Republica essentially sound like they're stuck in 1990, when house and rave were just beginning to make their presence felt in dance-pop – which, to more critical ears, will mean they sound dated for the mid-'90s, when jungle, drum'n'bass, ambient, and all other forms of techno were finally edging their way into the mainstream. And that argument would be relevant if Republica were attempting to work in that genre, but as their eponymous debut indicated, they had no interest in hardcore techno – they just wanted to dance. Working with strong, accessible Hi-NRG beats and catchy choruses, the trio has a bright, energetic sound that is quite infectious when tied with the right melodies, such as on the hit singles "Ready to Go" and "Drop Dead Gorgeous." If they had more than one sound, however, Republica would be even more entertaining, but as it stands, the record is a stretch of pleasantly numbing dance-pop punctuated by two terrific singles.

Following on from the success of Vienna, Ultravox cemented their position as a New Romantic phenomenon with their follow-up, 1981's Rage in Eden. The martial beats and political undertones of "The Thin Wall" single acted as a potent taster for the album, to be joined in the U.K. Top 20 by the even more powerful message of "The Voice." The latter song opened the album, but nothing that followed equaled its strength, its sequencing a flaw in an otherwise excellent set. That said, propulsive numbers like "We Stand Alone" and "I Remember (Death in the Afternoon)," the rebellious angst of "Accent on Youth," the exotic strains of "Stranger Within," and the haunting "Your Name Has Slipped My Mind Again" all contained their own power. And even if the instrumental "The Ascent" harkened back to "Vienna," it was obvious that with Eden, Ultravox was climbing to grand new heights.

In the summer of 2002, with the help Eagle Records - Candy was given total creative freedom to create the CD of her dreams, giving her the opportunity to push the boundaries with her seamless fusion of R&B, Drum `n Bass, Funk, Jazz and Ambient sounds. Right In My Soul marks Dulfer's first studio album in four years. Right In My Soul has all the trademark riffs, solos and that fit in with the new Candy Dulfer but still instantly recognizable to her legions of fans.

Very rivals Behaviour as Pet Shop Boys' best album, so it's appropriate that the "further listening" bonus disc on Very's installment in the 2001 expanded-edition series rivals the further listening disc for Behaviour, and perhaps even surpasses it. Like that disc, this collection doesn't rely on remixes for bonus tracks and those that do make it are quite good (a previously unreleased 12" mix of "Go West" and the hacienda version of "Violence"). The rest of the record consists of B-sides and non-LP singles (including "Absolutely Fabulous"), none of which have been collected on a disc before since they all date from an era that the double-disc set Alternative didn't cover. The great thing about this is that nearly all of the material could have fit comfortably on Very and it plays as a very infectious, absorbing listen on its own.

Collection includes: Pump Up The Jam (1989); Body To Body (1991); The Best Remixes (1991); Recall (1995). Of the many studio-based dance music projects that dominated the charts during the early '90s, few were so popular, or such an improbable success story, as Technotronic. Emerging from Belgium, the multicultural group helped push the deep bass grooves and insistent beats of house music out of the club scene and into the pop mainstream; ironically, they did so largely by hiding behind the photogenic visage of an African-born fashion model who, it was later revealed, did not even perform on their records. In reality, Technotronic was the brainchild of Jo Bogaert (real name Thomas de Quincy), an American-born philosophy teacher who relocated to Belgium in the late '80s in the hopes of mounting a career as a record producer. Bogaert's intent was to fuse house with hip-hop, and toward that aim he sent demos of his work to a variety of rappers, including the Welsh-born MC Eric and a Zairean-born teenager named Ya Kid K (aka Manuela Kamosi), at the time a member of the Belgian rap group Fresh Beat Productions.