Todd Terry's Rare Grooves, Vol V

Album Review

More of a full-fledged hits collection than Sound of Ministry's A Day in the Life..., Todd Terry's Greatest Hits includes all of the seminal house producer's earliest, best moments: "Bango (To the Batmobile)," "A Day in the Life," "I Wanna Go Bang," "Weekend," "Party People," and "Can You Party." What's even better is that the compilers avoided the rather dry atmosphere of a retrospective by drafting Anthony Acid to place the tracks into a continuous set and play with the mix a bit. Placed alongside needed retrospectives (like Warp10+1) of the Detroit and Chicago scenes, Todd Terry's Greatest Hits takes the immense claim of early-period New York house's raw pulse and street aesthetics, staking it halfway between disco and hip-hop. Listeners wanting a summation of what house music meant in the late '80s and '90s would be hard-pressed to find a better release than this one.