia. I hope so because it would be very unfair if
Australia was not included. I see enough crap on tv enough as it is.
Date/Time of Posting: Oct 20 2002
/ 03:19:59
IP Address: 195.92.168.165
name = John Arroyo
where = webmaster@ianvandahlunofficial.cjb.net
replyemail = General.
comments = I really love Annemie Coenen and i am workig on a website
for her at www.ianvandahlunofficial.cjb.net
Ian Van Dahl is the BEST dance/trance anc in the world and hope she
has many more hits,coz i just love her!
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