Europop ~ Eiffel 65 ~ Dance and Disco ~ CD ~ Good

Editorial Reviews

On the wings of the hit club single "Blue (Da Ba Dee)," the Italian group Eiffel 65's Europop has soared into the ever-fleeting good graces of the dance-pop scene. The song is "a story about a little guy who lives in a blue world," and while it seems that the color of the fella's life was chosen arbitrarily, the real star of this tune is the vocoder effect reintroduced on Cher's megahit single "Believe." Listen to the entire record, though, and you'll hear this gimmick on almost all of the rest of the tracks as well. On first run-through, the one-trick-pony-ness of this effect is off-putting, and yet it is the album's one distinctive element. The songs on Europop live up to the album's broad moniker, skimming the basics of tried-and-true dance-pop ("Living in a Bubble," "Now Is Forever"), techno ("Dub in Life," "Another Race"), and acid house ("Europop"). The group even renders a fairly accurate impression of Depeche Mode-style goth-pop ("Your Clown"). But the tracks rarely deviate from a four-on-the-floor thud, numbing the ears to the songs' otherwise distinguishable qualities. The record is too hard to swallow in one bite; its tracks are much tastier as singles, serving well in a club setting as segues to stronger songs by other artists. --Beth Massa