BEST SONG on TEN YEARS OF STRICTLY RHYTHM mix cd

I don't know any of these songs but according to the reviews on Amazon, there are much better collections from this label and style. What tracks should I start with and where can I hear them?

This is so so hard. For me it's down to:
- "Luv Dancin" - this to me is the quintessential early New York garage track
- "(Who?) Keeps Changing Your Mind" - one of my favourite weepy male diva tracks
- "Generate Power" - woah brain overload
- "That Sound" - just classic

And that's not to say that other tracks here (e.g. "The Warning", "Can You Feel It", "Free", "Freedom (Make It Funky)", "I Like To Move It", "The Witch Doktor", "Follow Me" etc.) aren't amazing, but I think my top pick will be one of these.

This is a pretty good mixed overview of the life of the label, but it necessarily only gives a short overview of each era of a label which has released so many amazing tracks. If you can find the earlier comps they used to release you can pick up lots of the earlier tracks.

There was a whole bunch they used to do year by year in the early days, whenever I've seen second hand copies they've been too expensive for me to pick up though. Strictly Rhythm: the early years (from 1993) is pretty great, has many of the key early tracks.

I also can't recommend highly enough the Strictly MAW and Strictly Tiefschwarz comps they've put out this in the last twelve months. The Strictly MAW has two DJ mixes from Kenny Dope and Lil Louis Vega respectively, mining a lot of the label's back catalogue, and generally has this great muscular diva poppers vibe to it, very much gay clubbing idealised.

Whereas the Tiefschwarz comp has one mix and one disc of individual tracks, and is (mostly) an essential document of the Wild Pitch sound (DJ Pierre etc.).

I also love DJ Pierre's Mind Explosion EP from 1995.

Yes, for me it's "Luv Dancin" just ahead of "Who Keeps Changing Your Mind", then "Love and Happiness", then "Beautiful People", then CLS.

Wasn't "My Family Depends On Me" on Strictly? That's a major omission.

I only know a few of these, and I regularly play The Warning, but I'm going to go for Follow Me. In any case, New Jersey in the HOUSE.

I'm kind of leery of any posters who have posted in any thread since yesterday and passed over this one in silence.

Black Magic* Freedom (Make It Funky) (5:58)
- caned this one at the time

River Ocean Feat. India Love And Happiness (Yemaya Y Ochun) (7:24)
- best tribal/funky/latin melange of all time

Reel 2 Real feat. Mad Stuntman, The I Like To Move It (3:41)
- probably the most FUN track on here never gets old

Morel's Grooves Part 4* Let's Groove (2:55)
- under-rated for the great LOW organ b-line

Armand Van Helden Witch Doktor (2:46)
- 2nd best thing he ever did, put 'Short Dick Man' vox over this and destroy all

Wink* Higher State Of Consciousness (5:13)
- classic obv but bored of this all over again

Michael Moog That Sound (7:19)
- fuckin love this for the strings, associated with me getting my first job post grad a few weeks before NYE '99 + tony wilson bigging it up on his old ITV show Content

Logic The Warning (4:50)
Underground Solution Luv Dancin' (3:27)
Aly-Us Follow Me (3:43)

impossible choice

who keeps changing your mind was the one that conquered my brane the first time i heard this mix so i voted that

'follow me' was the one i knew before i heard this - that still gets played all the time on radio here

i guess id heard 'free' and 'i like to move it' obviously too

Absolute classic.

i really have to wonder why this wasnt on that comp

this is SO hard. if i could've had the fresh fruit mix of 'who keeps changing your mind' i prob would've gone with that. as it is it was between 'who keeps changing', ''freedom', love & happiness' and 'never forget'. i went 'love & happiness'. the vocal is one of the most gorgeous ever.

Wound up voting Wink but that was very very very narrowly over "Who Keeps Changing."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i voted South Street Player

love the twinkly motown vocals over the deep house beat

"talk to me, talk to me, talk to me
tell me whooooo

keeps changin your mind
iiiiiiiii need to know, i neeed ta knowwwwww
telll meee

whhoooooooo"

sigh

Impossible to pick, really.

Aly-Us Follow Me

So many great tracks, but over the years I keep returning to "The Warning". Followed closely by "Luv Dancin'"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I always thought this comp was a rather shoddy memento of a seminal label. Apart from ignoring Smooth Touch's "House of Love (In My House)," Strictly Rhythm's greatest hit, as well as genius George Morel bitch tracks like "This Is My Party, (Bitch Get Out)" and "Officer Where's Your Brother? (Get Her)," it suffers from the annoying imperative of the continuous mix CD. I know non-stop mixes are a more "authentic" representation of the club and how it catches history on the fly and whatnot. But Vega just lays the tracks one after the other, never redefining them.

Or even defining them. Take the tapping into the divine moment when the male chorus first enters "Love and Happiness." For some fucked-up reason, Vega chose to fade-in the vocals which totally dilutes their impact. So in this particular instance, I much prefer that first four-disc MAW box for preserving Vega's original brilliance.

I voted for "Love and Happiness" anyway for the memory of the great track it could be which I guess is the ultimate point of comps like this in the end.

No votes for "Generate Power"? (I forgot to vote ... ugh)