Record Exchange Boise

Reviews:

"As I sift through records week after week," Boy George writes inthe liner notes for his newest DJ-mix CD, "I hear tunes that should beheard and should be 'unspeakably humongous!' Sadly most of them don'tget a look in. How many more DJ compilations do we need with the same recordson them?"

George deserves credit for attempting to not be one of those same people-notthat he's ever been much like anyone else on any level, but still. Havingthrown himself full-time into house-music DJ-ing a few years back, he'sas qualified as anyone to sample the milieu and ferret out the gems. Troubleis, as both last year's Essential Mix and this new disc prove, therecords he deems worthy mostly slide by the ear when they're not workingtheir mojo on actual dancefloors.

But where Essential Mix jostled and jarred with its manic eclecticism-switchingfrom Baby D's rave classic, "Let Me Be Your Fantasy" to the 2-stepgarage of Cultural Diversion's "See Thru" to the disco-houseof Kinky Roland's "Born Funky"-most of A Night Out staysa steady course. Its funk-laced house occasionally makes an attempt at breakingout of its mold, as with Yum Yum vs. Deva's strutting "Dizzy."But the album's problems are typified by Kinky Roland's "Artas Revenge Mix" of George's own "Julian," a collaborationwith Kevan Frost credited to the Gay and Lesbian Disco Association: the songis either too melodramatic or not melodramatic enough, I'm not sure which.The same holds true of A Night Out as a whole.