Vitalic, another French Producer that sort of emerged out of nowhere and has made his mark on dance floors as well as home stereo systems. I myself really stumbled upon Vitalic by listening to DJ Mix CD's and hearing one of his tracks pop up on a few. I checked in on this French men and found out some stuff as well as some discography. Vitalic is a French Dance Legend in a way, he's one of those people you don't really have to like, or even enjoy, but you should at least have heard of him; this knowledge only being applied to people involved in the dance floor scene and DJ's in particular, which is why it's no surprise I found him on DJ Mixes I bought. He has a very hard style to his music, where the percussion is always present no matter what and generally the center of importance. It is most certainly Electronica Music he makes, the actual electronica sounding bits are the strange synth-ish noises and warped voice samples he implements with his ever changing percussion setup.
Having found out a few things about him and hearing those few tracks on my mixes I went out and bought "V Live", his live album. I read through the album and I was pleasantly surprised to see it was recorded in Brussels, Belgium, which meant that the crowd screaming were my fellow Belgians. So I popped the cd in at night and had a go at it.
First of all, if you are tired, crabby, depressed, annoyed, or in any particular negative mood, don't listen to this CD. It's one of those Albums you need to do effort for to listen to, and be in the right mood for, etc. The whole album is a mish mash of songs that seem to be well put together but not well constructed (if that makes any sense). It gives me the impression of a dance floor killer, but repeated too many times with not enough variation, like the whole song is trying to live off one major element, hard. This album is hard, now Electronica can go anywhere from being hardly audio able to blasting your ear drums apart, but this album is hard, which is what it centers around being. Most songs are composed in a steady buildup that leads to a speaker blasting chorus of sorts where the main elements are the drums and a deep Electronic sounding filler that act as both bass and Melody. This however acts annoying for me, cause that's it's major problem, no variation. The songs themselves may be good to dance to once and a while or just nice to listen to if your in the mood, but all the songs suffer from the same buildups and chorus' so it doesn't leave much to be expected from the album. Also all the songs share very similar BPM Times and try to play off very similar sounding melodies.
Now for the actual tracks. The first track "Polkamatic" is a joke, I don't know what he was trying to pull with turning Polka Electro, but it doesn't work, and I skip the song every single time. There were a few tracks that were just 1 minute in betweeners that looped certain things over and over, which was quite anoying, so I don't give those any good credits. "Bells" is actually a pretty decent song as the buildup is not entirely expectable, but it suffers from the problem that not enough elements are in the song so it has to feed of the hype of getting to it's kick driven chorus, something all these songs share in common. "Follow The Car" was just plain boring, it was the same melody going through the entire track with more layers being added that were supposed to add depth, something a lot of pop songs these days suffer from, which I hate to ever see in Electronica Albums! "La Rock 01" is a Vitalic classic and is featured on many of my DJ mixes, so it was no wonder that it was ruined in this album; Vitalic knows everyone in that concert hall was just waiting to hear this song so he drew out the buildup of it for a period that is beyond worth mentioning and then have the chorus be it's saving grace. I can understand this is exciting when you're sitting there watching this guy do it live, but on CD it just isn't that great and you wish he would just get it going already. The last two songs are another set of boring Melody Recyclers and sums up the album perfectly, predictable.
I give the album a 3/10
track Line Up:
1. Polkamatic 1/10
2. Disco Nouveu 2/10
3. Bambalec 4/10
4. Anatoles 5/10
5. Follow The Car 2/10
6. Bells 6/10
7. The 30,000 Feet Club 3/10
8. Rhythm In A Box 1 + 2 3/10
9. La Rock 01 5/10
10. Filth 'N Dirt Go Ahead 1/10
11. My Friend Dario 5/10
12. No Fun (Play The Guitar Johnny) 6/10
13. Fast Lane 2/10
14. Valetta Fanfares 3/10
Predictable and boring. I give it credit for being somewhat original, but everything is in the end somewhat original. I have heard the Remixes and those are beyond better, I only listen to those now. I do however like how he implemented the screaming and cheering of the crowd into the music and at points in tracks amplified it. Beyond that, I almost never listen to this Album, with one or two tracks of this guy you are all set, cause the rest is beyond similar.
This is seriously my least satisfying review, probably cause it's my least favorite album so far, but I am also extremely tired and told myself I would do this review. Might go back and edit some stuff when I'm more awake.
No comments:
Post a Comment