''Real Things'' is the third album by Belgian/Dutch

Eurodance Eurodance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Europe. It combines many elements of Hip-hop, rap, techno and Eurodisco. This genre of music is heavily influenced by the use ...

act

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 ...

, released in 1994. It was the band's second number one album in the UK and despite spending just nine weeks in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...

Top 75, it was certified gold there and platinum in The Netherlands. " The Real Thing", " Here I Go", " No One" and " Nothing Like the Rain" were released as singles. Unlike their previous album,

Ray Slijngaard Raymond Lothar Slijngaard (born 28 June 1971) is a Dutch singer and rapper best known as one half of the Eurodance duo 2 Unlimited. Music career 2 Unlimited (1991–1996) 2 Unlimited is an electronic music project founded in 1991 by Belgian p ...

's raps on the verses were not cut for the UK release.

Critical reception

Generally, the music press were kinder to this album than previous album '' No Limits!''. Alan Jones from ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music We ...

'' gave ''Real Things'' four out of five and named it Pick of the Week. He wrote, "Most of tracks on this album follow the tried and trusted formula. Only on the latter half of the album do they attempt to vary the tempo. Their run of hits continues unabated, and this is likely to emulate the chart-topping exploits of their last album." Beau Quantick from ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' gave it eight out of ten. Tim Marsh from '' Select'' noted that " The Real Thing" "has a funky key riff", while "Sensuality" and "Something Wild" "explore darker sounds." ''

Smash Hits ''Smash Hits'' was a British music magazine aimed at young adults, originally published by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006, and, after initially appearing monthly, was issued fortnightly during most of that time. The name survived as a brand ...

Mark Sutherland stated that "every song is a potential top 10 record" and that "for

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often ...

..mayhem, you can't beat ''Real Things''".

Track listing

# " The Real Thing" – 3:40 # "Do What I Like" – 4:07 # " Here I Go" – 5:10 # "Burning Like Fire" – 4:54 # "Info Superhighway" – 4:35 # "Hypnotised" – 4:22 # "Tuning Into Something Wild" – 4:05 # "Escape In Music" – 3:52 # "Sensuality" – 4:27 # " No One" – 3:25 # "Face To Face" – 4:03 # "What's Mine Is Mine" – 4:57 # " Nothing Like the Rain" – 4:39

Personnel

Adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. *2 Unlimited – primary artist *Peter Bauwens – arranger, producer, vocal arrangement *Peter Bulkens – mixing *Jean-Paul DeCoster – arranger, executive producer, producer *Andy Janssens – remixing *Phil Wilde – arranger, composer, engineer, producer

Charts

Certifications and sales

References

1994 albums 2 Unlimited albums Byte Records albums {{1990s-electronic-album-stub