***1/2 Various Artists

WELCOME TO THE EPIDROME

(Sony 550)

Does classic Eurodisco, super-romantic and glam as it gets, still live? You bet it does. Fully sequenced, these 17 tracks pump prettily and fly high with all the synthesized, happy glow and whispery soprano voicing that made 1970s disco such a girlish girl thing. Which is not to say that muscle boys with boots on don't get quality time here: witness the boomy, Junior Vasquez-like house of Jaydee's "Plastic Dreams Revisited" and Alex Charles's "If You Leave Me Now." But bootsy boys aside, the center stage of this frilly, flaunting set is diva glam, heeled to the max in swishy tracks like Victoria Wilson-James's "Reach 4 the Melody," Jamiroquai's "Alright," Kamasutra's "Storm in My Soul," and Eightball's "Don't Fly So High" as well as Junior Vasquez's diva remix of Skunk Anansie's aptly titled "Brazen (Weep)." And as if to prove the point, an echo of 1979's "Funkytown" (certainly one of girl thing's biggest hits ever), introduces "Free," a fast-paced Eurohouse remix by rising star DJ Quicksilver.

-- Michael Freedberg