Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a big fan of dance music in all its forms. I grew up in an eclectic household, so I was exposed to all types of music when I was a child and pre-teen. You name it, I listened to it, with a few exceptions. I’ve never enjoyed rap or R&B for example.
It was in 1990 when I was first exposed to dance music. During the summer of that year, C+C Music Factory was all over the radio with their smash and controversial hit Gonna Make You Sweat, which strictly by coincidence started playing as I write this. The controversy had to do with its music video: they used a female performer to lip-sync the song to the lyrics being sung by the ultra-talented Martha Wash, who then was an obese woman.
Back then, she was definitely considered by those in the industry to be too unattractive to put in a music video, so when it came time to shoot the music video, they replaced her with the group’s female performer, who was skinny and who, in my opinion, couldn’t really sing, something she tried to do once the scheme was exposed.
No one would want to put Wash in a music video, so they didn’t. For the record, if I were either the producer of the song or the director of the music video, I would have happily put her in, overweight or not.
But that’s not the point of this article, which is going to be lengthy. I’m going to sidetrack for a moment, so if you want to focus on my review, simply scroll down.
Now, it was in 1992 that I was first exposed to 2 Unlimited, a dance/techno group from Holland. Their single Twilight Zone was a monster hit in Europe, but it took a while to catch on here in the States.
Their first two US singles were for some reason reversed. This song was released first here, followed by what was then titled Get Ready for This. In Europe, the reverse was true. The lyrics were written solo by the group’s rapper at the producers’ request. The orchestral version of the song did very well in the clubs and they wanted to capitalize on that success.
Following what I found to be disturbing allegations against him, allegations which were confirmed by their US record label back in 1996 and by the group’s original singer several years ago, I for a time stopped listening to any of their songs that he wrote or performed on.
I will stop for a moment and be fair to the rapper. He has publicly admitted to his wrongdoings in his autobiography, in media interviews and on his Facebook page. It takes a big man to admit to what he admitted to, so I can leave the self-admitted wrongdoings in the past and not post the details here. In a Facebook post from 2000, he wrote in part, with grammatical and spelling errors left intact:
“Through the years I have never responded on all the Hate that Anita is spreading to all the fans of 2 unlimited. Dont forget there are allways 2 sides of a story and I have never hidden what I did wrong in the past as I wrote in my Biography and to all the Press in many interviews about my mistakes in the past wich happened almost 30 years ago.
But everytime come back to stories from long time ago, wont change nothing. Nobody is perfect, everybody makes mistakes and luckily people learn from them!
Spreading Hate about me and the 2unlimited crew won’t change the deciscion that Anita made herself almost 4 years ago.
If I was so Bad towards Her as She allways assumes on Social media Why we started working together again in 2009?
Yes, they reunited in 2009 and within a couple years, after performing simply as their first names, returned as 2 Unlimited following the resolution of a dispute between them and one of the producers. The original singer has long since left the project, but the group continues with a new singer.
But I digress. I realize I diverted from the original intent of this article, but I wanted to tell the whole 2 Unlimited story, though I have a lot more to say. I became enthralled with the single and group. So I did what any seventh-grader would do: I went to the music store in my neighborhood and sung the chorus to the clerk.
After cringing at my less than talented singing, she immediately walked over to the wall where the singles were and took a copy of the song. I then purchased the song and listened to it over and over. But I didn’t get an allowance at the time, so I did what I had to do: I used part of my lunch money for the week to pay for it. I went hungry for one day, but it was worth it.
I would then go on to form and run the Unlimited Too Fan Club, a title that my mother came up with, the group’s label-sanctioned US-based fan club. That established connections in the music industry, connections that continue to this day. For my fan club efforts, I was interviewed by media outlets worldwide.
As the years went by, I was exposed to dance music from a variety of artists who, at the time, were from Europe. At that time, there were few American artists. Anyway, I would listen to dance music wherever I could find it. Again, at that time here in the States, very few radio stations played dance music, except perhaps for club remixes of mainstream songs.
My love for dance music expanded greatly over the years: dance, club, house, trance, eurodance and, these days, EDM (Electronic Dance Music, a modern type of dance music). But here in Albany, radio stations don’t give dance music the same exposure as what they get in Europe. So what to do about that?
Well, along came internet radio. And these days, your best choice for dance music in all its variety is, I think, SiriusXM, the result of a merger between two competing internet radio “stations.” Now, I listen to it on my smartphone, laptop and in my car. I think you would do the same if you listen to it, assuming that you don’t already listen.
I count myself as being one of the millions of people who listen to it. In fact, I am listening to it as I type this. At this very moment, a monster hit in the eurodance genre is The Hitman, by a group based in Belgium, AB Logic. This song enjoyed a small bit of success here.
Of course, this service is not free, so you will have to purchase a monthly plan if you want to listen to an endless stream of music.
There are two separate plans from which you can choose depending on where you want to listen. I have the $24.98 plan that allows you to listen in your car and that allows you to listen to it on your iPhone or Android device, your laptop and your desktop.
The other plan is a smartphone only plan for $9.99 a month. This comes in handy for me when I am away from my car. I can listen to it at home, whether in my bedroom on my laptop or in the living room on my Windows PC. I can also listen to it at the gym.
SiriusXM offers a wide variety of channels. Country, rock, pop and, of course, talk radio are just a few of your many choices. No matter what your tastes, SiriusXM will give you what you want. If you seek religious programming, there’s plenty to choose from. There’s a channel for Catholics and another for the Mormons, just to name two.
When it comes to dance music, there are several channels. There’s a channel dedicated to dance music from the 1990’s, there’s pop and dance channel and others, like workout music, and a channel called bpm, which tends to lean towards EDM.
Of course, there a few others, but those channels are just a taste of what you’ll get if this is the genre for you. If you like EDM, but only like the current hits, there’s a channel for that as well.
So how do you get started? Just go to the website or download the app and get started. If you scroll through Facebook or elsewhere on the internet, you’re bound to find a special offer to entice you into joining the many other subscribers.
For example, I started listening after I found a free trial that lasted three months. There are other offers floating around, and you can probably find one directly from the website.
If you’re having trouble finding a trial, simply let Google do its work.
I could sit here and review every channel, none of which play commercials, but of course that would result in an extremely long article. So, I’ll point you to this PDF file that lists all the channels. You’re bound to find one or more channel to justify paying a monthly fee.
I have no regrets about signing up for SiriusXM. It’s well worth the price and if you get tired of it, you can easily cancel through the PC/desktop customer portal. If you try to cancel, you might even get another special offer designed to stay put.
As I close this article, 2 Unlimited is blasting on my headphones at home with their 1991 hit Get Ready for This, a song that is now known as Get Ready due to an issue with the producing using a sample for the “yeah, yeah.” They didn’t clear the samples, something that one of the producers admitted to me in 2011 during an interview for the professional internet station that I ran at the time.
And as a result of the producer that made the “yeah, yeahs,” which are a call-and-response that makes the song popular at sporting events all across the United States, raising an issue, that producer now has a credit and now gets royalties.
Apparently, to avoid keeping pay royalties as they are with the religious song, the song was re-titled and the “y’all ready for this” and “yeah, yeah” were re-recorded. But that’s not the point. The point is that, even in 2025, 2 Unlimited remains popular on SiriusXM and at NFL and NBA games here.
Throughout the time that I wrote this article, two of 2 Unlimited’s songs played, both of which became hits here in this country. In 1994, Get Ready re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaked at #38, making the group forever a top 40 group here in the States. It is for those reasons that SiriusXM is playing at least two of its hits.
As another quick aside, many years ago, the rapper and I met in New York City and we went to lunch. He gave me my lunch money back. So there’s that. That lunch money was the best money I ever spent as it started the journey that saw me as their US fan club president.
On the music stations, you might even have a DJ to keep things lively. I have yet to hear one on the dance music stations, but I do on the hard rock station that my wife insists upon listening to in the car.
One thing that I consider to be negative is that sometimes, songs get repeated in too short of a time period. For example, Alice Deejay’s hit song Better Off Alone has played twice over the course of two hours, but to me, that’s not such a big deal.
Another negative thing is the five seconds of silence between some tracks that I’ve noticed on the 90’s dance channel and I’m sure the problem exists on other channels. They should be able to crossfade every time so there is no silence. I ran a small but successful internet radio station many years ago, and if I can crossfade, then surely they can.
All I can tell you is that I never run out of stations to listen to when I need a break from dance music. I happily pay the monthly fee and I think that, if you take advantage of one of the various trial offers, you will be happy enough to keep the service for many years to come.
(The required full disclosure: I have not been compensated by SiriusXM nor anyone else to write this review.)