90s Dance Hits

[Hitcore]

As someone who became a teenager in the mid 90s and always had a thing for music with a beefy beat, this was a golden age to starting to go out. There are so many legendary dance hits from this decade that instead of creating a ton of separate threads I'll just confine them in one nice thread.

Starting with a track that was an absolute hit:

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2 Unlimited, had many dance hits, but I'd say No Limit is by far their most iconic one, with its catchy tune and high energy bass. It was massively popular, especially in The Netherlands, as 2 Unlimited was based there. I remember everyone in my school just playing this all the time. And my sister had the CDs as well, which I taped it from for on my Walkman.



Oh boy, there's going to be a lot of nostalgia in this thread!

 

[Retro]

omg Hitcore, what have you started here?!

No Limit is really good, but my favourite is Get Ready for This from 1991! I've got a soundtracker version of it on the Acorn Archimedes that features a CGI stick figure dancing to it. It's in stereo, sounds fantastic and the whole thing fits on an 800K floppy disc!

This one is the right length, but sounds a bit different, better than the version I remember, in fact.

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And of course, here's the obligatory instrumental. It's an official one according to the video description, too.

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[Retro]

On No Limit at 3:06 you can see the legs of the cameraman in the reflection!

 

[Hitcore]

Get Ready For This is a classic! Wasn't this their first hit? Great to see it again. I forgot to mention in my opening post that everyone is encouraged of course to post their favorite 90s dance hits as well!

CGI stick figure on 800K floppy

I gotta see that, is that something you could post or link to?

On No Limit at 3:06 you can see the legs of the cameraman in the reflection!

Oh dear. I've seen this clip tons of times, but this I have never noticed. Now I will never unsee it!

 

[Retro]

Get Ready For This is a classic! Wasn't this their first hit? Great to see it again.

You're right, it was. This is their discography:

2 Unlimited discography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I gotta see that, is that something you could post or link to?

I've had a Google, but alas I can't find a video for it, I guess no one posted it as it's so obscure. I'd have loved to, but while I've still got the hardware, it's not going to be so easy to get it working tbh. Don't have the table space for a start and my Acorn A3000 (effectively a single piece A310 with a newer, debugged version of the chipset) is now 36 years old and may not even work. After all that, it's quite possible that the floppy disc has degraded in that time, too.

You're right though, you'd have loved it. Never say never.

Anyway, while I was Googling 2 Unlimited, I came across this gem, in instrumental form no less. Check it out.

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[Hitcore]

Never say never.

Bummer, but I understand completely. Indeed, who knows, maybe some day.

in instrumental form no less

Your favorite form! Awesome. To me the vocals are iconic, though. In particular Anita Doth's voice gives it that little extra groove, for me.

Twilight Zone is a good example of this. There is the radio version and the rap version. The radio version is basically just Anita:

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And the rap version is a whole lot of Ray:

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I'm definitely Team Anita.

And I suppose this one is for you then:

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(there's only a "do you feel aaaaaaallllright?!", the rest is fully instrumental).

 

[Hitcore]

It's been a while since I have been posting here, and this is a track I would like to share.

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As 2 Unlimited is of course quite famous, Deep Zone is more niche. Their repertoire is a lot smaller too, I only know It's Gonna Be Alright. But holy crap I love this track.

To me this track is almost the definition of 90s dance, with its positive and optimistic message, yet it also has this club sound that's just too cool for school.

@Retro I'm really curious if you know this one.

 

[Retro]

I've not heard it before. It does have a 90s Eurodance sound to it.

It sounds ok if I heard it on the radio, but nothing more really.

 

[Ian]

2 Unlimited had some great tracks, but surely their best is Let The Beat Control Your Body. It just makes you want to dance. Fast.

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[Hitcore]

That's a good one, @Ian . High in energy, indeed dance inducing.
I like the clip too, with some nice examples of early 3D effects.

 

[Hitcore]

Today I will post something from 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor. Another Dutch dance duo. I listened to them a lot back in the day. The reason why I specifically post this is because today I read that the duo officially has stopped. The rapper of the two, D-Rock has come forward with that he has Parkinson's Disease, and physically just cannot keep up any longer.

Thanks for all the music and the 90s memories, prince.

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One of my favorites of their tracks.

2 Brothers on the 4th Floor stopt door ziekte D-Rock: 'Lichaam is op'

De Nederlandse eurodanceformatie 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor stopt ermee. Rapper D-Rock heeft de ziekte van Parkinson en zegt dat zijn tanende gezondheid hem niet langer toestaat om op te treden. "Het gaat gewoon niet meer, mijn lichaam is op."

www.nu.nl

 

[Retro]

Parkinson's, ouch. He sounds similar to the lead singer in Snap!

That article is in Swedish so I can't read it.

 

[Hitcore]

That article is in Swedish

Great, you just insulted the Swedish Chef deeply.
The article is in Dutch, of course. I just wanted to include the source where I read that D-Rock has Parkinson's. I kinda summarized it in my post, but here's the full translation:

2 Brothers on the 4th Floor call it quits due to illness of D-Rock: ‘My body is done’

The Dutch euro-dance act 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor are stopping. Rapper D-Rock has Parkinson’s disease and says his declining health no longer allows him to perform. “I just can’t do it anymore — my body is done,” he said.

D-Rock — real name René Phillips — and singer Des'Ray announced the news Friday evening on the TV show Carrie op Vrijdag. The duo had been 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor for more than thirty years.

The rapper was visibly emotional and struggled to speak properly. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s around sixteen years ago, but only shared it with the public last year.

Final Shows and Future Plans

A final performance is scheduled in the Netherlands this Saturday. After that, a few international shows are still on the calendar — and next year a closing concert is planned.

Des’Ray said she’s going to continue alone. She plans to focus on a solo career and to go into theatre next year.

2 Brothers on the 4th Floor — formed by brothers Bobby and Martin Boer — saw their heyday in the 1990s. The group had worldwide success with hits like “Never Alone”, “Dreams (Will Come Alive)” and “Fairytales”. Even now they were still regularly booked for events at home and abroad.

 

[Retro]

Great, you just insulted the Swedish Chef deeply.

Eek! Apologies to the chef. I tend to mix up those two quite a lot. Googling it, Dutch refers to the Netherlands, not Sweden.

I think this Google AI explanation will help me to remember from now on (until next week, anyway):

"Dutch" refers to the people and language of the country of the Netherlands, while "Holland" specifically refers to two of the country's 12 provinces: North Holland and South Holland. The term is often used interchangeably to refer to the entire country, which is technically incorrect. The term "Dutch" is the correct demonym for people from the Netherlands, and their language is called Dutch.

I'm surprised that D-Rock is still fit enough to do a few more farewell concerts. Respect. I think we'd all understand if he called it quits now. I pretty much can't do anything when I'm sick, let alone have an illness like that.

 

[Retro]

Thinking about it, what really addled my brain is that the Netherlands and Holland tend to be used interchangeably when they shouldn't. Now I've learned that Holland is actually a part of the Netherlands and there are two of them, South Holland and North Holland so I don't think I'll forget it now. And I'll stop picking on Sweden!

 

[Hitcore]

when they shouldn't

To be honest, we ourselves aren't making things less confusing for y'all since our website for tourism has Holland.com as a domain. Probably because it's simpler to write than thenetherlands.com, but still.

You Britishes aren't the only ones using the name of Holland for the country in daily speech, here in Denmark they like to do that as well. The Danish name for The Netherlands is Nederlandene but if I say that then at least 90% of Danes would have no idea wtf I'm talking about. So I usually say that I'm from Holland.

Which in my case isn't incorrect, actually.

South Holland

I'm originally from here. That's where Rotterdam is.