Technotronic
The 1990s were a great era for pop music. Well over a decade later, a lot of the music we play at parties (whether you’re four or forty-four) still comes from the 90s. The standard party playlist usually includes arguably the best party song ever recorded, “Pump Up The Jam”. It’s the most vapid, emotionally empty song ever written, and we couldn’t– and still can’t– get enough of it. “Pump Up The Jam” was a worldwide hit, soaring all the way to number two in the United Kingdom Hot 100 in 1989, and in the American Hot 100 in early 1990. The upbeat, repetitive ear worm has been certified triple platinum. It owes quite a bit of its exposure to Saturday Night Live and Space Jam, of course, but we would be lying if we said our most vivid memory of this song comes from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Few things in this world make us as happy as Will Smith singing “Get your booty on the floor; make my day!” horribly off-key.
Do you remember the music video? Because we do. The hideous, glorious music video for Technotronic’s hit single combines all the best parts of cheesy 90s psychedelic techno with all the best parts of a 1980s workout video. Today’s adults can watch it for sheer nostalgia, and today’s children can watch it for all the pretty colors and flashing patterns provided with the help of laughably bad early 90s green screen technology. Though we all loved to sing along to “Pump Up The Jam,” the original piece was an instrumental track released by Belgian techno artist Jo Bogaert’s earlier project, The Pro 24s. It’s Ya Kid K’s vocals which made the song famous, of course.
Aside from a brief 20th anniversary reunion tour in 2009, the members of Technotronic no longer perform or release music under that name. Ya Kid K, who wrote and sang the lyrics for the 90s hit, continued to make music for the past two decades. She sang for Hi Tek 3, whose famous single wound up on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Soundtrack. In 2011, she reappeared with a song called “DO UC ME Standing,” and more recently, she released several new tracks on a digitally-released album called Stalled Constructions. MC Eric continues to tour as a DJ. No word on another reunion tour, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.
