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I will admit, after purchasing this game, I found myself sitting in front of my Playstation hearing 3,2,1, GO. If you enjoy heart racing, adrenaline pumping electronica then this is the soundtrack for you. and then placing the controller on the ground in front of me listening to the great music coming from my 13" TV. After a while, the game simply became a visual to a near perfect soundtrack. Highly recommended however Coffee + This Album may = excessive speed on the road. Buy at your own risk :)
They were released on singles only. There are track differences between the two. It's one of those exclusive versions I was talking about. What Wipeout XL did was take that style of music and put it on a CD so people can just pop it in and jam without having to either rip the tracks off the game or play the game cd on a stereo system. For one the games staff writer, Cold Fusion, doesn't have any tracks on it so that takes out two songs.
If you have been into it for a while there are some tracks here worth getting that are either not that easy to find or you just won't find elsewhere. Based on a video game soundtrack Wipeout XL takes what the Playstation game (Wipeout 2) did with the music genre and moved it another level. LOOPS OF FURY and LEAVE HOME (Underworld Mix) By Chemical Brothers, while not exclusive mixes, they are songs you won't find on any of their albums. TIN THERE and MUSIQUE are a little repetitive but manageable. The CD is worth getting for these two tracks alone. Either way Loops of Fury to me is the ultimate big beat song.
If you are into electronic dance music this CD not just a good album, but required listening. This is because the game designers decided to get a broad range of artists together on their game project. I don't mean crappy freak mixes that don't deserve proliferation I mean some killer mixes that you MUST have in your collection. It's aggressive and driven like a lot of his dancier tracks. Some of the new tracks on this CD are exclusive to this CD only. From there a couple other songs were replaced for whatever reasons (personally I think Future Sound of London's Herd Killing is just too dissonant for anything but a title scroll for the game). Exclusive mixes. But don't fret, because what they replaced them with is definitely worth your while.
The Wipeout 2 games was heralded as not only an excellent arcade racing game, but a game that had one of the coolest soundtracks ever. Not even remixes. Powerful drums on top of a driving bassline with a mess of fun noises dancing around the groove. See where I'm getting at). That's right.
And this is the coolest mix of Atom Bomb I have ever heard (and I heard lots). This CD is worth it for these two tracks alone (Did I just repeat myself. Actually it's great if you are just starting into the genre and want to hear the music that catapulted it. Still great on the dance floor. Leave Home is just powerful, but more minimalist. 2097 by Source Direct can only be found on the Wipeout CD's (game and XL CD). Photek is very much like Source Direct, only not as interesting in their drum-&-bassiness.If you are just getting into modern electronic music then this would be a perfect primer for you. V-Six is an exlusive song you won't find anywhere but here.
The result was a video game with a soundtrack that defined electronic music in the 90's. It's some crazy drum and bass that you might not be able to dance to, but it sure is interesting listening to what do they the instruments.Other good tracks (not exclusive) are Orbital's P.E.T.R.O.L., Future Sound of London's WE HAVE EXPLOSIVE (very popular), and the lyricless FIRESTARTER by The Prodigy. Here's my opinion on some tracks:ATOM BOMB and V-SIX by Fluke is not the regular version. Totally new beat and feel, but definitely the same song. At least it's not on any of their albums. Either way this is an excellent CD that's worthy to be in your collection.
So there you have it, unless you desperatly want the WipeoutXL intro flick music which wasn't included on the game CD - don't bother. Seven is the coolest theme ever - the one from the WipeoutXL game intro video(the whole reason I got this CD) and the first track is also mixed in there somewhere. Basicaly the only decent stuff I see here are tracks 1,4,7 and 8. Better get the WipeoutXL game itself - it's out for PSX and PC and has the great game and music all in one(skip the first data track). Number 4 is just a more or less decent techno track, while 8 is Prodigy's "Firestarter" without the vocals. Track 2 was a dissapointing dulled-down version of Fluke's "Atom Bomb"(I'd give the CD 4 stars if they just put the excellent original one). You can also play the PSX version with an emulator and get the same resolution. But the PC version is the best.
To call this a "techno" CD is misleading. I have a lot of CDs from various electronica artists that have songs on this compilation (Fluke, FSOL, Orbital, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy) and others that don't (namely Crystal Method) and they're all great but none quite capture the diverse essence of what electronica can encompass. Sure there's some of that, but this is really a genuine electronica CD with the likes of Photek, Source Direct, et al making an appearance with some, shall we say, unique tracks.Electronica today (2003) isn't quite what it used to be back when it was new and clearly still experimental and at the top of its form. This 78:18 CD offers up some classic tracks that will last forever. This is that CD.The version of Atom Bomb on here is a cleaned-up AND remixed version of the original on Fluke's own Risotto CD. None of the other reviews really pointed that out.
When I bought this however many years ago, nobody bothered to point out to me that it was the soundtrack to a game. But perhaps that's the greatest compliment anybody could give it--that the music stands on its own without any hard-sell.Maybe you bought 'Exit Planet Dust' but if you missed out on the Chemical Brothers' (in my opinion) best single "Loops of Fury", you could atone buy picking up this disc. The instrumental version of "Firestarter" is better than the original, and "PETROL" is not representative of the Orbital album ('In Sides') it comes from, but still kicks.The whole 'Electronica' wave was over-done and rightfully put in its proper place on the musical scheme of things, but in retrospect, there were some singles you had to own, and this is a superb compilation of them.Made to be booming out of your convertible, even if it's a k-car.
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