How we'd ever get this way, what's it gonna take to do it...

Y'know, getting a dance mix compilation without hearing it first is like a crap shoot. You don't know if you're getting a dud or a keeper till you listen a couple times, and you can't tell the longevity of what you're getting till way later.

I bought The Best Of NYC Afterhours "Feel The Drums" Volume 2 for one reason: to get one song. One friggin' song. "What A Feeling" by Global Deejays to be exact. At the time the song was in the top 5 dance chart but for the life of me I couldn't find it anywhere. Needless to say, I DID find the single for it later, so now I have the album. Was it worth it? Can I listen to this a year after it was put out? Well....

For some inexplicable reason, the CD starts with a mini-mix of all the songs already mixed on here. WTF? Apparently on this series this is a standard, but for what purpose other then to appease the ADD market I have no idea. Then comes the strange "straight-dance-club" yelling intro, then on to the music. Whoa. This starts with a version of "Pump It Up", a repetitive but serviceable dance track, slowed down in the middle to a reggaeton beat. Huh? After that comes a barrage of snips of OK dance songs (Armand Van Helden's "My My My", Benassi Brothers "Hit My Heart") that I already have in better versions elsewhere mixed in with strange, faux-bitchy crap like "Ugly People Be Quiet" and "Freeek Like Me". The best track mixed in, Tiesto's "Love Comes Again" comes in almost at the end, and would've been a good finishing cut, but no, there's this weird "Geht's Noch?" closing shop here. The only find I came across here was a cut from Kane called "Rain Down On Me" which is a good throwback to the days of the latin-male drama dance...

All in all, Best of NYC Afterhours 2 is a disposable hodgepodge which kinda sounds like someone taped WKTU for an hour. Pity.

Grade: D
Best Cuts: "Love Comes Again", "Hit My Heart"
Weakest Links: "Ugly People Be Quiet", "Geht's Noch", "Freeek Like Me", etc. etc.

Best Of NYC Afterhours "Feel The Drums" Vol. 2 made #6 on the Electronic Albums chart.
mixed songs include:
"Pump It Up" by Danzel made #29 Dance Club, #11 in the UK.
"Call On Me" by Eric Prydz made #29 Dance Club, #5 Dance Radio, and #1 in the UK.
"My My My" by Armand Van Helden hit #2 Dance Club, #19 Dance Radio, & #15 in the UK.
"So Many Times" by Gadjo hit #5 Dance Radio, #22 in the UK.
"Dirtyfilthy" by Superchumbo hit #1 Dance Club.
"Let The Sunshine" by Milk & Sugar made #1 Dance Club, #18 in the UK.
"What A Feeling" by Global Deejays hit #5 Dance Club.
"Hit My Heart" by Benassi Brothers made #15 Dance Club.
"Rain Down On Me" by Kane hit #38 in the UK.
"Love Comes Again" by Tiesto & BT made #32 Dance Club, #15 Dance Radio, & #30 in the UK.

You can pick up the album here.

And as an extra-crunchy bonus, here's the video (snagged apparently from some TV show) of Tiesto's version of Kane's "Rain Down On Me".