Europop is the debut studio album by Italian electronic group Eiffel 65. The album was released in late 1999 as under Bliss Corporation and Universal Records and Republic Music (Universal and Republic would merge to Universal Republic). The album is most notable for the group's two biggest hits: "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" and "Move Your Body," which topped the charts worldwide in 2000.
Background The title of Europop describes its genre; it combines several dance styles unique to European countries, such as the United Kingdom's trip hop, Germany's techno, and Italy's dance music, and songs are structured like typical pop songs. The album follows a deep house template featuring vocoder vocal effects, synthesizer hooks, and "nursery rhyme choruses," with occasional deviations from it into string-orchestrated hip-hop ("Living in a Bubble") and "trippy" house stylings ("Now is Forever" and "Europop"). Elements of 1980s synthpop dominate, with reviews making comparisons to Depeche Mode (especially towards "Your Clown"), Erasure, a-ha, and Duran Duran.
The album features pitch-corrected vocals and Euro disco beats throughout. Eiffel 65 perform all the songs on this album in English.
Reception
Contemporaneous reviews from Entertainment Weekly, the Houston Chronicle, and The Plain Dealer welcomed the humorous, light-weight dance-pop style of Europop in a pop music market saturated with mostly dour music, calling serious cuts such as "Your Clown" and "Now is Forever" the LP's weakest. Reviews from The Plain Dealer and Rolling Stone also appreciated its rejection of intellectual pretentiousness common in electronic music. On the other hand, the album was criticized for a lack of differentiation (in composition and production techniques) between songs, with Jose F. Promis writing its best moments came when it combined its template with different genres. In his review for Courier News, Tab Benoit called Eiffel 65 a "one-trick pony" for using the same vocal effect for all tracks.
The album peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and the song "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100, impressive for an EDM song at the time of its release. In February 2000, the album was certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of two million copies in the US.
Track listing
Personnel Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. The track numbers correspond to the US release.
Eiffel 65 Jeffrey Jey – vocals Maurizio Lobina – keyboards, programming Gabry Ponte – DJ, mixing
Additional personnel Angelica Villella – mixing (1, 2, 4–8, 10, 14) Mauro Di Deco – mixing (3, 9, 11–13) Chris Zippel – mastering Massimo Gabutti – executive producer Luciano Zucchet – executive producer
Charts
Weekly charts +Weekly chart performance for Europop Chart (1999–2000) PeakpositionDanish Albums (Hitlisten)7European Albums (Music & Media)18Portuguese Albums (AFP)6
Year-end charts +Year-end chart performance for Europop Chart (2000) PeakpositionAustralian Albums (ARIA)97Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)49 Danish Albums (Hitlisten) 63 European Albums (Music & Media)78French Albums (SNEP)52New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)50Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)86UK Albums (OCC)235US Billboard 20029
Certifications
References
External links Eiffel 65's Europop in Amazon.com Eiffel 65's Europop in MSN music Eiffel 65's Europop in Rhapsody