Felix NEill

This isn’t music for the clubs, not really. This is music for the week after the night out. X Factor runs the full gamut of post-clubbing emotions. It’s all there - the joy, the disappointment, the comedown, the guilt, the hangover, the half-remembered or semi-recognisable snatches of music, and most importantly, that “YES!” moment when in the cold light of day you once again come across that awesome tune from 3am on a packed dancefloor and wonder what you ever did without it. And, of course, the bit when you get ready to go and do it all over again.

It’s a party album as well, of course, and a fantastic one at that. What else would you expect from an album containing two of the finest pop singles of the decade – The Sugababes “Freak Like Me” and Liberty X’s “Being Nobody”? Superficially bootlegs, both were significantly greater than the sum of their parts, a thrilling endorsement of the art of playing two records over one another, already timeless pop gems that belie the notion that the scene they emerged from was nothing but a passing fad.

There are a handful of tracks here that are even better. “Rock Jacket” is the floor-filler the Chemical Brothers have tried and ultimately failed to make on their last couple of records – colossal panning synths, old-school hip-hop samples, vocoders and a slice of Spandau Ballet’s ‘Chant No 1’. “You Used To,” meanwhile, ropes in Girls Aloud cast-off Javine for a sublime five minutes of slick, 80s, closely-harmonised electro-soul.

But the sadness, when it falls, is immediate. “Just Friends” features the voice of the mysterious Annie leaving a personal phone ad. God knows who’s likely to answer. “Are you single?” she asks. “I’m only looking for a friend, or friends right now. Maybe if we’ll get on, we’ll love,” but there’s little hope in her voice. She sounds broken, defeated. It’s the loneliness at the heart of “You Used To” magnified tenfold, but what really gets you is the production – it’s like everything that’s gone before turned in on itself, mournful synths intertwined with distant choirs and the sound of a thousand machines dying slowly in the background.

Such is the spell cast by the three and a half minute lull of “Just Friends” that “Lonely”, a disappointingly clunky collaboration with ex-Soul II Soul singer Caron Wheeler, feels like a rude awakening. It’s also a shame because twinned with “Just Friends,” X’s understated, deadpan cover of “Walk On By” would have formed a superbly chilly centrepiece. Ex-Flying Lizards vocalist Deborah Evans takes centre stage, but once again your ears can’t keep drifting off to the periphery - past the glockenspiels and synthetic string flourishes to where waves, seagulls, metallic clanking and distant bells drift in and out of the mix. It’s the sound of being stranded, hungover, sleep-deprived, heartbroken and miles from home with only the sound of daytime Radio 4 for company. But oddly beautiful with it.

Conceptual theorising aside, the main reason for this mid-album lull is that Richard X is canny enough not to blow his load too soon. If “Just Friends” and “Walk On By” represent an enjoyable, deliberate trough, its made all the better for knowing the peak is yet to come. And what a peak! It begins with “Lemon/Lime”, a likeable electro freakout that memorably rhymes ‘armageddon’ with ‘David Sneddon’, then careens straight into “Finest Dreams” on which Kelis does her irresistible disco thing over the ubiquitous Human League samples, then gatecrashes the party, takes over the dancefloor and watches its collective jaw drop.

But the album’s real ‘YES!’ track is “You Better Let Me Love You” – an awesome peak-of-the-DJ-set stormer featuring tremendous swaggering vocals from Tiga. “I’m the kind of guy”, he intones filthily, “who always gets what he wants… You’d better let me love you.” If you’re not at least nodding your head furiously by the time the chorus kicks in you’d better check your pulse. One day someone will get Tiga and Kelis on a track together, and watch the sparks fly when they do.

By the time Tiga makes way for the Sugababes, we’ve reached a plateau. “Freak Like Me” sounds as vital as it ever did, like the long-anticipated anthem at the end of Richard X’s triumphant homecoming gig, before Jarvis Cocker and “Into U” takes you gently back to earth again. It’s a gorgeous closer, Jarvis playing the suave lover with the disembodied voice of Hope Sandoval, sampled here from the chorus of “Fade Into You”. It sounds so natural it’s almost hard to believe they weren’t in the same room together. In fact, when listening to X-Factor its easy to forget that so much of it was put together from bits of old Human League and Gary Numan and Chaka Khan and Mazzy Star records – Richard X’s genius lies in fusing it all into one of the most satisfying, coherent and just plain enjoyable records ever.

Expired.