Miami Sound Machine

Ministry of Sound - The leaders in dance music compilations present an alternative to the predictable love song albums out this Valentines. Funky House Classics is an album dripping with a glittering mix of sexy house and funky disco.
Featuring 3 Mixes of the crème de la crème of uplifting vocal tunes it’s sure to put a smile on any dance lover’s face. With just about every funky track you know and love the album flawlessly blends mainstream chart hits and underground anthems for the ultimate feel good experience.
Timeless classics such as Room 5 “Make Luv”, David Morales “Needin’ U”, Eric Prydz “Call On Me”, Joey Negro “Make A Move On Me”, Rui Da Silva “Touch Me” and loads more are complimented with upfront hits from Steve Angello & Laidback Luke “Show Me Love”, Duck Sauce “aNYway” and the brilliantly funky mix of the massive #1, Sidney Samson “Riverside”.
With every sexy funky track all in one glittery bundle, Funky House Classics is the perfect alternative to flowers and chocolates this Valentines.

The 2006 release of The Essential Gloria Estefan satisfied a long unmet need for a career-spanning English-language retrospective, one that includes the singer's popular hits with Miami Sound Machine in the mid-'80s as well as her subsequent solo recordings. For years, Estefan fans had few best-of choices to choose from – the Spanish-language Exitos de Gloria Estefan (1990), the two-volume Greatest Hits series (1992, 2001), and the latter-day Amor y Suerte: Exitos Romanticos collection (2004) – with no alternatives, not even budget-line knockoffs. The long-overdue release of The Essential Gloria Estefan thankfully resolved this gripe, for it includes the highlights from all aspects of Estefan's varied output, spread generously across two jam-packed discs.

As one of the biggest new stars to emerge during the mid-'80s, singer Gloria Estefan predated the coming Latin pop explosion by a decade, scoring a series of propulsive dance hits rooted in the rhythms of her native Cuba before shifting her focus to softer, more ballad-oriented fare. Born Gloria Fajardo in Havana on September 1, 1957, she was raised primarily in Miami, Florida, after her father, a bodyguard in the employ of Cuban president Fulgencio Batista, was forced to flee the island following the 1959 coup helmed by Fidel Castro.

In early 1990, when she was one of the biggest pop stars in the world, Gloria Estefan suffered a broken vertebrae when her tour bus was struck in an accident, and her miraculous recovery from that near tragedy greatly informed her successive album, Into the Light. Though often noted as a "comeback" album, that descriptor is misleading. Yes, Into the Light is a comeback – a comeback from her accident, that is. It's not a comeback in the sense that her previous album, Cuts Both Ways, had been a failure or even a disappointment. No, Estefan hadn't fallen off, so to speak, with that album. Quite the opposite. It was a monster hit, breaking into the Top Ten and scoring a couple of high-charting ballads: "Don't Wanna Lose You" and "Here We Are." It also marked a drastic shift away from the unabashed dance-pop of her Miami Sound Machine output toward a more respectable adult contemporary appeal. This shift affected not only her image but also her audience as a result, and that shift is even more apparent on Into the Light. In fact, the shift seems complete, as this is full-fledged adult contemporary album with serious themes and toned-down production.