Various - Hit Box 14 FLAC

How does it feel when an era comes to an end? How does it feel when everything you have loved in a music style has gone upside down? The Hit Box series managed to mark a generation of techno lovers throughout the techno - rave era in the years 1991 to 1996, and as all good things that have an end, so does Hit Box. (You can call me Hit Box 9, probably the most complete among with no 5 in the series).Although Hit Box 10-12 were "good" in comparison with the previous, this one was like a hammer in the head. For God sake, what were they thinking in FM Records with tracks like Cloudburst, Oh la la la, Eene Meene, I'll be there.... Perhaps the last breath of a legendary serie? Ok, 1998, end of rave area, but if you deeply know that the music industry takes a free fall, try to avoid yours. Don't publish it. The majority of the tracks are melancholic, depressing and totally forgettable. The style is downtempo carnival like, early Europop. Tracks like The age of love and Shadows of the night and even Another star is born, don't save the ship from sinking. My opinion? Avoid it if you respect techno music and the previous releases of Hit Box.

To be honest, it felt quite bad at the time :-/ I remember how I had high expectations of this compilation, and how I was let down instead. The only other time I felt let down by FM Records was with Groovy Mix, but for entirely different reasons, and at least that one is still an enjoyable listen.IMO, the last "true" Hit Box was perhaps Hit Box 12. OK, so it bore no comparison with the pre-10 series, but it was still somewhat true to the original spirit, and if FM Records had decided to end the series right there and then, and call the next series something else, it would have been a decent, graceful exit, and I think none would have complained. Instead, they kept using the name "Hit Box" beyond its legacy, with things clearly starting to come apart with Hit Box 13 (but still I never felt bad about owning it, quite the opposite), while Hit Box 14...well, it felt pretty much like an old friend having become a shadow of his former self but not having the courage to tell him or to admit it. Certainly not worthy of the "Hit Box" name, even less so than 13.In hindsight, this fiasco became even less acceptable by noticing what kinds of tracks were being released at the same time in e.g. Germany and Italy, where the genre wasn't dead yet, quite the opposite, and surely it didn't succumb to Europop or Electro in the manner this compilation seems to suggest.

One of the last of the Hit Box series by FM Records (though not THE last, there were also two obscure Hit Box 15 and 16 after this one), and also the one which unmistakably signaled the end of an era. Hit Box 13 which came right before it was more of a "beginning of the end", but still held its ground somewhat.The year is early 1998, the "Golden Era" of Euro Dance and Rave has definitively ended from some time and and the trends are shifting, and this is clearly reflected in this compilation, much more than it was e.g. in Hit Box 13, which at least still managed to keep an upbeat, cheerful tone.On the contrary, Hit Box 14 is hypotonic, forgettable and almost depressing. The general tone is more Europop and Downtempo oriented than all others in the series, as witnessed by the many "new entries" like 2 Eivissa, Justine Earp, Maarja and Q-Club. There still are a few of the big names of Euro like Scooter, DJ BoBo, Dr. Alban, Graffa, 2 Brothers On The 4th Floor, Playahitty etc., but even in their case the track selection is not really top-notch, and does little to change a general feeling of indifference.The only notable feature of this compilation (and perhaps the only reason for collecting it) is the exclusive inclusion of the instrumental progressive track "Another Star Is Born" by Tiaka, an F.M. Records internal project name which had also appeared in Hit Box 12, but other than that, Hit Box 14 is a pretty hypotonic and indifferent compilation.It's also highly debatable whether any of the tracks included were actually "hits" by any definition of the term: it feels more like a collection of obscure, forgettable b-sides (and in fact, most of the tracks do not appear in many other or any other compilations, which might be another collectibility point, although pretty weak).Hit Box 15, which came later in 1998 managed to regain the lost "energy" somehow, but the series were nearing their decline anyway, with only one more (Hit Box 16, year unknown) ever released.Overall, surely not the best chapter of the series. The only thing preventing me from rating it even lower or labelling it outright as the "worst" is the inclusion of "Another Star Is Born", the relative obscurity of many of its tracks, the inclusion of a few passable tracks and because I haven't heard Hit Box 16 yet.