Customer Reviews

Soul Jazz Records presents Voguing: Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene in New York City, 1989-92

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Soul Jazz records is famous for its quality releases.This time around Soul Jazz pays tribute to the Voguing scene of the late 80s/early 90s in New York City.Though many tracks are well known and easy to find on other releases,the booklet and the bonus Junior Vasquez mix dc are great.

Personally, all I know about voguing is that it apparently inspired Madonna's "Vogue" and therefore involved striking poses. According to the exhaustive sleeve notes (by Tim Lawrence) it involved one having to "pop, dip and spin" (me neither). Still, this is a classy and not as camp as you might think compilation, taking in sounds as diverse as Motown, Salsoul and Strictly Rhythm. Only Armand Van Helden's "The Witch Doktor" (the second most irritating record Strictly Rhythm released after Wink's "Higher State of Consciousness") grates. I presume the time period mentioned in the title refers to the date of the scene, rather than the release dates of the records, which actually span a much longer time period: from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

The lavish package consists of three discs (not two as stated in the Amazon product info, unless Amazon are selling a different edition from my copy - disc 3 is a continuous DJ mix of the tracks on the other two discs), an eight panel glossy fold-out digipak, a 20 page booklet and 6 postcards (I have never known Soul Jazz Records to skimp on packaging mind you) - so a bit of a bargain, really.

I'm still none the wiser as to what voguing really was, maybe you had to be there? Perhaps I should buy the accompanying Stuart Baker book Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York, 1989-92 - or perhaps I'll save my money.

I was there when it all happened. 1987-88, NYC, and this compilation IS A GEM.
ALL THE TRACKS ARE GREAT.