Critical Mass was a Dutch
happy hardcore
Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or "hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s.
H ...
act that was active from 1994 till 1999 during the happy hardcore period. They scored several hits in the
Netherlands
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. Members of the group were producer Huib Schippers, Dave van Hasselaar and Ed Bout. Later, female singer Ludmilla Odijk and rapper Danny Haenraets aka MC Energie joined the group.
Biography
In 1994
producer
Producer or producers may refer to:
Occupations
*Producer (agriculture), a farm operator
*A stakeholder of economic production
*Film producer, supervises the making of films
**Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...
Ed Bout came in contact with producer Dave van Hasselaar. Together they decided to form a new group. This duo received a request from hardcore/gabber-organisation
ID&T
ID&T is a Dutch entertainment and medium enterprise that was founded in the early 1990s. Their event Mysteryland is named the oldest electronic festival in the Netherlands, with later events like Trance Energy and Sensation. It operates many of ...
records, to produce some radio-friendly
hardcore
Hardcore, hard core or hard-core may refer to:
Arts and media Film
* ''Hardcore'' (1977 film), a British comedy film
* ''Hardcore'' (1979 film), an American crime drama film starring George C Scott
* ''Hardcore'' (2001 film), a British documen ...
. With the song "Dancing Together" Critical Mass scored a hit. That same year Critical Mass were given a face by female singer Ludmilla Odijk and rapper MC Energie.
In 1996 the band had a few hits with singles like "Burnin' Love", "Believe In The Future" and "Happy Generation". Later that year ID&T announced that Critical Mass would be combined with
2 Unlimited
2 Unlimited are a Belgian/Dutch dance music act, founded by Belgian producers/songwriters Jean-Paul De Coster and Phil Wilde in 1991 in Antwerp, Belgium. From 1991 to 1996, Dutch rapper Ray Slijngaard and Dutch vocalist Anita Doth fronted the a ...
. In 1997, when happy hardcore became less popular in the Netherlands, the single "Together In Dreams" was produced. This single was a lot less successful than expected. Bout and Van Hasselaar decided to change their career by trying different styles of music. In 1999 their last single came out, called "In Your Eyes".
In 2008, the group came back together, with their original line-up, to perform on different happy hardcore parties.
Discography
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, align=left, Psychotic Break, , , 1994, , , , , , , , , Label:
Rough Trade
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, align=left, Burnin' Love, , , 1995, , , , , , , , ,
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, align=left, Dancing Together, , , 1995, , 26-8-1995, , 37, , , ,
, - align=center
, align=left, Burnin' Love, , , 1996, , 20-1-1996, , 9, , 10, , Re-release
, - align=center
, align=left, Believe In The Future, , , 1996, , 15-6-1996, , 10, , 7, ,
, - align=center
, align=left, Happy Generation, , , 1996, , 28-12-1996, , 23, , 6, ,
, - align=center
, align=left, Together In Dreams, , , 1997, , , , , , , , ,
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, align=left, In Your Eyes, , , 1999, , , , , , , , , Label:
BYTE
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
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References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Critical Mass
Happy hardcore musicians
Dutch dance music groups
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups disestablished in 1999