There's been rumours that Cream is not milking (boom boom) the dance scene quite so well as it once did. With the original clubnight indefinitely suspended there's been talk of everything from the smaller clubs rising to the entire scene being in decline. The death-of-dance rumours have been "supported" by the lie that Ibiza's pulled less than it's usual billion UK punters this year. In fact, tourism is up 7% by official figures.

A lot of Ibiza trippers go to the Cream nights on the island, and along with Creamfields and the compilation cd's there is little doubt that Cream Ltd is still in rude health. However, listening to this "techno" double cd compilation it's sometimes hard to see why.

CD1 starts promisingly enough with Green Velvet's 'La La Land' but after a barrage of the uninspired (Sven Vath - 'Mind Games'), radio tired (Layo & Bushwacka *- 'Love Story'), and overrated (Laurent Garnier* - 'The Man With The Red Face') it becomes clear this is all going a bit, ahem, Pete Tong. It seems Cream consider themselves to be above the trappings of pop and excel in repetitive anal DJ attitude.

CD2 goes on a retro tip, but very much in a Cream way. Opener, Model 500's 'The Chase' sounds like it was made on a Yamaha portasound in 1988. 'Strings of Life' by Rythim Is Rythim is only noticable because it provides a hook sampled by Altern8. Thankfully the "Leeds Warehouse Mix" of LFO's 'LFO' is pretty much identical to the original and all the better for it. From then on it's strictly pills territory. The repetitive nature of the tracks gets more irritating than 'Agadoo' played for the third time in a night at a holiday camp disco.

There is no doubt that a lot of people out there will love this cd: there are a lot of pilled up or musically anal people after all. Personally, I'd rather listen to Clubland or Clubmix Ibiza; at least you can sing along.