Compilation Album Review: "Hit Machine 4"

 

Compilation: Hit Machine 4
Released: 1994 – BMG
Number of tracks: 20
Number one singles: 1 – "Boom! Shake The Room" by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
Other top ten singles: 7
Best track: "Slave To The Music" by Twenty 4 Seven
Hidden gem: "Born In The Ghetto" by Funky Poets

I went to Savers today and found not one, but two Hit Machines! That's a rare occurrence indeed. So let's get into it, starting with the fourth volume of the series.

Twenty 4 Seven get to lead off proceedings with one of the best dance tracks of the early-to-mid-'90s in "Slave To The Music". Still a fine tune even now, and it also has one of my favourite lyrics in pop music: "I can't live my life without jammin', that is why my life is so slammin'". Brilliant. For some odd reason the first two verses of lyrics have been omitted from the booklet. Bah!

Speaking of the lyric booklet, I also found it odd that it prints the word "niggas" several times for Xscape's "Just Kickin' It" but censors that word in the song itself. Actually that particular term is misspelled in the booklet, but you get the idea. Maybe they thought it was okay to write it but not say it? 

It's really difficult to separate "Slave To The Music" from Urban Cookie Collective's "Feels Like Heaven" as to which is the better dance track. They're both brilliant, but in different ways. I bet they'd fill a dancefloor in mere seconds at a '90s-themed rave night. As you can see above I went for "Slave..." as the superior song, slightly because the above-quoted lyric. When it comes to that he raps/she sings subgenre of Eurodance that I was such a fan of in the '90s but doesn't seem to exist anymore, Culture Beat's "Got To Get It" and "Maximum Overdrive" by 2 Unlimited complete the 1994 trifecta.

While the likes of Twenty 4 Seven, Urban Cookie Collective and Culture Beat are largely unheard of in 2021, M-People's "Moving On Up" is still well known thanks to its ubiquity on radio. It's not as good a song as the ones by those aforementioned artists, in my opinion.

Gawd, E.Y.C. sure did suck, didn't they? Select magazine wrote in their reviews in 1994, "Three bronzed troupers from Planet Ken come down to Earth and make a crap LP about falling in lurve. And that's it. The whole gamut from A to A". And that about sums it up. "Feelin' Alright" has a good bassline but the rest of the song is forgettable. If you're into rubbish boy bands then Take That are also on here with more of their atonal caterwauling.

"Open Up" by Leftfield and John Lydon barely cracked the top 40 but is actually very good. Come on, the dude from Sex Pistols does the vocals on it, how can you lose?

A quarter of the songs on here I'd never heard before. They are by Baby Animals, Depeche Mode, Xscape, Defryme and Funky Poets. The best of these is probably the Funky Poets, but Defryme are pretty good too. Didn't listen to them much in high school.

And that's why my life is so slammin'.

Rating: 6/10