Search - Prodigy :: Back to Mine

Good tracks ... bad mix

Adam P. Lounsbery | New York, NY | 12/06/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This is the third Back to Mine release I've heard. I thought that about half of the tracks on the CD by Everything But the Girl were pretty weak, but I liked the way the whole thing flowed overall. Orbital's CD didn't always flow, but there were some interesting surprises in terms of track selection and how the whole thing was put together. Liam Howlett's mix has neither of these things going for it. It doesn't flow (at all), and anyone with a semi-decent knowledge of popular music will already be familiar with most of these tracks. "A Message to You Rudy" is a great track, but it's basically Ska 101, and anyone who's listened to college radio at some point during the past 20 years already knows it. The same goes for "Peaches" by The Stranglers and "Rise" by Public Image Limited. "Jolene" by Dolly Parton? Is it a great song? Yes. Is there anyone on planet earth who's unfamiliar with it? Probably not. Ditto for "Welcome to the Terrordome," by Public Enemy, "Livin' Thing," by ELO, and "I Chase the Devil," by Max Romeo and the Upsetters. In my opinion, a mix CD should either create a flow and an atmosphere that wouldn't exist without stringing a particular set of tracks together or it should introduce listeners to amazing but relatively unknown songs. If a mix does both of those things that's great, but this mix fails to do either."