Vengaboys ‎– We Like To Party! (The Vengabus) [Positiva ‎– CDTIVS108 / 7243 8 8590 2 4]

Music like this, up-beat, carefree, bouncy electronic that is radio friendly, kid friendly and just plain fun – I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to create music like this again. It is just so pure, you have nothing to worry about when listening to this music. I guess many kids of the generation after me will never know, or understand this music like I do and even then my understanding and connection to this music is weak at best.

I do like this song, yes it is annoying. So annoying in fact that one of my previous bosses got it stuck in his head and would always hum the tune when the office was quiet. Knowing it annoyed me, during my holiday time he left me a few voicemails of the song. This song brings back happy memories of this harmless joke, and I think for many this song brings back happy memories too. It’s just that a happy song.

You don’t get the popular mix on this CD single that you find on many of the compilation albums of the time, instead you get an extended cut of the original song for the first track. The second is your standard hardcore house remix with thumping bass, if that is your kind of thing. The third track is a completely new take on the original song by legendary Tin Tin Out, which could stand up as a separate release on its own. But does kind of loose a bit of the silliness of the original with this heavy handed edit.

Tina Barrett ‎– Fire (Remixes) [Diamond Eyes Records]

The sad thing is that Tina did not get this memo, and decided to start giving a crap almost 10 years after the band went down the toilet. Why did she take this long? Maybe she wanted to quit the business, or maybe she was bitter from the split but why on earth she created this I don’t know. Its so revolting it has caused me to come all this way to write this damning review.

Like I said in my review of Rachel Stevens (another S Club member chasing a solo career) most can afford high quality musicians and songwriters to try and ignite their solo career and sadly usually fail not because the music they are making is sub-par but that it cannot compete with all of the other mediocre shit that floats atop the pop landscape.

Well Tina clearly does not have the money to spend on such luxuries, and instead has made a song with the same budget a 16-year old has when making his hot new EDM tracks on SoundCloud. Tina is trying to tap into the popular EDM-pop market that was and still is very popular in the chart at the moment, but has created a mess of a song. With strained vocals (stop going RAHHHHHHHHH), terrible mixing, strange double-tracking that doesn’t work, lame as fuck lyrics, and the most uninspired backing beat I have heard in a while all you (the listener) end up with is a headache and maybe some mild confusion as to why such a monstrosity exists. The music video that goes along with the track is also complete garbage and looks like a students first attempt at Adobe After Effects.

Tina clearly has no pride or confidence in this song as she disabled both ratings and comments on the video, knowing that the public were likely going to dismiss this song and tell her to do something more worthwhile with her time.

Anyway, I’m sure she’ll recover the £80 she lost making this track with the upcoming S Club 7 reunion tour.