Fantastique (pop duo)

Fantastique (from fantasy) was a pop music duo from the Netherlands in 1981-1983, consisting of Dick van Dam and Astrid Leuwener. Their singles at the time, "Mama Told Me", "Costa Blanca", "Maria No Mas", "Your Hand In My Hand" and "Everybody Loves The Sunshine", sold successfully worldwide. They released one album, Fantastique in 1982. All of their songs were produced and written by Catapult musicians Aart Mol, Cees Bergman, Elmer Veerhoff, Erwin van Prehn and Geertjan Hessing, and recorded at Cat Music.

Beginnings
Catapult, a glam rock band formed by and consisting of Aart Mol, Cees Bergman, Erwin van Prehn and Geertjan Hessing and later joined by Elmer Veerhoff, had scored a number of hits in the 1970s; "Let Your Hair Hang Down" and "Teeny Bopper Band" were two of the band's hits. As their popularity began to fade, the band decided that it was time for something different. They wanted to make music in different styles, which was difficult because of their Leiden dialect, and the fact that Dutch radio stations and television channels did not want to accept the fact that they could do so. Dutch DJ Willem van Kooten later advised them to start writing music for other artists. They became quite adept at this, writing and producing songs for Lia Velasco, Patricia Paay, The Internationals, The Surfers, and Snoopy. Because they could respond and record music themselves, that saved them money. They worked for ex-Golden Earring drummer Jaap Eggermont, who produced the records, and he in turn worked for Van Kooten, who financed the records and came up with the concepts. He then played the music in his own daily program on Hilversum 3, and at the same time received part of the royalties. The quintet also formed Rubberen Robbie in 1978, their vehicle for parody and carnival songs, sung in their native Dutch language. Around that time, the members were all living together in the same apartment and recording music there. However, the neighbours constantly complained about the terrible noise, so in September 1979, they had to find another place to record their music. They went to Rijnsaterwoude and formed a recording studio and production company named Cat Music, where they recorded as The Monotones, scoring a hit in Germany and the Netherlands with the song "Mono" on 15 December 1979. Seven days later on 23 December 1979, they gave their farewell gig as Catapult in the "Feest Paleis" in Beervelde.

In the 1980s, the members wrote songs for Leidsche rock band Tower and André Hazes (three of which were recorded for his album Gewoon André, including his number 1 hit "Een Beetje Verliefd"), and specialised in writing and producing breakdance, hip hop and Italo disco music, with 1983 and 1984 becoming their most productive years. Inspired by listening to illegal records of Italian dance projects and Hi-NRG artists such as Bobby Orlando, Giorgio Moroder and Divine in a compact disc store owned by Gert van den Bosch (who imported many records himself and sold them through record stores in the Netherlands), they took the records to their studio and used electronic instruments such as ARP and Moog synthesizers, the Roland TR-808 and the Akai S612 to make "legal" sound-alikes of them. Since their new songs were cut down as non-format and did not hit the airwaves, they used pseudonyms such as "Adams & Fleisner" and "Tony Acardi", and formed various fictional bands and artists in which the members were models and dancers hired for cover photograph shoots and lip-synced to songs sung by Bergman, Hessing and session singers in live performances. These included synth-pop groups Gazuzu and Polysix, electronic trio Digital Emotion, breakbeat group Master Genius, X-Ray Connection, Dr. Groove, Blanc De Blanc, Euro disco group VideoKids, Joanne Daniëls, hip hop groups Comfort & Joy and Party Freaks, and Eurobeat quartet Twiggy Bop. They also, along with Aad Klaris, wrote and produced "Talkin 'Bout Rambo" by Linda Snoeij, under the stage name "L-Vira", and wrote and produced two albums for hard rock band Picture: Every Story Needs Another Picture and Marathon. Many of their dance and Italo disco records were released by Dutch labels such as Dureco Benelux and Boni Records (through their sublabel Break Records), which was founded by and named after Van den Bosch and Jan van Nieuwkoop in 1982. Van den Bosch exported Cat Music's records to America, where they were sold as special imports.

Music career
In August 1981, Cat Music wrote and produced "Mama Told Me", a 4-minute electronic dance song for their studio project inspired by Ottawan, Fantastique. The song contained a brassy-laden march rhythm, a keyboard riff inspired by Lipps Inc.'s Funkytown, and singalong chants of "Let's do it, let's do it." The vocals were performed by session singers Marian Pijnaker and Cor van der Hoogt, with Van der Hoogt's vocals sung through a vocoder. After the song was produced, Cat Music hired Dick Van Dam and Astrid Leuwener to be the faces of the project. Van Dam and Leuwener were from the city of Haarlem in the west of the Netherlands. They were deliberately chosen to fit the stereotype of the Dutch everyman, Van Dam with the mane of fair hair and Noel Edmonds beard, Lewener statuesque and permed. Neither could necessarily sing, so they lip-synced to Pijnaker and Van der Hoogt's vocals during live performances. In September 1981, "Mama Told Me" was released as Fantastique's debut single, and became the duo's defining moment. With its brassy-laden march rhythm, vocodered vocals by Van der Hoogt, keyboard riff, and singalong chants, it topped the charts in many countries in the early 1980s. In October 1981, it peaked in 27th place on the Dutch Top 40. In 1982, the duo released their debut album of the same name, Fantastique, which only contained six tracks, and the singles "Costa Blanca", "Maria No Mas", and "Your Hand In My Hand", followed by "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" in 1983. All these songs hit the charts as well. In 1985, Cat Music produced a house remix of "Mama Told Me" under their "Adams & Fleisner" pseudonym, which was released by ARS Records. In 1986, "Mama Told Me" spent 13 weeks and reached No. 84 on the UK Singles Chart. Many remixes of the song were issued long after Fantastique drifted into oblivion.

In 1999, "Mama Told Me" and "Costa Blanca" were included in the compilation album Cat Nuggets, released by Red Bullet. In 2004, Cat Music licensed the "Adams & Fleisner" remix of "Mama Told Me" to Weton-Wesgram for inclusion in their compilation album Club Hits of the 80's. They would also release Club Hits of the 80's themselves on Apple Music in 2008. In 2009, High Fashion Music licensed the album Fantastique to Sonic Records for release in Poland as The Best Of..... Fantastique. The album was released on 19 October 2009. In 2012, the album was released in the United States by Classics DJ Club. In January 2013, Cat Music closed their studio in Rijnsaterwoude, and Cees Bergman moved some of the equipment to a small studio in his house, where he continued to make music. Despite this, Cat Music still exists as an entertainment production company named Cat Music & More, based in Voorburg, owned by Aart Mol (currently) and Bergman (until his death in 2017), and managing the rights to all their music. In 2016, they released "Mama Told Me", "Costa Blanca", "Maria No Mas", "Your Hand In My Hand" and "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" on Apple Music. In 2023, Cat Music licensed Fantastique to Maschina Records for release in Estonia. The reissued album was produced by Daniel Maslovsky, Max Kondrashow and Kirill Taltaev, and included artwork recreated from the original art and restored by them. The album was released on different coloured LP records, and would be released on 2CD in February 2024. In October 2023, "Mama Told Me" was released as part of the compilation album Adams & Fleisner: The Ultimate Collection.

Legacy
The song "Mama Told Me" was used as part of the soundtrack of the Dutch film I am Joep Meloen (Ik Ben Joep Meloen).

"Maria No Mas" and "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" were covered by other artists throughout history, including Meiju Suvas and Merja Ranta as "Tää Onnea On" in 1982, Kolor as "Złota plaża" in 1997, and Queens in their album Made for Dancing in 2006. "Mama Told Me" was sampled in "MYB" by Oliver in 2013.

Albums

 * Fantastique (1982)

Singles

 * "Mama Told Me" (1981)
 * "Costa Blanca" (1982)
 * "Maria No Mas" (1982)
 * "Your Hand In My Hand" (1982)
 * "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" (1983)