Last week, I shared my experience listening to AI covers of 2 Unlimited songs. This is a significant topic for me as I founded and ran their US fan club from 1993 until the departure of the original performers in 1996. It should go without saying then that I listened to every one of their songs. My collection had and still has every US album and single as well as albums, singles and vinyls from labels from around the world. All insured and digitized.
Throughout high school, I was synonymous with 2 Unlimited and whenever their song Get Ready (f/k/a Get Ready for This) came on somewhere, I was told “my” song was playing. I saw to it that “my” music was heard often as I was in the school’s media program for three years, hosting and reporting on the school’s closed-circuit TV station. I was so notable for that that 2 Unlimited and I were mentioned twice in the Class of 1997 yearbook. I did my job!
I don’t have the yearbook handy of course, but one person wrote something along the lines of, “remember when 2 Unlimited was limited on Falcon TV?” I absolutely did my job! I took that comment as an extreme compliment.
But that’s not the point of this article. And just as an aside that has nothing to do with this topic, I was also noted for dressing up as a woman for Halloween of 1996. I did it so well that when the teacher was deciding whose costume was best so that that person could host, people just looked at me, walked away and said, “he wins!” I anchored the show solo as Heather, which is what my mother would have named me had I had interior plumbing.
But that’s also not the point of this article.
I am going to write something that I never thought I, a former fan club president, would ever write: at least two of 2 Unlimited songs have been translated into AI and, well….AI has done a better job at being 2 Unlimited than the actual 2 Unlimited! One AI cover in particular was done way better than 2 Unlimited ever did. Let The Beat Control Your Body is better as an AI song than a classic 2 Unlimited song, which it was, in its heyday.
I know for a fact that this site is sometimes visited by at least one of the original performers and one of the founding producers. Even so, I am not ashamed to say that I like the AI covers better than the originals. Sorry, guys, but it just had to be said. Better you hear it from me than some random, whiny blogger. Oh, wait….
I am hoping that the same people who did the AI versions of those songs also does one of Get Ready, renamed because of royalty issues pertaining to an apparent unauthorized use of a sample in the original version from 1991. I can only imagine how badly it would kick 2 Unlimited’s ass!
The intensity of an AI version of what is arguably one of the most recognized techno songs in the world would be unable to be measured. It would put Jean-Paul DeCoster, Phil Wilde and Ray Slijngaard to shame. The latter wrote the lyrics and the former two composed and produced that song. Its history can be traced to Beneluxian nightclubs in 1990. Along with Anita Doth, Slijngaard performed the song.
If there were to be a competition between the original version and an AI version, I am confident that the entire 2 Unlimited team would walk away, heads hanging in shame. I just never, ever thought I’d write something like that, but it’s a truth that simply had to be said. 1996 me would kick 2026 me’s ass for writing all of this, so I guess I better hide…from myself?