18. 2 Unlimited – The Twilight Zone
The last couple of tracks on Rave ’92 have been grounded in everyday settings – mild frustration over misplacing small items, feeling a bit dizzy, epic clubbing fail, slumping in front of kids’ telly when you get home at 5am. Songs that paint a daft picture of the things frazzled clubbers must deal with on a day to day basis. It’s all very British: muddling through life and attempting to make the best of it with good humour.
Then suddenly AWOOGA AWOOGA the warning sirens blare out and we’re blasted off into space! It’s a violent, juddering journey with nothing familiar to cling on to for safety. It’s like coming back to work a little worse for wear from a hedonistic weekend, and being told you have ten minutes to organise a presentation for your boss’s boss and it’s REALLY important that you don’t fuck it up or your boss will get it in the neck so no pressure innit. Cue stifled groaning and rooting clumsily around in your desk for some painkillers, wishing you were still lying down in a field somewhere.
‘Twilight Zone’ is so energetic and bullish that you start to wonder if it has been taking MaxiMuscle diet supplements. It must at least have auditioned to be a Gladiator once*. It’s a relief that Ray’s drill instructor rap has been cut out for the UK version (as per usual) – I doubt I could stick his stern motivational coaching without rupturing something:
Enter the clock and turn the body upside down
Grab the microphone it’s upon the sound
You want more? More you get
We’re 2 Unlimited in effect!
Check up the sound and stop this distortion
When we get the fitness, here’s another portion!
Please Ray, I can’t do any more press-ups! Aieee. Anita’s ‘good cop’ chorus is more encouraging: “You’re not on your own!” I can picture her waving her hands around in front of her face to create an Authentic Mystical Aura. She almost convinces us that we’re all on a leisure day-trip through the stars rather than cattletrucked conscripts being shipped out for the impending war with Jupiter. I’m all for escapism but does it have to be so noisy?
As you may have guessed I like this song MUCH better when I’m not hungover. If you are suffering a little this morning, best avoid watching the TOTP performance of ‘Twilight Zone’ below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dc5tLj_qW8
*WHY OH WHY was there never a Gladiator called ‘Techno’?