'When you say twelve "No"s in a row, don't you think that's a bit negative"? Now there's a fair question and it's one that always comes to mind whenever I hear 'No Limits'. Of course, it was asked by Chris Morris in an interview with the band that was deliberately designed to take the piss, but it's forever cast 2 Unlimited as the unwitting clowns of the early nineties dance/techno scene. Unfair? Of course it's unfair - nobody listens to dance to be philosophically enlightened by the lyrics and another question 'When you say "no valley too deep" do you really mean that?" could be partially rephrased and used to take the mick out of any number of earnest but respected rock songs past and present (or even out of 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' as it stands). There's also nothing particularly big or clever about ribbing two amiable, eager to please young Europeans whose first language wasn't English and yet....and yet......and yet I can't help but think Morris had method in his cruelty. Eurodance had all the cartoon colour of a kid let loose with a box of crayons anyway, but 2 Unlimited always (to me) had an edge of unwitting parody, of self consciously trying to live up to an image or type but then crossing over into something else entirely, like a young metal act's portfolio pictures of them posing in alleyways in leather jackets and slugging from bottles of Jack Daniels (pneumatic blonde in push up bra and miniskirt optional). As a dance track, it's hard to imagine something more pared to the bone than 'No Limit'; the two finger, two note keyboard bounce is dumb as a Ramones riff and certainly takes techno back to its basics in a Sigue Sigue Sputnik go clubbing kind of way.
So why is it that the first Ramones album frequently turns up on 'All Time Best' lists whereas 2 Unlimited....don't? Well the Ramones were operating within the context of deliberately working against a mainstream to return rock music to its roots; 2 Unlimited were as much a part of their own genre as any other Eurodance act and it was already a 'type' of music frequently ridiculed for a perceived inanity. 'No Limit' takes that to its logical conclusion by rubbing the listeners face (ear?) in the banality of it all without ever being conscious that that was in fact what they were doing.
And I don't think this edit of it helps matters either - the original, uncut Euro version features (as most Eurodance singles were wont to do) a rap segment. But unlike (for example) the Snap! singles where the rap punctures the song's free rolling swagger, Raymond Slijngaard's efforts here actually added some flavour to the pot's otherwise relentless repetition, but in cutting it back until only the repeated 'Techno techno techno' remains it just gives more ammunition to the likes of Morris and ramps up the parody quotient through the roof.
'No Limit' will always remind me of vodka fuelled, undergraduate nights out in some of the most makeshift nightclubs in Christendom, and even now those 'doomph doomph' beats are one of the few things that can tempt me back onto the dancefloor because it's so easy to dance to (albeit only when I have more alcohol than blood in my veins). A backbeat you can't lose indeed. But even then, I'm always guided by a sense of the ironic - 'No Limit' is the dance song that every non dance fan knows, and they know it through a guilty pleasure, kitsch awareness that somehow serves to taint dance music as a whole. It's the same the way most people know that Ozzy Osbourne once bit the head off a bat but wouldn't be able to name a single Black Sabbath song - such people irritate me so I can understand the irritation others may feel toward this but for my own part I have no major beef with 'No Limit'; it lugs enough baggage around with it without me adding to the pile.
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