U96

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U 96 is a dance music project formed by German producers Alex Christensen, Ingo Hauss, Helmut Hoikins, and Hajo Panarinfo, known for numerous 1990s Eurodance classics.

The name comes from the well-known movie Das Boot about the German submarine U 96 from the Second World War. The project's first hit Das Boot (1991) is a techno/dance-version of the film's title melody, which had been originally composed by Klaus Doldinger. Also an album of the same name was occasionally number one on the charts. This album smoothed the way for the commercial break-through of the dance music in Germany.

The clearly experimental, of the Electropop of the 1980s, the Ambient and the Disco sound affected follow-up album Replugged (1993) was likewise commercially successful despite its unoriginality. On it Top-10-Hits were such as Love Sees No Colour and Night in Motion, which became particularly because of their machine, driving sound and its typical Techno-pop melodies of classic dance authors. In addition, calmer titles such as The One Russian and Without You, which can be regarded afterwards as forerunners of Trip Hop.

The follow-up album Club Bizarre published in 1995 changed the sound of U96 radically. The album mixes influences of Techno-pop with at the time very successful fast Trance, which constantly dominates the album. The greatest hits in this album were the very fast Love religion (with Daisy Dee) as well as the title track Club Bizarre with "classical" harmonies, which was reused later by Brooklyn Bounce.

Motor Music also released Club Bizarre Interactive CD-ROM. The audio part of this CD-ROM includes several music tracks and the multimedia part features a discography, interviews with Alex Christensen and a neat little game for Mac OS and Windows PC.

In 1996 the successor Heaven was published. The album was very catchy and commercial, despite some still-existing Electropop influences, which were covered however by Eurodance inserts and typical Rave Pop à la Scooter. On this album new singer Dea-Li (Dorothy Lapi) was featured, she participated in the preparation of 4 titles.

In the following years singles Seven Wonders (1997), Energie (1998), Beweg Dich, Baby (1998) and finally Das Boot 2001 (2000) were released. Instead of new regular album, U96 released compilation Best Of 1991 - 2001 with some new songs from unpublished album Rhythm Of Life. Last song We Call It Love was released in 2003 as promo single only. They returned to the German Top 30 charts in 2006 with their downtempo hit Vorbei which featured the vocals of guest singer Ben.