Unbelievable by EMF

About

“Unbelievable” is EMF’s debut single, most successful single and their signature song. It topped the US pop chart and reached the top 10 in nine other countries including their homeland the UK. It was the 32nd best-selling single of 1990 in the UK and Billboard ranked it the #6 song of 1991. It was not written using frontman Ian Densch’s usual method, where he stands in front of a mirror with a guitar and imagines being on a big stage. Instead, this track’s melody came to him after a hard night of partying while bicycling hungover the following morning. It was recorded in what drummer Mark Decloedt called a “real budget studio” before the rest of the album. The song features several samples, including comedian Andrew Dice Clay’s signature “OH!”, a member of the Black Panther Party shouting “What the….was that?” (the f-word is not actually used) and Ya Kid K (best-known as a member of Technotronic) saying the word “One” in her song “Spin That Wheel”. The beat is taken from the breakdown of the very-sampled “Ashley’s Roachclip”. The success of “Unbelievable” was swift and unexpected. Reaching #1 in the US was “a bit of a shock to us all” according to drummer Mark Decloedt. But sudden success came with a downside – EMF was quickly derided as “the New Kids (On The Block) with attitude” and “the Sex Pistols of pop”. EMF is often labeled a one-hit wonder – “Unbelievable” being that hit – despite the top 20 success of their fourth single “Lies”. A prime example of this is when VH1 ranked “Unbelievable” at #31 on their 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders in 2002. VH1 also ranked the song #98 on their 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s in 2007.