Songoftheday 8/20/17 - Never knew uds, so cool as ice? Hear the vibes man they'll stupefy Ducks categorize us as hard criers, That's a lie we know why we're occupiers...
from the album Mental Floss For The Globe (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7
Today's song of the day comes from the Dutch band Urban Dance Squad, who were one of the first acts on the continent to have success with the rap & rock fusion that had given rise to American groups like Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Forming in the city of Utrecht in the mid-80s, their first single, "Deeper Shade Of Soul", was named from the record it sampled, recorded by Latin jazz artist Ray Barretto in 1968. Barretto had a top-20 hit in 1961 with "El Watusi"...
The Squad, with lead singer/rapper Patrick Tilon from the former Dutch South American territory turned independent country of Suriname, along with DJ DNA (Arjen de Vreede), incorporated the Barretto track into a hip stoner/ghetto rider anthem that bridged the gap of college rock and R&B stations...
"Deeper Shade Of Soul" became the Urban Dance Squad's sole American pop hit, reaching the top-40 in March of 1991. Internationally, the record was a minor hit in their native Netherlands at #52 and in Australia at #56. Two more singles from the Mental Floss.. album, "No Kid" and "Fastlane", charted in the 50s in Holland. However, the album was much better than its reception belies.
The band wouldn't place on the American charts ever again, but continued to have success at home, eventually reaching the Dutch top 40 in 1994 with "Demagogue". They folded by the end of the decade, with Tilon appearing on the first two albums from Dutch DJ Junkie XL, and provided vocals for their chart hit "Zerotonine" in 1999 (#63 UK, #62 Netherlands).
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Here's the band appearing on the Tonight Show to promote the single...
and in concert in 1990...
Up tomorrow: Kennedy Center Award-winner re-emerges into the light with a post-accident comeback.
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