reNRGized
Artist: Pure NRG
Label: Fervent/Curb/Warner Brothers

Forgive me if I said the same thing upon reviewing the similar Hannah Montanna project of similar length, but...

Apart from biding time between proper studio projects, the purpose of remix albums by 'tween-marketed acts largely eludes me. Do so many kids within these acts' target demographic really clamor so strongly for the songs they've come to know and like-to-love that there's pent up demamnd for danceable, though not terribly club-friendly, remixes? Not that I've polled a representative sampling of eight-to-14 year-olds (who likely shouldn't be nightclubbing in the first place?), but I'm going to guess such data would reveal the answer to be one between "not really" to "not at all." 

I'm still a sucker for exceptional 'tween pop, though, and apart from a middling Christmas album last year, co-ed trio Pure NRG have largely delivered. Making their next longplayer (though short, at only eight tracks) a remix project wth all the remixing done by one guy bodes ill, but _reNRGized_ isn't a total waste.

Just like the originals taken from the threesome's first two albums, everything apart from Caroline, Carolyn and Jordan's voices is electronic. "Are You Ready" is refigured into electro-disco with trumpet blasts, but down tempo works for the troika, too;"It's Still Love" perhaps numbers among the slim number of drum&bass (light on the bass) ballads. "Inside Out" harkens to '80s synth pop as reinterpreted by current acts such as The Echoing Green. Titular track to their last non-holiday set, "Here We Go Again" becomes hi-house (hi-NRG/house music hybrid that popular from the late '80s to sometime in the '90s) anthem sung by kids likely unaware the Italo-disco acts whose music they're rechannelling. 

Of course, nothing here runs much over four minutes, and if the borderline-pubescent vocals don't cut it for serious club DJ's, the parents of the kids who liked the songs on their first go-round could spend $8.00 or so on their heirs in less productive manners. And for being the only body behind the board, Tim Holt could have done plenty worse. 

So, for its dubious necessity, reNRGized wins over on fun. However, I'm expecting the next album with Pure NRG's name on the front to be fresh material that blows me away, OK?

Jamie Lee Rake