Songoftheday 10/2/19 - Get down with the style house on the ground, freeze when I squeeze drop to your knees...

"Get Ready For This" - 2 Unlimited
from the album Get Ready! (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #76 (1992); #38 (one week) (1995)
Weeks in the Top-40: 2

Today's song of the day comes from the Dutch techno Eurodance act 2 Unlimited, who came together in the early 1990s in Amsterdam, Holland. The band was put together by Belgian producers Jean-Paul DeCoster and Phil Wilde, who hired on rapper Ray Slijngaard and singer Anita Doth. back in 1992 had landed just above the halfway mark on Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart with the classic techno jam "Twilight Zone". That song had previously been their second release in Europe after their debut track "Get Ready For This". Originally an instrumental on the album, the "Get Ready For This" was reworked for radio with Ray and Anita at that time, and had been a big hit from the get go, reaching the top ten in the UK (#2), Australia (#2), Ireland (#3), Belgium (#8), and the Netherlands (#10). In the U.S., initially the single stopped at #76, while climbing to #14 on the Dance Club Play chart at the start of 1992. A few years later, the song was re-released, and finally mainstream radio in America caught on, causing the techno gem to become the band's biggest success and sole top-40 pop hit...

"Get Ready For This!" became 2 Unlimited's first and only pop Top-40 hit in April of 1995. By that time, the group had a dozen top ten hits in their home country of the Netherlands, with "Twilight Zone" reaching #1 there followed by "No Limit" in 1993 and "The Real Thing" in 1994. But besides their success, Ray and Anita wanted more control over their music, which the producers shut down enough to cause the pair to leave the group after their greatest hits set which included another top-40 record in "Jump For Joi" (#9), as well as their most recent American club hit "Do What's Good For Me" (#33 Dance Club Play, 1996). Decoster and Wilde tossed Ray and Anita and recruited two new female singers (Romy van Ooijen and Marjon van Iwaarden) for the act's next album II. That set sent the song "Wanna Get Up" to chart in the Netherlands at #15, as well as #3 in Spain and #7 in Belgium. Those ladies didn't last past that album.

Ray & Anita, who had reunited in 2009 and had issued a few songs as "Ray & Anita", reunited with De Coster propertly in 2012. Four years later, Anita left to pursue a solo career amicably, replaced by Kim Vergouwen, who performs live with Ray ever since at the oldie show that traverse Europe constantly.

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Here's the original "Orchestral Version" from 1991, which was more of an instrumental...