25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007

 

 

7. Twenty 4 Seven

 

“Twenty 4 Seven kick it one time, so Jacks man what you dreaming of, cars money girls, well you gotta think about the world’

 

Being a multi-national dance front for ‘shadowy’ Dutch producers, Twenty 4 Seven originally hit the Euro charts with the combined talents of ‘Jacks’, ‘Hanks’, Tony ‘Captain Hollywood’ Harrison and Dutch blonde beauty Nance ‘Nancy’ Coolen appearing as the ‘band’. ‘Twenty 4 Seven’ were the type of dance act that would be more likely to be found starring in the pages of all the pan-European teen magazines or doing a PA at ‘Mr Smiths’, than being the headliner at any DJ festival in Ibiza, whilst they were also one of the first acts to be shown on Channel 4’s early morning ‘live in concert’ dance show ‘Dance Daze’. Even though the show was recorded at the Brixton Academy and was presented as ‘live’, the show was actually nearer in style to that of ‘CD:uk’ and featured acts miming to a number of hits that were then spread over a number of programmes. On the show ‘Twenty 4 Seven’ were also shown backstage in a number of pre-recorded interview segments that were then spliced between the main on-stage performances.

 

‘Twenty 4 Seven’ hit the UK charts with ‘I Can’t Stand It’ and ‘Are You Dreaming’, whilst an album containing these hits followed not so long afterwards on the BCM label. ‘Twenty 4 Seven’ were a typical early 1990s Europop/Eurodance group and evolved in a similar way to that of Logic’s ‘Snap!’ and Media’s ‘Cappella’, so that members were easily replaced and the line up frequently changed.

 

The first major change to the line up was when Tony Harrison left to form his own equally successful ‘Captain Hollywood Project’. In fact it was the success of the ‘Captain Hollywood Project’ with songs such as ‘More and More’ as well as successes by ‘The Real McCoy’, ‘Culture Beat’, ‘C.B. Milton’ and the reinvigorated ‘Cappella’ meant that ‘Twenty 4 Seven’ now seemed like another production outfit with a male rapper/female vocalist trying to hit the UK charts with their pop-dance tunes. Whilst the United Kingdom stayed uninterested, the outfit continued to release a number of hit albums throughout the 1990s in mainland Europe. From that 1990 incarnation, Nance stayed around for a number of years on vocals before she too departed to solo stardom and a career presenting shows on Dutch TV, whilst her replacement appeared on the last album with rapper Stay-C.

 

I used to love I Cant Stand It havent heard for ages! I also used to love Captain Hollywood and More & More, that was an ace tune!

Yes, both were great.