Eurodance

Eurodance is a style of dance music, popular in Europe, Oceania and South America between 1992 and 1996).

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It is characterized by female or male vocals, with simple chorus, male rap parts,and a strong beat from 110 to 150 BPM with synthesizer riffs. One important cliche in eurodance was sung parts that consisted of meaningless lyrics (such as "Um-bap-paa-ea-ea Um-bap-paa-oo" in Daze's hit single Superhero or "Da Ba Dee Da Ba Die" in Eiffel 65's hit Blue (Da Ba Dee)) .

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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.

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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 are arguably Dutch 2 Unlimited, Eiffel 65, and German Scooter (although Scooter contain strong rave elements in their music and are not at the heart of eurodance).

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It has been suggested that many female vocalists were selected for their looks more than for talent. 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.

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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.

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Other in between cases are Bl?mchen 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.

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Eurodance aroused hostility similar to that associated with disco music in the 1970s. And like the disco era, critics considered it to be shoddy, repetitive and overtly commercial.

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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.

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Dance music: Dance music is music composed, played, or both, specifically to accompany social dancing. It can be either the whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement....

Europe: :This article is about the continent. For other meanings, see Europe (disambiguation)....

Oceania: Oceania is a geographical (often geopolitical) region consisting of numerous countries and territories ? mostly islands ? in the Pacific Ocean, usually including Australia and New Zealand. For the oceans of the Earth, see Oceans....