"Keep My Composure" features rapper Spank Rock and is rather good. All of the elements of a successful Chemicals track are here: sampled drums, bleeping synths and a deep driving bassline. The rap just adds some additional colour to Ed and Tom's astounding aural landscape.
When I looked at the Wikipedia article for this album I began to get a little confused. According to the oracle of modern thinking, this album is subtitled "The Definitive Singles Collection". Yet, "Keep My Composure" wasn't released as a single. Similarly, "Saturate" is included but it was never officially released as a single either.
Things become even more opaque when you consider this album omits a number of singles that were released. "Get Yourself High", "Life is Sweet", "Music:Response" and "The Boxer" come to mind immediately. Some of the singles that are included seem to be presented in different versions too. "Believe" is the 'extended' mix and I think "Star Guitar" is an edit of the album as opposed to the original single edit.
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"Midnight Madness" (aka Electronic Battle Weapon 10) was released as a
single but probably shouldn't have been. The version on this album has
had almost 5 minutes trimmed from the original Battle Weapon version,
but it still bores me.
I looked at the artwork of the album to find no mention of "The Definitive Singles Collection". Having discounted the irrational thought that Wikipedia may not be correct, I did notice my original CD has a promo sticker with the claim and Discogs shows the original pressing of the vinyl also had a similar sticker. I wonder if the album was edited as a "Best Of" and some bright spark in the marketing department at Virgin had the idea of applying stickers with the strange subtitle. Anyway...
If you don't own any records by The Chemical Brothers, you could do worse than starting with this one - but there's not a lot to justify the outlay for the initiated. 4/5
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