Bad Boy Bill has been a DJ for what seems like forever, starting in the late ’80s and churning out amazing mix after mix ever since. His Bangin’ the Box series and House Connection albums (with Richard ‘Humpty’ Vission) are legendary collections of Hi-NRG house that never let up, sometimes mixing over 40 tracks in the course of an hour. It’s amazing that it has taken him this long to create an artist album comprised entirely of original material. It’s even more amazing that it’s not all together that good. Instead of focusing on the frantic house that made Bill a standard in dance clubs worldwide, Bill’s decided to embrace standard dance-pop for The Album. Some of it is great, like the throbbing “Headlock” or the single “Fast Life,” but the rest of the songs are too derivative, annoying or just plain boring. Even worse is his pointless cover of Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” which takes the song’s classic hook and buries it with annoying fader effects, giving you a maddening taste of it before cutting it away. The best tracks on The Album will probably show up in a Bad Boy Bill mix eventually, and will probably sound even better, so there’ s no point in picking up this very unfortunate misfire. (Nettwerk Records 2009)
