Maximum Joy is a 'Best of...' album, it contains two CD's, the first containing the original songs and the second features remixes from Rob Searle (The Power of Love, Two Tribes), Club 69 (Relax), Nalin & Kane (Welcome to the Pleasuredome), DJ Rene (Maximum Joy), Sander Kleinenberg (Welcome to the Pleasuredome) and Apollo 440 (Two Tribes).

The album begins with Relax, Frankie's first single, banned by Radio 1 and subsequently by the whole of the BBC, this track slowly crawled to number one in 1983. The first disc includes Two Tribes, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, War and The Power of Love but it is the second CD that we are interested in...

Disc two contains remixes of classic Frankie tracks, it begins with Rob Searle's remix of The Power of Love, a Christmas Number One back in 1984. Rob Searle gave the track a trance remix last Autumn (1999), it was released as a bootleg and Radio 1 began playing the track on its specialist dance shows. ZTT officially released the track earlier this year (2000) and it entered the singles chart at number six.

Next up is Club 69's remix of Relax, this is more house than trance. Again, like Rob Searle's Power of Love it drops into the vocals half way through, then goes back into the 'tune', then the vocals are played over the 'tune', excellant remix, samples the original well.

Nalin & Kane's remix of Welcome to the Pleasuredome isn't brilliant, the vocals come in to quickly and they don't really have much of a backing, just a short bass riff.

Next it's DJ Rene's mix of Maximum Joy, starts off well, very atmospheric, then the beat begins, this builds up to the vocals, you don't hear much of the vocals again in the track but it's a good mix.

We hear another remix from Rob Searle, Two Tribes, this was also released as a single but didn't do as well as The Power of Love. Dance records are extremely hard to follow up, normally they sound exactly the same as the first track, this doesn't, a very good remix.

Sander Kleinenberg has also had a go with Welcome to the Pleasuredome, he messes around with the vocals and builds up to them very well.

The album ends with Apollo Four Forty's remix of Two Tribes, a distorted bass drum kicks off the track, the vocals begin in the second minute, over the backing which has now built up. In my opinion this is one of the best remixes on the album, even though it is only just over six minutes long.

Overall, a good album, some classic tracks on the first disc and some excellant remixes on the second, worth buying.