Party Animals are a pop-
gabber
Gabber (; ) is a style of electronic dance music and a subgenre of hardcore techno, as well as the surrounding subculture. The music is more commonly referred to as Hardcore, which is characterised by fast beats, distorted & heavier kickdrums, ...
group from
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
,
Netherlands
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, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. The band was created by producers Jeff "Abraxas" Porter and Jeroen Flamman, also known as Flamman & Abraxas, along with vocalists MCs Remsy, Evert van Buschbach, Patrick de Moor, Dennis Adam, and Paul Grommé. They became the first act in the Netherlands to have their first three singles go straight to number one.
Career
The Party Animals made their introduction on the video for the single "
I Wanna Be a Hippy
"I Wanna Be a Hippy" is a song by English electronic group Technohead. The vocals were taken from David Peel's song "I Like Marijuana", which he sung in the movie '' Rude Awakening''. It first appeared as the B-side to the group's ''Mary Jane E ...
" by
Technohead
Greater Than One is an English electronic music band, founded by husband and wife Michael Wells and Lee Newman in 1985. They released many albums under this name, and also under the names Tricky Disco, GTO, John + Julie, Church of Extacy, Sign ...
. The clip featured three gabbers and a
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
. Flamman & Abraxas discovered the four
[ Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, ''500 Nr. 1 Hits uit de Top 40'', page 325, 9023009444 (Book in Dutch)] and saw a potential for opening the mainly underground scene of gabber by making the sound more pop-oriented and thus introducing the new genre to a mainstream audience.
The first single was "
Have You Ever Been Mellow
"Have You Ever Been Mellow" is the first single of the Party Animals and was released on their debut album '' Good Vibrations''. The track was released in 1996 and became their first number one hit in The Netherlands. The song contains a sample o ...
" which samples
Olivia Newton-John
Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top-ten singles, including 5 number-one singles on the ...
's "
Have You Never Been Mellow
''Have You Never Been Mellow'' is the fifth studio album by British-Australian singer Olivia Newton-John, released on 12 February 1975 by MCA Records.
Reception
Both the title single and the album rose to the top of their respective US charts ...
" The lyrics still contain parts of the original song with "Never" replaced by "Ever". Released in September 1995, it took three months before becoming a number 1 hit.
In 1997, Flamman & Abraxas formed a one-time spinoff group called the "Mini Animals", consisting of four boys aged 10 to 13. They only released one EP, titled "Get Up, Stand Up!" before the group disbanded. However, two of the Mini Animals, Youri and Jordi, would later officially join the Party Animals in 2002.
The group disbanded in 2000 after considerable success in the Netherlands and a hit in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
with "
Atomic".
The group reunited in 2002 after they were re-discovered at a student party in
Delft
Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...
. After Jeroen Flamman discovered how popular the Party Animals' singles still were, he decided to revive the group. As a result, "Life Was Short" was released in 2002 and "Xanadu" followed in 2003. The group's fourth studio album, ''Gang of 4'', was released in 2004.
In 2014, their fifth studio album, ''Greatest Hits and Underground Anthems'', was released, which contained a new track titled "This Moment".
On 7 February 2016, Flamman & Abraxas posted several pictures of Suzanna Manger (the vocalist on "Have You Ever Been Mellow", "Aquarius", and "Xanadu") on Facebook of her in the studio with the duo with the caption "Let's see if we can turn them into a new 2016 Party Animals track!"
Facebook.com. Accessed March 23, 2016
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Members
Producers
* Jeff "Abraxas" Porter (1995-present)
* Jeroen Flamman (1995-present)
Animals
* Evert van Buschbach (1995-1997)
* David Adam (1995-1996)
* Dennis Adam (MC Remsy) (1995-1997, 2002-2004)
* Paul Grommé (1995-2000)
* Patrick de Moor (1996-1998)
* Robert (1996-2000)
* Michael (1997-2000, 2002-2009)
* Thijs Timmer (1998-2000)
* Youri (2002-2009)
* Jordi (2002-2010)
* Kenney (2004-2010)
* Martijn (2009-2014)
* Kelvin (2010-2014)
* Eb (2010-2012)
* Corné (2009-2013)
* Patrick (2012-present)
* Kevin Koning (2013-2017)
* Wesley (2014-present)
* Bruce (2015-2017)
* Bonno (2017–present)
* Bruce (2018–present)
Discography
Albums
Singles
References
External links
Official Website
{{Authority control
Dutch dance music groups
Happy hardcore musicians