Berri - The Sunshine After The Rain

 

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Date 3rd September 1995

1 Week

Official Chart Run 5-4-5-9-15-19-21-26-38-46-67 (11 weeks)

*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

 

U4EA was the pseudonym for British dance music guru Nick Bowser, and in 1992 he produced and released “Sunshine (Mozart's Bedroom Mix)” which filtered Elkie Brooks’ soul infused 70s hit “Sunshine After The Rain” into a rave anthem that could floor the clubs. A few years later in 1994, New Atlantic worked with Bowser to produce a different and much more commercially tuned version entitled “The Sunshine After The Rain”.

 

“The Sunshine After The Rain” was fronted by singer Rebecca Sleight (aka Berri) and largely produced by the Merseyside duo Cameron Saunders & Richard Lloyd, best known for New Atlantic house classic “I Know” which charted at #12 in February 1992. Originally written by prolific American songwriter Ellie Greenwich (and a #10 hit for Elkie Brooks 18 years earlier in 1977), the 1994 U4EA mix remained a minimalistic breakbeat driven track which drew influence from the chart rave that had dominated a few years earlier. The mix discussed here was remixed by 3Beat label-mates Two Cowboys - the Italian house duo of Maurizio Braccagni & Roberto Gallo Salsotto - who scored unlikely Top 10 success a few months earlier with “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” (#7) but due to a fairly cheap video the single was lost initially in the Christmas rush during its first release in November 1994 whereupon it peaked at 26. Eventually 10 months later with Berri as the main artist fronting the group and single, they were able to break into the Top 10 in late August ’95.

 

Much of the influence on the main mix of “The Sunshine After The Rain” is thanks to Giorgio Moroder’s unmistakeable pulsating synth line from Donna Summer’s classic 1977 #1 hit “I Feel Love”, though despite this he bizarrely did not receive a writing credit on the track. Coincidentally the original “Sunshine After The Rain” was in the chart at the same time in September 1977 as “I Feel Love” and in the week that Berri climbed to #4 Donna Summer also debuted at #8 with the 1995 remix of “I Feel Love”!

 

Neither Berri nor New Atlantic had much success following this dance smash; a #20 hit followed at Christmas: “Shine Like A Star”, then a shelved album. After briefly being ‘romantically linked’ to Liam Gallagher Berri disappeared from the mainstream and retired to Yorkshire.

 

TUNE! :dance: And this I Feel Love sample is really working. Moroder is really a genie, he created a sound which can still be used in the 2000s-2010s.

 

BTW I'm pretty sure Sunshine After the Rain was sampled/covered a couple of times. Or am I imagine it?

Vocals are far to twee for my tastes.

"Sunshine After The Rain" is still a TUNE. :wub:

New Atlantic's 'I Know' was a TUNE, but I couldn't get anything from 'The Sunshine After the Rain' at all. I had to check if it was the same act in each case and kinda assumed that the reattribution to Berri was because they were trying to distance themselves from it a bit.

 

I completely agree that the only positive side to the song is the Moroder rip off - and that itself doesn't even have half the power of even the 1977 mix of I Feel Love.

 

Yet clubbers in Scotland loved it - those who simultaneously loved stuff like QFX and TTF.

I Know was great.

N-Trance ft. Ricardo Da Force - Stayin’ Alive

 

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Date 10th September 1995

5 Weeks

Official Chart Run 2-3-6-9-9-13-23-30-51-71-72 (11 weeks)

*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

 

You could be forgiven for thinking that “Stayin’ Alive” was by a totally different band, after all it had taken nearly 9 months for N-Trance to follow-up their impressive debut “Set You Free”, in which time they had transformed from little-known underground act producing cutting-edge dance music to a ten a penny dance act resorting to remixing the Bee Gees (amongst other 70s acts). This single was of course the Bee Gee’s disco anthem “Stayin’ Alive” which soundtracked Saturday Night Fever in 1977 and made it to #4 the following year for the Gibb brothers. Kevin O'Toole and Dale Longworth (N-Trance) were inspired by the use of Spandau Ballet’s “True” on PM Dawn’s Top 3 hit “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” and tried to replicate its success.

 

The sampling was not without its difficulties, the group were able to clear the iconic guitar riff that announces and runs through the track, however the equally iconic (and difficult to replicate) falsetto vocals were not cleared meaning they had to get session singers in to re-record the vocals, this took over 30 takes and some skilful recording studio work but was so realistic Barry Gibb thought he could hear himself on the new track.

 

Ricardo da Force makes an appearance once again (having already appeared here twice on two different KLF dance singles), however his rap falls somewhat below par when he drops in to inform us that they took a Bee Gees split an’ broke it down like Kenco.. which amongst the gunfire and police sirens adds to the surreal feeling of this remix. The formula of covering disco anthems however paid off handsomely for N-Trance, and not only galvanised greater interest and sparked a number of Bee Gees covers later in the decade, it also set the group on a very different path from their earlier career with a further two covers of hits from the 70’s following. This lost them their original fan base and despite continuing mainstream success this is the last time we will come across them in this countdown.

 

what a bizarre follow-up to the ikonik 'set you free' ~ i suppose in reality there was 3 years between them, but it's sad that by the time syf had finally become a hit they'd been reduced to this kind of novelty cheese~

After Set You Free it's a big turnaround in sound. Actually I really Like Da Ya Think I'm Sexy but that will come only in 97 I think :kink:

I must admit that I loved that at the time, even if it's a tad embarrassing in retrospect.

Irredeemably shit.

From the best song of all time to one of the worst. Only Spiller can match that level of notoriety for me.

From the best song of all time to one of the worst. Only Spiller can match that level of notoriety for me.

 

 

I can't think of any artist that fell so badly from greatness to shitness within the space of one single.

Now there is a topic.

I have the impression the next two tracks in this run down will cheer us all up after that.

Looking back it's strange how N-Trance's take on Stayin' Alive was so successful. Very limp and lazy cover.

 

Go figure why N-Trance went on the dodgy cover route when they had strong original material.

I reckon Set You Free and Stayin' Alive are on par with each other. Very different though, yes.

I reckon Set You Free and Stayin' Alive are on par with each other. Very different though, yes.

 

 

I can't see how.

 

The music in Set You Free is wonderful. Listen to it!

Josh Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness

 

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Date 15th October 1995

1 Week

Official Chart Run 8-10-16-27-35-47-64-67-79-78-64-67-60-69 (12 weeks)

*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

 

Starting out as an underage mobile DJ in the early ‘80s in his birthplace of Philadelphia, Joshua Winkelman (aka Josh Wink), always had a great love of dance music, and it was this that towards the end of that decade led him to become involved within the burgeoning sample-heavy and breakbeat driven rave scene. His love of acid house continued to inspire him, eventually leading him to produce his own music - at the age of 20 in 1990 he had already released his first single entitled “Tribal Confusion” (which samples Tears For Fears’ “Mad World”) in collaboration with fellow Philadelphia DJ King Britt, a partnership that would endure through the rest of the decade.

 

In 1995 he broke through to the mainstream in style, with “Higher State Of Consciousness” crashing into the Top 10 the same week that Wildchild’s “Renegade Master” debuted on the singles chart. It was available in a radio friendly vocal edit, which featured the vocals of a young Sonique (who would eventually hit #1 on her own in 2000 with “It Feels So Good”), however it was the Original Tweekin' Acid Funk Mix that was the best known and regarded mix of the track. With its highly distorted and robotic vocal sitting low in the mix underneath a fantastically produced acid synth distortion that reaches pitches that border on the unlistenable at times, all thanks to the easily recognisable Roland TB-303 synthesiser that trademarked the acid house sound.

 

Although a little late to really capitalise on the popularity of the genre, the production on “Higher State Of Consciousness” would go on to become highly influential - including in the current decade as the lines between pop, rap and dance were blurred yet further for example on the intro of Ne-Yo’s 2010 UK #1 “Beautiful Monster”. A package of remixes would also achieve a one position improvement the following year under the alias Wink, but apart from yet another remix set 12 years later by Dirty South & TV Rock in 2007 (#70) and a number of minor Top 40 hits under another alias Winx in 1995/6, his only other UK chart appearance was in 2000, on #23 hit “How's Your Evening So Far”.

 

Edited December 15, 20159 yr by Doctor Blind

Great track - very unique compared to some of the more commercial stuff out around that time.