★★★★★
For a good half-decade now, Top 40 pop has been leaning toward the proudly synthetic, inexorably propulsive sound of European club music. On "Evolution," his first album of new material since 2007, the German DJ-producer Paul Van Dyk leans back...
- latimesblogs.latimes.com
2012-04-12
★★★★★
Paul Van Dyk, the trance pioneer and oft-revered figurehead of electronic dance music, has been making and releasing music since his days as a radio broadcaster in the early '90s after fleeing the oppression of East Germany. Over time, he's built up a devoted fan-base and an impressive amount of serious accolades, including being the only person to hold a spot as one of the top 10 DJ's in the world since 1998...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-04-05
★★★★★
I need to figure out some way to properly categorize Paul van Dyk. See, I actually like a lot of what he does. Most people would say that he produces trance, and yet I steadfastly do not like trance. Something here does not add up. Last year's solo artist album Reflections saw van Dyk branching out into surprisingly funky territory. It wasn't exactly Fatboy Slim, but it was a diverse set that featured a number of tracks set apart from the normal trance template...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
I need to figure out some way to properly categorize Paul van Dyk. See, I actually like a lot of what he does. Most people would say that he produces trance, and yet I steadfastly do not like trance. Something here does not add up. Last year's solo artist album Reflections saw van Dyk branching out into surprisingly funky territory. It wasn't exactly Fatboy Slim, but it was a diverse set that featured a number of tracks set apart from the normal trance template...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
Treated with an almost god like reverence by your day-glo Gatecrasher crowd, on 'Reflections' German 'Uber' DJ Paul Van Dyk continues apace in his attempts to garner both mainstream and dance music credibility. But sadly, despite tracks like 'Time of Our Lives' (recorded with British no marks Vega 4) that positively cry out "take me seriously as an artist", this infrequently strays from PVD's stock in trade formulaic hands in the air anthemic trance...
- www.gigwise.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
The music technology practitioner's bible, EQ, claims that everything Paul van Dyk touches turns to gold and it is easy to understand this when you consider his achievements so far...
- www.musicomh.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
There's something to be said for reviewing a trance album through club speakers with flashing lights rather than on a portable CD player. There's only so much chair dancing one can do before one begins to feel a mite ridiculous, and if anyone's music was meant to be heard standing - or preferably moving - it is that of superstar DJ Paul van Dyk.Unlike his artist album Out There And Back, The Politics of Dancing releases are, essentially, DJ sets rather than van Dyk's own work...
- www.musicomh.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
To many in the US, club music hit its stride sometime around 1989 when C+C Music Factory dropped "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)". Something about that call to the floor anthem just captivated people and they were hooked. Soon after, copies of discs by Crystal Waters flew off the shelves like fucking hot cakes, only paving the way for dance floor stomps by luminaries like the Quad City DJs. And then something happened, man. The music like, died...
- www.lostatsea.net
2010-02-19
★★★★★
Paul van Dyk is truly an exemplary example of the term "globetrotting DJ," and he wants to prove it on his new CD/DVD set, Global. The album's name sums it up quite nicely; van Dyk's travels around the world, set to his cookie-cutter style of trance music, are detailed on the DVD part of the set...
- www.lostatsea.net
2010-02-19