Review Summary: The perfect club album? It's very close
Friday night! Time to party! Where to go? To hit the pubs or to hit the clubs? When you think about it, there isn't much of a difference - just that the music is a tad louder in the clubs. Because the music isn't generally the main reason to go clubbing, it's to have fun with your friends, to laugh your ass off, to flirt with the prom queen at the bar, to get stoned and not remembering what stupid things you did.
This then raises a tricky question: how to make the perfect club album? For an example on how it's done, let's take a look at Boys Noize's Oi Oi Oi. I don't know if it's because he's German, but Alex Riddha likes to keep things functional. This isn't about finding the details and layers in the music through close headphone listening but to feel and to experience it while it comes your way from a massive sound system; in short: it's the soundtrack to having a blast.
What makes this album so good is that each single track can be used for a different occasion during the night (next to the anthems, there are also the tracks to chill to and goof off to), while the album still gives the impression of being a very cohesive piece of work. A lot of this can be credited to the overall sound of the album. It sounds very rough, sometimes even aggressive and hard - imperfect in other words - because Boys Noize swears by the use of original, analogue synthesizers. This makes the album very human as opposed to the clean and perfect, but cold and sterile beats of modern-day club R&B. While the album catapulted Boys Noize into the mainstream, it's probably his most underground work, but it works thanks to this human feel it has to it.
Underground as it may be, there are plenty of pop elements to be discovered here as well. Take for example
Let's Buy Happiness, the funkiest track of the record. At first glance there is little melody to be found, but it's the playful drum pattern that makes this song, until - towards the end - the buildup rewards the listener with a joyful melody, while still containing a lot of distortion, though.
My Moon My Man (his remix of Feist) is even better. Her vocals are being accompanied by Riddha's calmest production ever. It's very different from the rawer rest of the album, while still maintaining the typical Boys Noize feel.
But the anthems are where it's really at:
& Down,
Lava Lava,
Oh! and
Don't Believe The Hype are all absolute electro house classics. They also contradict my point about the music being only of secondary importance while clubbing, because setting any one of these bad boys off, will almost certainly result into lighting the dance floor on fire.
Here's the functionality of Oi Oi Oi again: ultimately, it's the people creating the ambiance and having a blast, the record just gives a helping hand in that regard. And it does so brilliantly just about every time. All-in-all, the album is essential for electro house DJ's and enthusiasts, and highly recommended for just about anyone who likes to have a ball.
