The Vitals

Label: Ménage
Genre: House
Number Of Tracks: 16
How To Obtain: stevesmooth.com

Factor Scores:

• Production Quality: 7.5
• Programming and Arrangement: 7.8
• Entertainment Quality: 8.5
• Total: 7.9 – Good

Brian's Take:

Whether you're into mainstream/commercial house, or you dig the underground cuts check out JJ Flores & Steve Smooth's "The Collection". This 16 track full-length features some of their career's highlights, as well as some of the mistakes.

Opening with a couple club and radio friendly tracks, Flores & Smooth save the better for later on the CD. The first signs of some serious quality funky house are when the CD hits "Freak You".   At this point the cheesy vocals are out and it's pure floor-rocking goodness. After several more mediocre mainstream tracks, "Discoteca" flips on the tribal switch. On comes some electro-style house, in the form of "Get Naked". This track could've brought the release way up, had the theme of the track not been so shallow. However that low point is quickly forgotten once the massively funky "Ride" drops; dancing is inevitable and speakers get pushed. During the later half of the CD Flores & Smooth bring out the remixes. The "Be Like Me" and "Feels So Good" remixes easily beat the original mixes appearing earlier on the CD. Similarly, the dub mix of Release is much easier on the ears than the cheesy vocal mix heard earlier. The Retromode remix of "Beat Freaker" left me wanting the original mix (which doesn't appear on the CD by the way), but was not unbearable. Shortly thereafter Flores & Smooth's remix of Dancin' comes on and bridges the gap between mainstream vocal and underground house. Finally to finish out the CD the Shock Stars remix of "Be Like Me" sounds more like a rock song than anything else. With a nice groove and a moving bass line, it doesn't come close to Flores & Smooth's remix.

While there were a number of incredible tunes on the CD, there unfortunately were also a large number of misses. A few of the album's low points included the original mix of "Be Like Me", original mix of "Feels So Good", "Time For Love", and "Let Me Live". The reason these tracks lost points from me was vocals. The cheese factor is all-important in a record's entertainment value, as well as production. No matter how chunky or bangin' a track's instrumental is, bad vocals will overshadow. However, a few of the tracks more than make up for that loss, such as "Freak You", "The Ride", and the dub of "Release". Definitely check this one out, whether you normally listen to house or not. Stick it out for the bad tracks (or just skip them), and once the good ones kick in you'll be glad you stayed.