Eurodance
|
|
Eurodance (sometimes also called Europop or Eurodisco) is style of dance music, popular in Europe, Oceania and South America during the 1990s (1992~1996).
It is characterized by female vocals, with simple chorus, male rap parts, or male vocals, a strong beat from 110 to 150 BPM with synthesizer riffs. One important cliche in eurodance were sung parts that consisted of meaningless lyrics (such as Um-bap-paa-ea-ea Um-bap-paa-oo" in Daze's hit single Superhero).
Eurodance is named from the fact that it was mainly popular in Europe and produced mostly in Italy, Germany, Sweden and Netherlands. In addition to the most popular groups, there were hundreds of Eurodance projects.
Eurodance is very much commercial music. It can be even seen as a some kind of culmination of commerciality in music business. Some producers, like Swedish Max Martin or Italian Larry Pignagnoli, were behind dozens of bands. If band members became too demanding, they could be fired and replaced by others. Only few bands survived more than one or two records. The most successful groups were arguably Dutch 2 Unlimited and German Scooter.
Some people think that female vocalists seemed to have been selected rather by their looks than talents. Live performances were mostly play-backs, sometimes different female singers performing in studio recordings than on stage. Many bands, like Captain Jack and DJ Bombay had a carefully planned humoristic image. A group called E-rotic received attention with its erotic lyrics and music videos.
Some artists, like Aqua, Daze or Hit'n'Hide are not usually considered eurodance, but fall into bubblegum category. These are, examples included, for some reason mainly Danish.
Other in between cases are Blümchen and Scooter, approaching the happy hardcore genre. Although sometimes considered eurodance, projects such as Sash!, ATB or Antiloop were mostly progressive trance or progressive house groups.
Eurodance created the same kind of hate among many people as disco music in 1970s. Those pop-music listeners, who liked more guitar oriented pop/rock considered eurodance often as cheap, crappy and over-commercial.
Later into the 90's trance was starting to influence eurodance which rebirthed into Euro-Trance, which also incorporated some elements from progressive house. Artists like Scooter, Mental Theo and E-Type began the trend which lead to the birth of hundreds of projects in this subgenre.
Some notable artist in genre include:
- 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor
- 2 Unlimited
- Alexia
- Aqua
- Basic Element
- Cappella
- Captain Jack
- Corona
- Culture Beat
- DJ Bobo
- Dr. Bombay
- Eiffel 65
- E-Rotic
- E-Type
- Haddaway
- Ice MC
- Imperio
- Jam & Spoon
- La Bouche
- La Cream
- Leila K
- Magic Affair
- Masterboy
- MAXX
- Mr. President
- Modern Talking
- O-Zone
- Pandora
- Pharao
- Real McCoy
- Scatman John
- Scooter
- Solid Base
- Tatjana
- U96
- Whigfield
- X-perience
See also
- Euro Disco - for Euro dance of 80s.
External links
- The Eurodance Encyclopędia (http://eurokdj.free.fr)
- Discogs (http://e.discogs.com)de:Eurodance