Celebrating 20 years of club nights and dance festivals, Liverpool's Cream pulls out all the stops for this anniversary compilation, featuring three discs of floor-fillers, seamlessly mixed for a nonstop party. Disc one presents the current 2012 sound with Calvin Harris representing the indie-meets-wonky pop style of the MP3 generation, while David Guetta with Kelly Rowland, along with Kid Cudi plus Crookers, illustrate the crowd-pleasing possibilities of prime dance-urban crossovers. The inclusion of EDM names like Swedish House Mafia and Deadmau5, plus dubstep droppers like Nero and Skrillex, are proof this 20-year-old organization is still hip. Discs two and three are nostalgic trips into the past, filled with huge tunes from Bobby Brown ("Two Can Play That Game" in a mix by K-Klass), Fatboy Slim ("Everybody Needs a 303"), Basement Jaxx ("Fly Time"), and Paul van Dyk ("For an Angel"), while cuts from Armand Van Helden ("You Don't Know Me"), Ruffneck ("Everybody Be Somebody"), and Felix ("Don't You Want Me") are all house music classics that aren't very familiar by name, but make way once the needle drops. The mixing is so tight that the set can't be parted into tracks, so best to let Cream take over and ride this history lesson like the hands-in-the-air party it is. ~ David Jeffries

Rovi