Captain Hollywood Project

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Captain Hollywood Project was a Germany-based Eurodance group, founded by former Twenty 4 Seven rapper Tony Dawson-Harrison, along with producers Thorsten Adler, Michael Eisele, and Thomas Keil in early 1991.

[edit] Origins

Dawson-Harrison left the Dutch group Twenty 4 Seven after a fallout with producer Ruud Van Rijen, just after the release of their debut album Street Moves in late 1990. He released a solo album, Do That Thang, soon after. The album sold poorly, however, with the European charts seemingly not ready for its hip hop style. It was followed by two singles, the title track Do That Thang, and Shirley. In 1992 he met German producers Adler, Eisele and Keil, and they formed the Captain Hollywood Project, adding vocalist Nina to the group later that year.

[edit] Albums

The group issued two Eurodance-focused singles, More and More and Only With You, in 1993. Both were huge hits in a number of European charts. The debut album, Love Is Not Sex, sold 400,000 copies in Europe. It included More and More and Only With You, plus the later singles All I Want and Impossible—both released in early 1994.

In late May 1994, Rhythm Of Life was sent to many radio stations as a promo maxi, but it was never officially released. In 1995, after almost a year of silence, the group released their second album, Animals Or Human. It did not match the sales of their debut album, but still shifted 200,000 copies. Nina left the group to pursue a solo career and was replaced by Petra. Dawson-Harrison then established his own record label and studio called Hollywood Productions. Animals or Human also featured a number of new producers, including Nosie Katzmann of Culture Beat fame, and Attack II.

Three singles followed the release of the album: Flying High; Find Another Way; and The Way Love Is. The first two singles were again huge hits, but The Way Love Is was a slight failure in comparison. In mid-1996, the group teamed up with Alex Belcher, Force, Miles Gordon, Klaus Peras and Rico Sparx for the production of their third album. Over and Over, the first single for their forthcoming album, was a popular club hit during the summer. Notably, the group had ditched the "Project" part of their name, and were now named simply "Captain Hollywood". The album included two more singles, Love and Pain and The Afterparty, both in remixed form. Both singles flopped, however, and the group disbanded in early 1997.