iheartHazey's 90s EURODANCE PARTY: Wanna go for a rate? - THE END

he/him
Okay no guesses, well it's an artist that already had a song eliminated and is the first one without a single 10 to its name.





























































































Also it's feels a bit wrong that I'm the one posting this elimination because..


































































Canada has exited the rate.

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#55.
Emjay - In Your Arms - 6.486
After 5: #39
After 10: #45
After 15: #48
After 20: #50
After 25: #54
After 30: #55
Final: #55

Avg: #49 so the final ranking is a bit underrated.

Highest: 9 x 3 (DJHazey, @Ana Raquel, @Eric)

Lowest: 1 (@Ray) 3 (@Aester)

Album: In Your Arms (1995)

Producers: Louis St-Laurent, Marc Deslauriers, Marc-Andre Dubois (Roxxy, Solina)

In retrospect it probably would've been better to just have this one song representing Emjay, but I'm also not as certain since it didn't get the higher scores that "Sound of My Heartbeat" got. It seemed obvious to have this as the selection because it's the one you'll find an actual music video for on youtube which tells you it's her signature track in some way, though the fact that it didn't chart according to Wikipedia would tell you otherwise. Most of the music on her one album In Your Arms has one distinct sound to it, so having just the one example likely would've been enough. One fun fact is that she performed this song in July 1995 at the Théâtre du Forum in Montreal along side acts such as Bananarama, Whigfield, and Los Del Mar. If I were to rank my favorites from In Your Arms, I'd always rank the title-track near the bottom, in fact there a period when I never really played like the other singles but I had a nostalgic moment when hearing it for the rate which made me bump the score up to a 9 instead of the 7.5 I might have had lined up for it. I expected it to do better because of the choice vocal moment on "Sound of My Heartbeat" and that played at out as planned, but I definitely would switch their ranking around if you ask me. Since I covered her short-lived career in detail the last time around, I don't have anymore to say so let's move on to the comments, shall we.

In Your Arms:

@WowWowWowWow (8) - I could find myself coming back tot his one after the rate ends!

Did this prediction come true?

@Sprockrooster (7.5) - That beat is quite in your face and I like it!

@One Stop Candy Shop (6.5) - Emjay did something right here.

Seriously, check out "Flying to the Moon".

@phily693 (6) - I love the thumping beat!

In And Out Of Your Arms:

@berserkboi (7.9) - Nice but canon fodder.

@Empty Shoebox (8) - I think this relies too much on the vocals to carry the melody. I'd like to see more from the instruments.

Pretty score for those vocals considering what most people seem to think of her, ddd.

@Seventeen Days (6) - I liked the first one a little better, but this is still a good solid track.

Unpopular opinion and the correct one.

@ohnoitisnathan (7) - Competent eurodance, but does not stand out.

Out Of Your Arms:

@Ray (1) - SHE IS STILL OFF TUNE.

Oh I'm sure I could find some favs of yours to critique in this category without looking hard. x




Another "Band we could've rated" from @P Grandson. From Italy it's Double You and was asked to post anything from them. I don't know anything about them, so I picked their two biggest hits:



 
he/him
Emjay Recap

61. Sound of My Heartbeat - 6.397
55. In Your Arms - 6.486

Highest: DJHazey (9) - @iheartpoptarts (8.5) - @Eric (8.25)

Lowest: @Ray (1) - @Aester (3.75) - @geomixes (4.5)

Artist Ranking

DJ Bobo - 6.458
Emjay - 6.442
T-Spoon - 6.346
Bambee - 6.303
Twenty 4 Seven - 6.292
Maxx - 6.236
Technotronic - 6.228
Smile.dk - 6.139
Crispy - 6.108
Capital Sound - 5.889
Miss Papaya - 5.478
Tiggy - 5.289
 
As the 33rd voter, how did my 0 push this up to #56.

I'd also like it noted that I gave Get-A-Way a 9.9, I am a high scorer.
It was too new to me to give it a 10.

Done!

(And presumably the other voters in your group scored the song highly enough to make up for it!)

It seemed obvious to have this as the selection because it's the one you'll find an actual music video for on youtube which tells you it's her signature track in some way, though the fact that it didn't chart according to Wikipedia would tell you otherwise.

When MuchMusic put songs on their annual dance compilation people knew them. Also, our charts made no sense!



Haha, my old old iPod said this was Haddaway.
 
Poor my 10s.​


















































































































I have a LOT of them, but still.


























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#54. Hit 'n' Hide - Space Invaders - 6.497

After 5: #62
After 10: #61
After 15: #56
After 20: #55
After 25: #50
After 30: #52
Final: #54

Highest: 10 x 3 (@iheartpoptarts, @geomixes, @31entrance) 9.1 x 1 (@berserkboi) 9 x 2 (@DJHazey, @Sprockrooster)

Lowest: 2.5 x 1 (@Ray) 3 x 1 (@CasuallyCrazed)

Album: On a Ride (1998)

Best Charts: #1 (Denmark), #4 (Norway), #18 (Sweden)

Producers: Jam & Delgado (Aqua, Daze, Ace of Base)

Denmark, ladies and gentlemen. As far as voting factions go, it's tied for the biggest region there is. On the other hand, we've now lost almost half of it. Go figure.

So what do you guys suppose Hit 'n' Hide means, anyway? Is it like hide and seek, only a little more violent? Or maybe it's like a hit and run, only then you have to hide from the cops.

Anyway, they debuted in the late 90s with 'Sundance'. If you've had it with Euro summer bops by now, this is not the song for you.



(I have not had it with Euro summer bops. Consider yourselves warned.)

'Space Invaders', Hit 'n' Hide's definitive, well, hit, comes from that time in pop history when the new millennium was a thing and everyone was looking to the future for inspiration. Let's all go into space and meet aliens.



Oh my god, you guys, Y2K. Remember what a big deal that was at the time? I wore a silver top and matching silver glitter eyeshadow and thought it was so cool and ~futuristic~ because I was 12.

That's from the 'Happy New Year' post in my A*Teens rate. I was going to say it but I got the feeling I already had.

Like PJ song contest veteran @Sprockrooster, you might recognize 'Space Invaders' from PJOPS 24, where I gave it approximately half its points. Entering bubblegum dance is risky business—even if you're @imaduck. Give @DJHazey a hug. Combayah deserved better.

Apparently Hit 'N' Hide attempted a more mature sound and image with their second album and it didn't go over so well. Will nobody ever learn from this?!

Hit:

@31entrance (10) - the danish did eurodance the best let's all face it.

You. I like you.

@Seventeen Days (7.5) - Honestly, I gave this a .5 point bonus for the girl’s ridiculous hair in the video. But actually I quite like this, it’s got a good melody.

@Sprockrooster (9) - Wasn't this entered by @imaduck in PJOPS and a winner from that contest? I would imagine it would have done exceptionally well.

Yes. And no. It did exceptionally well on my ballot, however...

Keep entering bubblegum dance classics and all my 12s will be really blatantly obvious.

@berserkboi (9.1) - Fun!

@One Stop Candy Shop (8) - UFO come let's go! I remember this single being released here in Belgium in the slipstream of Aqua and Daze but it flopped. It's actually better than I remember.

It was released here in Canada, too! At least I definitely heard it on the radio...

@Hudweiser (5.5) - Bit of a cheap Aqua carpetbagger, but the production is quite nice.

@phily693 (7) - I really, really like the production and think I’d love the instrumental without those irritating vocals.

Hide:

Indeed, the vocals were a topic of discussion...

@ohnoitisnathan (5.5) - More helium vocals.

@Cutlery (6.2) - Her vocals were quite a choice.

@Empty Shoebox (4) - I vaguely remember this. I don't remember it being such a blatant Aqua rip-off though. It seems to have run out of ideas by about 01:45.

They do have the same producers, to be fair!


@sfmartin (6) - Derivative.

@CasuallyCrazed (3) - I remember downloading this from kazaa in 2001 mislabelled as new Aqua and being so disappointed.​


Oh, right. So this happened...

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@Eric (5) - Lyrical randomness is part of this genre, but this takes it a step too far for me.​

@Ray (2.5) - “Super high intelligence flying in my spaceship up and down”.​

@WowWowWowWow (6) - I always wonder what the people working on a music video like this are thinking, if they are not already a fan of this style of music. This ended up being like a Scientologist's fever dream. It is giving me "Hero" Miss Papaya vibes, with the added male rap guy. But.............. I'm unsold.

Now that you mention it, original lead singer Jeanne C. did provide some vocals on the Papaya album!

@OspreyQueen (4) - I like how the linked video has 18 views and all of them were probably us.

---

Here's Hazey's fave single! Or so I think... I've got it on a list of songs to download from an ages-old plug.dj session.

(Unsurprisingly, it was on my old iPod the whole time. He won't be surprised.)



And some album track faves of my own...



 
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he/him
Also @iheartpoptarts you are absolutely correct that "Kingdom of Eternity" is without question my favorite Hit 'n' Hide track. Well done with that amazing memory of yours!

Also I love the Kazaa mix-up with Aqua, so iconic. I lived through those days as well except that's when I was downloading nu metal and seeing "new song with Korn LimpBizkit Disturbed and Deftones on it!" only to find out it was by none of them. Also you'd eventually figure out that someone could use a bot to automatically have a file named whatever you searched for, no matter what, to try to get you to download it, but they were pretty dumb when you realized the file was an .exe, so you knew not to download it.
 
he/him
We're staying in Scandinavia and losing the first song for another of my personal favorites..











































































































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#53.
Reset - Calling You
After 5: #61
After 10: #57
After 15: #66
After 20: #65
After 25: #52
After 30: #53
Final: #53

Voting Avg: #59 <-- Glad it ended up being higher.

Highest: 10 x 2 (DJHazey, @Sprockrooster) 9 x 4 (@A$AP Robbie, @rav4boy, @Ana Raquel, @idratherjack)

Lowest: 0 (@geomixes) 1 (@ohnoitisnathan)

Album: Calling You (2001) -- Okay, let me explain. When I first added this song to this list, I either didn't remember or overlooked the fact that this was technically not a 90s song. This is what I meant when I told @Sprockrooster that I had made a similar error as he had done in the pop/rock queens rate. I think I was just too excited about adding one of my favorite songs from such an underground Eurodance act, that I just went on auto-pilot about it and didn't realize my error until things were well underway. Oops. Well they won't be in the 00s rendition now and judging by this mediocre ranking, I don't think anyone will mind much.

Charts: #7 (Norway)

Producer: Stig Antonsen (Reset)

The Norwegian band had a tough time getting going. In 1994, Stig Antonsen starting working on the project by himself but never was able to finish it. But in 1996, he gave it another shot, this time adding members Trude Barstad and Christian Onshus. However, they would only last six months, but did release one "U R My Dream" to little or no success. In 1998, Stig was working with Camilla Alvestad on a song called "Oh What a Day" (that would later feature on the debut album) and decided to start Reset again. Stig called in a friend named Thomas Borgvang, who was a local radio DJ and we now had a band. Their first performance was at the NRJ Christmas Party in Oslo, which featured others like Snap!, Sash!, and iHeartHazey Rate Legends Solid Base. Two months later they signed a record deal with Edel Records.

Reset would go on to tour all across Norway and appeared on several Norwegian TV shows. "Calling You" was their lead single for their second album and spent 11 weeks on the Norwegian Top 20 Chart and broke records by staying on the Norwegian Chart Show "10 I Skuddet" for 20 weeks in a row. So we aren't talking about some unknown entity here, Reset definitely ruled Norway for a short period of time. What immediately drew me about "Calling You" is the melancholy feel of the chorus. Most of my favorite songs in Eurodance get you on your feet and celebrate life but every once in a while you get a song that speaks to someone struggling with loneliness like this song does. Right from the onset: "The rain just keeps on falling, when you're not around, when I wake up, I am calling out your name" is a heavy-hitter with Camilla's delivery pushing it even further and making this such a sing along favorite for me.

I was fairly certain this would be something new for most people when this rate began, so let's see if Reset got any new fans. (Keep in mine that "Blue" is still alive as well)

Calling You:

@WowWowWowWow (6) - I want those pizzicato sounds to be the only element in the song!!

@berserkboi (8.4) - Lovely actually!

As if you had any doubts!

@GhettoPrincess (6) - The autotune takes away rather than adds to the vocals on the verses. I like the chorus though.

@Empty Shoebox (8) - Another that's greater than the sum of its parts. Not a fan of the vocals though.

Yeah I know Camilla doesn't sound spectacular from a vocal capabilities point of view. Good thing I don't really care about that myself.

@Eric (8.5) - For some reason, this is reminiscent of Lasgo's 'Something' - very catchy!

Whew, lofty heights with that comparison. I'm sure Reset would be proud.

@Seventeen Days (8.5) - Songs with a vocoder are pretty much a direct hotline to my heart, teebs. And again, that melody is just so lush and gorgeous.

There we go, that's the spirit.

@Sprockrooster (10) - A lifechanging discovery. What a song!!

What a running a multi-artists rate with personal favs is all about.

@Ray - I never heard it before, but this is very nice (even though somehow they managed to use autotune in the 1990s).

I just thing she's not the strongest vocalist, but she stills sounds amazing to me. It makes her sound affected by the words she is singing.

@One Stop Candy Shop (8.5) - Never heard of this but it really speaks to me. Stylish!

Another one, this is going over so well.

Hanging Up On You:

@phily693 (5.5) - I don’t like the vocal effect, I feel like it would be better without it.

@ohnoitisnathan (1) - Oh no, the awful over-used vocoder. Obviously this was post-'Believe'.



My ultimate Reset favorite also comes from this album. I even had it ranked as my #14 song all-time in the Ultimate Popjustice, so consider that.

 
I'm off to bed but wanted to quickly point out that even though they did go with a slightly different style of Eurodance on their second album it is still LOADED with bops galore. I love both albums pretty much equally. Not all of their music is of the 'helium' variety either, trust me.

Okay, so it's not like they went and picked up acoustic guitars or anything, but I saw that paragraph on Bubblegum Dancer and I related so very much. Poor my faves over the years!

My ultimate Reset favorite also comes from this album. I even had it ranked as my #14 song all-time in the Ultimate Popjustice, so consider that.



P.S. Your Ultimate PJ Reset writeup is cute. I always thought that one sounded like a Eurodance 'On a Night Like This', so it comes highly recommended!
 
he/him
That's right, there will be two dayside eliminations today, which unfortunately means the end for another personal favorite of mine..
























































































We're staying in the same region and one of the low scorers for Reset is losing a 10 with me this time..




























































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#52. Solid Base - Come'n Get Me - 6.547

After 5: #49
After 10: #44
After 15: #61
After 20: #62
After 25: #60
After 30: #59
Final: #52

Voting Avg: #56 ... So I'm happy with the placement considering.

Highest: 10 x 2 (DJHazey, @ohnoitisnathan) 9 (@iheartpoptarts)

Lowest: 0 (@geomixes) 2 (@soratami)

Album: The Take Off (1998)

Charts: #6 (Finland)

Producers: Jonas Eriksson and Mattias Eliasson (Solid Base founders)

"Come'n Get Me" was the lead single and is probably their most well known song. That made it easy to choose but also because the music video is a true moment and it represents the 'classic eurodance' side of their music while "Come On Everybody" represented the 'summer beach reggae' side. If I had to pick one, I'd would say The Take Off is my favorite album of theirs as it showed a deeper and sometimes darker sound with heavy emphasis on Teo T's rapping verses in a style that seemed more serious at times. The album gained popularity in japan where it was certified gold. I covered most of the background information on the band the last time around, so let's get right to the comments.

Come'n Get Me Cuz You Love and Respect Me:

@WowWowWowWow (8) - Has lots of parts that I like and they work well together.

Yes, they have always amazing chemistry. Example, just look at the way Isabelle messes with Teo throughout the music video for "This Is How We Do It". It's a classic.



@Hudweiser (8.5) - This ticks the boxes, nice bouncy high BPM and good synth melody.

Yas, should've entered it in PJOPS.

@sfmartin (7) - Throws a lot into the mix which I appreciate.

@Seventeen Days (8) - Okay, this one gets a bonus point for the HILARIOUS vampire-themed video. Otherwise, this is definitely a solid bop.

@One Stop Candy Shop (8) - I love and respect this.

You better use that iconic line for puns!

@ohnoitisnathan (10) - I've heard this before, but can't picture where I know it from. It's fab.

@phily693 (6.5) - I wasn’t expecting to like this at first and it grew on me by the end. The Sandstorm-esque part towards the end certainly helped win me over.

You Don't Get Me Cuz You Don't Love or Respect Me:

@berserkboi (7.2) - Not really for me

Yup yup, a berserkboi 7.2 is a 3.2 for most voters.

@Empty Shoebox (7) - I was ready, but I was not terribly impressed. I was moderately impressed though, by that chorus. It's better than most in this rate, but the rest of the song isn't really.

@Sprockrooster (5.5) - A bit boring, isn't it?

How?!?!

@Ray (5) - See my comment for ‘Come On Everybody’, which with some luck left by now.

It did which you had a lot to do with I might add.



As promised here are some favorites from The Take Off. The next two exemplify the sound shift this album experienced.





This one is funny because I used to live with my best friend as roommate and his girlfriend named Katie, so I always felt awkward when I had it playing loud and I knew they were at home.


 
he/him
Solid Base Recap

74. Come On Everybody - 5.472
52. Come'n Get Me - 6.547

Highest: DJHazey (9.75) - @iheartpoptarts (8.75) - @rav4boy (8.5)

Lowest: @geomixes (0) - @soratami (1.5) - @CasuallyCrazed (2.25)

Artist Ranking

Hit 'n' Hide - 6.497
DJ Bobo - 6.458
Emjay - 6.442
T-Spoon - 6.346
Bambee - 6.303
Twenty 4 Seven - 6.292
Maxx - 6.236
Technotronic - 6.228
Smile.dk - 6.139
Crispy - 6.108
Solid Base - 6.010
Capital Sound - 5.889
Miss Papaya - 5.478
Tiggy - 5.289

 
he/him
Reset were definitely one of the highlights of my new discoveries in this rate, so a bit sad that this had an early exit. Love Say I'm the One too, dreamlike.

Love that you love Say I'm the One too! Like I said it one of my all-time favs and I left it out of the rate because the other two are more prominent singles for Reset. It was one of the times I had to be objective as a host.
 
he/him
We've got so many high scores. It's almost like we picked a bunch of songs we stan and gathered people to rate them.

Scream, what a novel concept!

Also as far as personal picks, it was nice to add a little something different tot he rate. A few different sides of classic eurodance just open up the spectrum for people and see if they'd find something new. Seems like we did that at least a bit.
 

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