Spice doesn't need to be original to be entertaining, nor do the Spice Girls need to be good singers. It just has to be executed well, and the innocuous dance-pop of Spice is infectious. None of the Girls have great voices, but they do exude personality and charisma, which is what drives bouncy dance-pop like "Wannabe," with its ridiculous "zig-a ...
"Barbie Girl" is one of those inexplicable pop culture phenomena -- a bouncy, slightly warped Euro-dance song that simultaneously sends up femininity and Barbie dolls. Mattel wasn't too amused, but the public was, making it a huge hit in Europe and America. Like many Europop acts, Aqua isn't capable of delivering another song as insanely catchy as ...
Ultimate Dance Party 1997 contains many of the biggest dance hits of 1995 and 1996, including Quad City DJs' "Come On and Ride It (The Train)," La Bouche's "Be My Lover," Ace of Base's "Beautiful Life," Everything but the Girl's "Missing," Los Del Mar's "Macarena" (which is not the version with English lyrics), Annie Lennox's "No More I Love You ...
It's been nearly five years since the Backstreet Boys have released a new album, but as the all-too-literal title of 2005's Never Gone makes clear, they don't want you to call their fourth LP a comeback -- in their mind, they've been here for years. That's not strictly true, since all five members have disappeared from the charts, if not the ...
It makes no sense to discuss 200 KM/H in the Wrong Lane, the first album by Russian dance-pop duo Tatu, without focusing on the gimmick, since that gimmick is the band. And the gimmick, of course, is that the girls are teenage lesbians who sing songs with suggestive titles like "Not Gonna Get Us," "Show Me Love," and "All the Things She Said," ...
If ever there was a group that seemed destined for one-hit wonder status it was Aqua. Their huge 1997/1998 hit "Barbie Girl" was a cleverly designed piece of trifle, fueled by delirious Euro-disco beats and the helium-voiced Lene Grawford Nystrom, along with her comically gruff counterpart, Rene Dif. The song was giddy, silly fun, but it was hard ...
When 'N Sync usurped the Backstreet Boys' record of number of albums sold in a single week early in 2000, it had to hurt the Backstreets, since it was played in the press as if they had lost the teen pop throne. By the time the group released their third album, Black & Blue, Thanksgiving week 2000, 'N Sync was still popular, but the arc of No ...
The Backstreet Boys finally broke (and broke big) in America during 1998, as if by design. They had been Euro sensations for a couple of years, but it wasn't until Backstreet's Back was unleashed in the U.S. in 1997 that they had a presence in the States, and it was no small presence, either -- after selling over ten million copies, the album ...
Prior to the release of their second album, *NSYNC split from their manager in a bitter dispute and signed with Jive, the kings of teen pop. For *NSYNC, the move provided them with an opportunity to, in the immortal words of George W. Bush, "define themselves," to prove that they were an independent unit -- hence the title No Strings Attached. To ...
While it didn't set the charts on fire like her previous albums, the ambitious Erotica contains some of Madonna's best and most accomplished music (including the hit singles "Deeper and Deeper" and "Rain"), even if it runs a bit long. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Fame can be a fleeting mistress, and nowhere more so than in the land of dance-pop divas. Many are lucky enough to have a hit album, much less two or three. What usually takes a one-hit wonder from the singles charts to career diva lies less in catchy hooks than in a combination of talent and the choice of collaborators. Obviously, the master of ...
Razor and Tie's Fired Up includes 18 club/dance cuts by Melanie C., Deborah Cox, Jocelyn Enriquez, the Bucketheads, Amber, and Aqua. There is nothing particularly outstanding here, but it will work nicely as the soundtrack for a night of clubbing. There is also a two-disc version of Fired Up that doubles the number of tracks. ~ Al Campbell, All ...
Hard to believe that *NSYNC released a mere three proper albums over the course of a mere three years in their reign as one of the two most-popular boy bands in the great teen pop boom at the turn of the millennium. Given their constant presence on the charts, on MTV, on the airwaves and on magazine covers, it seems like their time in the ...
Evolution: The Hits is a good summary of Dead or Alive's most popular material, concentrating on their chart hits. And there were more of those than you might remember -- eight are included that made the U.K. listings, along with four that made the U.S. charts (all of which charted in the U.K., too), including "You Spin Me Around (Like a Record)," ...
Given that t.A.T.u. only had two albums to their name when The Best arrived in the fall of 2006, it might seem like it was a little early for a greatest-hits album -- which is both true and untrue. For most acts, such a quickly arriving hits compilation would be a little premature, but by 2006 the duo's lesbianism shtick was not only exposed as ...
Given that t.A.T.u. only had two albums to their name when The Best arrived in the fall of 2006, it might seem like it was a little early for a greatest-hits album -- which is both true and untrue. For most acts, such a quickly arriving hits compilation would be a little premature, but by 2006 the duo's lesbianism shtick was not only exposed as ...
Ace of Base's strong point is not versatility -- all of their hit singles have exactly the same beat. But that doesn't matter. On their debut album, The Sign, they managed to create a piece of melodic Euro-disco that was a huge hit all over the world, appealing to both dance clubs and pop radio. And with singles like "All That She Wants," "The ...
Robyn's debut album, Robyn Is Here, isn't particularly deep, but it is well-executed Eurotrash dance-pop. The Swedish teenager has an appealingly thin voice, and her producers and songwriters have a knack for crafting hooky dance-pop that sounds as if it was made in 1990, not 1997. Half of the album rides by on mediocre songs and first-rate ...
The Spice Girls, as well as their managers and songwriters, are nothing if not clever, and Spiceworld, the group's second album, illustrates exactly how sharp they are. Conventional wisdom dictates that Spiceworld should be a weak facsimile of Spice, which itself featured a handful of great singles surrounded by filler. Conventional wisdom, in ...
Released in 1987 as a stopgap, the remix album You Can Dance reworks material from Madonna's first three albums. Actually, it keeps the spotlight on her first record, adding non-LP singles like "Into the Groove" for good measure, along with a bonus track of "Where's the Party." Since it's a dance album, it doesn't matter that "Holiday" and "Into ...
Simultaneously attempting to emulate the Backstreet Boys while trying to distance themselves from the boy band revival of the late '90s, Soul Decision eventually loses focus on No One Does It Better. As their group name implies, this Canadian trio prefers R&B styles, especially the blue-eyed soul of dance-pop artists like George Michael. Such ...
The Backstreet Boys' eponymous debut album was released in America nearly a full year after its original European release, and the wait proved to be a blessing in disguise. In that year, light dance-pop -- such as the Spice Girls and Hanson -- returned to the top of the American charts, paving the way for the frothy pleasures of Backstreet Boys. ...
Eiffel 65's vocoder-heavy Europop, which yielded the major international dance smash "Blue (Da Ba Dee)," falls somewhere in the dance music spectrum between Daft Punk and the Vengaboys. It employs funky, deep house grooves with vocoder enhanced vocals, similar to Daft Punk and Modjo, yet many of the songs incorporate nursery rhyme choruses and ...
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