3 out of 5

Label: Trauma

Produced by: Various

I remember this album happening, and I remember the kids going crazy over it at the time.  Which confused me.  I was/am a Bush fan, but I wasn’t clear at the time – nor am I really now – why this album happened, and furthermore, why it sold so well.  (Or seemed to.)  They’re a grunge band, yes?  Do they need a dance beat?

Which, according to the wiki entry, was sort of Gavin’s thought behind the mash up, the oddity of it.  But it still doesn’t quite explain the appeal of the disc.  I mean, remixes were in, as was dance pop.  People liked Bush; I guess it… made sense…

Although there’s not much new under the sun here.  It’s not a horrible disc, by any means.  It’s rather listenable.  But it doesn’t come up with much in the way of aural surprises, though I’d also say that was probably not the intention.  (And yes, yes, un-remixed Bush I guess doesn’t provide much surprise either.)  The intention was to make accessible remixes, and to that extent, the album exceeds.  There are a couple of stumbles where the remixer tries to include too much singing, stumbling over Gavin’s cadence – as on Lhasa Fever’s opening mix of Everything Zen – but overall, these are professional compositions, the best of which abandon most of the song structure save a beat or a guitar lick (the reverby Personal Holloway mix by Fabio Paras/Soundclash Republic being a good example), or are takes on songs which would already themselves to a beat (Mouth, In a Lonely Place).

So it’s all well and good.  There’s not a version on here I’d ever prefer to the original, but the majority of the album is legit, not just phoned in, and if you are curious how this mash-up sounds, the tracks that step far outside the pace / mood of the original are notable.  But as a casual listener, just buying up Bush albums, I still can’t say I really get the Why of this album.