Volume 3

Ah, summer is here. Time for sun, surf and parties. And what better way to complement the silly season than with a collection of everyone’s favourite club classics for the past few years.

Now before you sit up and get excited, let me issue a serious taste advisory. Dr Alban’s ‘Sing Hallelujah’ is included. Someone at the record company actually thought a remix of the Nigerian dentist’s 1993 hit would go well on this compilation.

This compounded the reservations I first had when seeing this CD. Normally I don’t trust any club compilations that don’t mention Ibiza or Ministry of Sound somewhere in the title. My fears proved to be founded.

This has got to be the cheesiest collection of club hits they could scrape together at the record company. Not only that, but most of the remixes are decidedly dodgy.

But having said that, it's, er, really quite fun in that tasteless, kitsch kind of way. It played like the soundtrack to my clubbing days, or maybe a bad flashback, and anyone who has set foot in a club over the past ten years will be able to recognise and sing along with most of the tracks.

And what memories… Oh, for those sweaty, smoky, heady nights spent jammed together like sheep on an abattoir truck, writhing and worshipping the beat. Why? Who knows. Who cares. It’s an escape. And if any CD can induce that empty-headed state, this is it.

And that’s why you really do need this in your CD collection!

With tracks like Mousse T’s ‘Keep Pushin’, the impossibly camp remix of Ce Ce Peniston's 'Finally' and a somewhat less successful attempt at ‘Lady Marmalade’, to Kikane’s ‘So Fine’ and the less dancey ‘If Madonna Calls’, there is something for everyone.

Hide it from people if you want to impress them, but its perfect for those bad taste parties and drunken braais around the pool when you want to irritate the neighbours.

Play this when you’re driving down the N1 or N3 to your holiday destination and you’ll never fall asleep.

If you’re planning a New Year’s Eve party and can’t afford a DJ, get this and put it on repeat. Just make sure your guests are sufficiently inebriated, and I guarantee you’ll have a thumping time. And if you have a disc changer, you can also go out and get Absolute Club Classics volume one and two!

Or perhaps slip this into your office Christmas party. You’ll dine out for months on what a toss your boss made of himself trying to keep up with the beats.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh. It’s actually good fun. I just don’t like dentists.