Europop

I inherited my love for Europop from Mama T. She's really into ABBA, and I was forced into appreciating their odd mix of blind enthusiasm and lack of English-language skills at a young age. Mama T has never given me a straight answer on WHY a Swedish band would write a song about the Mexican Revolution, but I dare anyone to resist the allure of "Take a Chance on Me."

Europop took a turn in the 90s or so, when some genius decided to combine the magic of ABBA with cocaine. Thus, we were introduced to the A*Teens, which were basically teenage clones of the four members of ABBA, who covered ABBA songs with an added techno flavor. These songs are downright infectious. Sadie and I even like some A*Teens covers better than the originals, but that's just because things go better with coke (binges). For real though, the bass in your average 90s Europop jam will make you have a  seizure. Or the urge to participate in synchronized dance:

Speaking of line dancing, for awhile there was apparently a movement in Britain to make line dancing cool. True story. The creator of the Spice Girls had yet another calling from God and decided to combine Europop and line dancing and gave us Steps. The idea behind Steps was that each song had dance moves associated with it, and the steps to said dances were included in the liner notes. It's seriously one of the greatest ridiculous ideas I have ever heard of. The dances were equally ridic/amazing:

The themes of the music videos are also worthy of praise. Mainly because they make no sense whatsoever and have little to no production values. I was trying to explain the concept of Steps to Sadie the other night, after I bought their CD on half.com for $0.75, and I just couldn't convey the magic. I ended up watching like, 10 Steps videos on YouTube and then fell asleep humming "One For Sorrow." I can tell you from experience, it's not a bad way to spend an evening.