Album DescriptionAvailable in:
No Limits is the second studio album for Belgian/Dutch eurodance band 2 Unlimited. With this release, they became the only eurodance artist to have a UK number 1 album - a feat that they achieved twice. As their British record company PWL were dissatisfied with Ray Slijngaard's raps, the British version of this album replaced most of the raps with instrumental parts. No Limits yielded five singles and went platinum in several countries. Like all the studio albums by the band, the title of the album was a modification of the title of the lead single to be taken from it. The artwork for the UK cover was designed by Julian Barton and David Howells. As like all the 2 Unlimited releases, most other territories featured a different album cover to the UK edition of the album. Unlike their previous album in the UK, where many of the tracks featured on it were instrumental, the artwork to this album featured Ray and Anita on the front cover. For the debut album, most of the writing had been done by the Belgian producers/songwriters Wilde and de Coster, with some input from Ray Slijngaard and other featured writers. For No Limits, both Ray and Anita had much more input into the song writing process compared to the previous album. Anita has writing credits on seven of the album's fourteen songs and Ray has writing credits on ten of them.
User Album Review
Despite its commercial success, at the time the album was panned by the critics, especially in the UK. In Smash Hits, reviewer Mark Frith described the album as an "across the board techno splurge" and stated that this album contained clues as to why the band were unpopular in "elite dance circles". In the review of Maximum Overdrive, the magazine reiterated that the band were, "not hard or imaginative and they have no credibility in dance circles."
The Allmusic review stated that beyond No Limit and Let The Beat Control Your Body, there was little to recommend this album. Toby Anstis stated in his review of Faces that he "thought the album sounded all the same". Nonetheless, the band won the Best Dance Act award in Smash Hits that year as well as the World Music Award for Benelux.
Retrospective reviews of this album and the band in general have been more favourable. Only three years after the band split, they were described in a Guinness World Records publication as "spectacular" with the sound of No Limit being compared to "the sound giant dinosaurs might make stomping on cities". Their entry then goes on to describe their choruses as "chant-worthy" and that the singles from this album "ravaged hearts and minds across the globe", ending with the statement that they "linger forever in the hearts of true music lovers".
External Album Reviews
None...
User Comments