Bubblegum Dance

Bubblegum dance is a form of Eurodance that flourished in Europe and Japan in the late 1990s, characterized by pitched-up female vocals, simple singalong choruses, cartoonish imagery and deliberately trivial lyrics. Produced mainly in Denmark and Sweden, it paired the four-on-the-floor beat and synth riffs of Eurodance with the aesthetics of children's pop: *Aqua*'s "Barbie Girl" (1997) defined the formula, followed by acts such as the *Vengaboys*, *Toy-Box*, *Smile.dk* and *Dr. Bombay*. The genre's exaggerated cheerfulness and novelty concepts made it a commercial phenomenon before it receded in the early 2000s.