Songoftheday 6/11/18 - People don't you know don't you know it's about time, can't you hear the jam is pumpin' while you taste the piece of mine...
from the album Pump Up The Jam - The Album (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18
Today's song of the day comes from the Belgian "hip-house" dance act Technotronic, whose debut album in 1989 spun off two big pop hits in America with the top ten singles "Pump Up The Jam" and "Get Up! (Before The Night Is Over)". Leader Jo Bogaert also created the side-project Hi Tek 3, who had a top-3 club hit in the U.S. with "Spin That Wheel", which also features the rapper on their main work, Manuela "Ya Kid K" Kamosi. Technotronic followed up that success with their 1991 album Body To Body, which eschewed Kamosi for singer/rapper Reggie Magliore, from the old Belgian Congo (now Zaire) who was a member of dance act Indeep ("Last Night A DJ Saved My Life"). While it scored a pair of top-40 hits in the UK, including the #12 "Move That Body", the record was basically ignored in the States. However, the power of TV advertisement came to be the act's saving factor, as makeup giant Revlon commissioned their album track "Move This", from Pump Up The Jam, for a series of high-profile commercials. As a result, people sought out the song in stores, prompting a re-release of the album, and radio grabbed on tightly as well...
"Move This" became Technotronic's third and final top ten pop hit in September of 1992, nearly three years after the release of "Pump Up The Jam". Internationally, besides Canada, where the track reached the top-40, the song went unnoticed, only reaching #67 in Australia.
Bogaert brought Ya Kid K back to Technotronic for their next album Recall in 1995, and while single "Move It To The Rhythm" went to #3 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart, it stalled down at #83 on the pop Hot 100 in the U.S. as their final chart appearance here so far. More recently, the act scored a trio of hits in their home of Belgium, with "Like This" reaching #6 in 1999. Ya Kid K and member MC Eric continue to tour performing the music of the group.
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And here's Ya Kid K and Eric performing "Move This" in Denmark in 2017...
Up tomorrow: A pop "diva" is asking questions.
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