5. 2 Unlimited - "No Limit"

Or, "How does long-term memory work?"

Things I can remember instantly: the landline telephone number my grandmother used until the late 1990s, the birthdays of classmates I haven’t seen since I left primary school, the results and goalscorers of every England Men’s Football Team match in the 1996 European Championships (and I don’t just mean the English goalscorers—that’s right, I’m looking at you, Kubilay Türkyilmaz).

Things I really struggle to remember: today’s date, how old I am, the birthdays of anyone I’ve met as an adult, the results and goalscorers of any England Men’s Football Team match from the 2024 European Championships.

Okay, I’m exaggerating for effect a little, and I did have to Google how to spell “Türkyilmaz”, but the point still stands. There are nuggets of information from three decades ago that I retain better than those from three hours ago.

There’s probably a million and one reasons as to why this might be, and when you’re a child and everything is shiny and new to you, I can understand why certain things might stick in your brain. Plus, I’m remembering the things I remember, but I’ve long forgotten the things I’ve forgotten, if you see what I mean. Or, to quote the great philosopher of our time…

The reason I bring this up is because this phenomenon is even more extreme for chart positions of songs I loved in my childhood. Yes, retaining trivia is the very definition of the male urge, but there are some chart stats I can weirdly regurgitate at will. “On & On” by Erykah Badu got to Number 12, “Hey Ma” by Cam’ron was a Number 8 hit, “The Widow” by The Mars Volta entered the charts at Number 20, and so on. However, my data retention, if you can call it that, was at its peak with this song.¹

Knowing this song got to Number 1 is hardly an achievement in itself, of course. But even before verifying my knowledge (because I don’t want to fall victim to some kind of Benelux techno Mandela effect), I could have told you that it entered the charts at Number 4 while Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” was atop the hit parade, and it knocked her from the premier spot two weeks later.

Why do I know that? Because I’ve always latched onto anything numerical? Because of the Y chromosome I possess? Or because I absolutely and unashamedly loved 2 Unlimited?

I’ve written about my love of early 90s rave on One Life before, but everything up to now has been about individual tracks. I didn’t really care who they were by—if I liked it, I liked it. But 2 Unlimited were the first group I remember actually being a fan of. Whatever they were releasing, I wanted to know about it. They got a bunch of airplay in those days, and I would await subsequent single releases excitedly.

I was still only really interested in their music, though. I don’t think I knew much about them as people other than that their names were Anita and Ray, but that wasn’t really important to me. I just knew they had a recipe for pop success that tickled my brain in exactly the right way, and I loved everything they did.

I have a clear memory of receiving a new notebook a bit like the ones journalists use. A black cover, A5 size, and rings at the top so the pages could be flipped over. The first thing I did on that notebook was to use the first ten pages to make a list of my favourite ten songs ever. I can remember two things about that list:

• Every song was relatively recent except, for reasons I still can’t quite piece together, there was also M’s 1979 new wave synth-pop hit, “Pop Muzik”

• There were five 2 Unlimited songs in my list. At that point in my life, I thought 2 Unlimited had produced five out of the best ten songs ever created by humankind (“Tribal Dance”, “Faces”, “Let the Beat Control Your Body”, “Maximum Overdrive” and “No Limit”, if you’re interested). Of course “No Limit” was Number 1.

While I can remember a lot of things, I can’t actually remember when I stopped loving 2 Unlimited. It’s now over thirty years since they’ve had a Top 10 hit in the UK so, like everyone else, I probably just moved on. You never forget your first favourite band, though, and 2 Unlimited were mine.

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What didn’t get to Number 1 because of this song?

• Take That - “Why Can’t I Wake Up With You?”

This is actually from a pretty interesting time in Take That’s career. It’s largely forgotten now, but this was their highest charting single at the time. They veered between syrupy ballads, hi-NRG queer-baiting dance-pop, and campy disco cover versions back then. Looking back, it’s actually remarkable how long they took to find their sound and that they were afforded the time to do so.

• Michael Jackson - “Give In To Me”

Here I am, banging on about my amazing memory for pop music, and I have absolutely no recollection of this song at all (despite it’s 60.6 million plays on Spotify). Let’s have a quick listen.

It’s hard to fathom the level of gargantuan fame where you can release something as forgettable as this, over a year since its parent LP came out, as the seventh single from the album, and have it almost be a chart-topper. It looks as though Slash played the guitar solo on this. I can’t even imagine the hairspray bill for that recording session.

1. Don’t you dare call this song “No Limits”.