Talking about "Pump Up The Jam" the single considered by many to tbe the first house track to be a hit in the United States, is one of the best dance songs of all time because for some reason the song remain in our collective and culture memory, still playing today on any dancefloor context, doesn't get old and continue to thrive to this day, so many call it a dancefloor perfection.
Belgium had a fertile dance music community, especially in proportion to how small a country it was. The Belgians truly found their dancehall identity via the so-called "popcorn" scene, a Belgian take on Northern soul, white European folks importing predominantly funk, soul, and boogie and playing them slowed down. This got kicking in the '70s and kept going strong into the '80s, establishing a strong disco culture aided by the lack of laws regarding closing times at bars and clubs. So, the parties started going on for days.
Later in the ‘80s, popcorn would merge into Belgian new beat, a darker, midtempo synth style that took the tiny nation by storm. The new beat craze created an export that DJs around the world, and here's where the story commence with Jo Bogaert who was an American teacher who immigrated to Belgium and wanted to bring hip-hop, another American export, and fuse it with European, particularly Belgian, dancefloor sensibilities in a European take on hip-house.
Bogaert felt that his image that of a nerdy, professorial white guy would not be enough to take his project to the next level. So, following a tradition of white guys in Europe in the '70s and '80s, using black people as props to sell an image of urbanity just like Frank Farian did, so Bogaert then founded Technotronic.
The style Bogaert was going for would later be called "Eurodance," with shades of classic house, hip-house (a short-lived but good micro-scene where rappers rapped over house beats), and new beat. Bogaert enlisted Ya Kid K to write and perform vocals. She does both the rapping parts and the somewhat off-key singing on some songs, lyrically, there isn’t a whole lot going on, but it’s simple and effective. It’s the delivery that’s dripping with attitude. Ya Kid K had lived on multiple continents and had a variety of styles at her disposal. It’s her spunky charm that really makes their cuts and especially "Pump Up The Jam" one of the greatest of all time. But listeners wouldn’t know they were her vocals and lyrics until several months into the promotional cycle of the record.
The album opens with the title track "Pump Up the Jam" this was the first single, and Bogaert used the Marshall Jefferson sample as the spine of the track, somewhat of synth and hi-hats usher in a thumping bass drum. To promote the single, Bogaert use the fashion Tongolese model "Felly Kilingi" as the face of the single and album but she’s not – like Milli Vanilli, and Black Box, the "lead singer" was actually purely for image, for this unfair reason the real vocalist Ya Kid K goes uncredited as vocalist.
This is followed by second single "Get Up (Before The Night Is Over)" which isn’t so dissimilar to the previous song, although plays more on the bass line, and finally gives Ya Kid K the vocalist credit that she works hard to earn – rapping, singing and writing the song."Tough" is next featuring the rapper MC Eric, a sort of "Pump Up The Volume" hit and 2 Unlimited track, is slower but not as catchy as the previous ones, "Take It Slow", starts with a nice little vinyl sample of some funky saxophone. The emphasis here is the vocals, with the familiar sounding bassy sounding synths taking second place. "Come On" is up next, and this feels far more pop than the earlier songs. Musically it’s quite simple and vocally it’s pretty sparse aside from a few shouty samples. This feels a bit like a filler.
"This Beat Is Technotronic" follows, and acted as the third single, which sees MC Eric take the mic and rap his dope lyrics, the track gave them a #14 hit, their lowest charting position by that point, and perhaps that’s because there’s no Ya Kid K singing – it’s pretty much a repetitive rap over the familiar bassy synth and hissing hi-hat sequence. "Move This", a fairly mid-tempo bouncy track, seeing Ya Kid K back on the mic, but her vocals and lyrics lack the power and catchiness of the earlier songs. This song was released as a single until 1992, becoming and smash hit in the United States peaking at No. 6 on Billboard top 10 due its use in a Revlon television commercial."Come Back" opens with that familiar bass synth again, and is swiftly followed by a number of shouty samples. A hi-hat arrives with a bass drum and of course this feels like a filler too, the fourth and final single "Rockin’ Over The Beat" is up next, bringing us back to a catchy formulaic sound that they found great success with. This single took them back to the top 10 singles chart again in the UK, reaching #9. The song bounces along nicely, although Ya Kid K's vocals aren’t as strong here, next is "Raw", with thumping bass drum, acidy snarling synths, and a familiar "ah yeah" sample that infiltrated many hits in 1989-1990. However, again we’re faced by a simple, mostly vocally empty song, with occasional house 'piano' sections, the final tracks are "Wave" MC Eric returns to perform here but with synths feeling uncomfortable here and ends again like another filler, and then "String" another filler with lack of shine.
