A Touch of Class (group)

A Touch of Class (often shortened in initials as ATC) were an international Eurodance group based in Germany. The pop group was active from 1997 and their most successful release was "Around the World (La La La La La)", released in 2000. The group disbanded at the end of 2003.

Career

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The original members of ATC each came from different countries—Joseph "Joey" Murray from New Zealand, Sarah Egglestone from Australia, Livio Salvi from Italy, and Tracey Elizabeth Packham from England. The four met together in Hamburg, Germany as cast members of the international Broadway theatre German production of the stage musical Cats from October 1997 to April 1998. Egglestone played Bombalurina, Salvi played Mungojerrie, Packham played Syllabub, and Murray played as Munkustrap/swing dancer. The four quickly became friends and decided to form a dance group together.

The group was active from as early as 1997. Egglestone noted, "We were there sitting watching television one day, seeing groups and saying 'there's no reason [...] why we can't do this.'" The group first met with producers Alex Christensen and Thomas M. Stein in 1999 and began working on material under the name ATC. The group experimented with merging male and female vocals together. "Producers don't seem to want to mix the voices so often [...] that helps give us that little bit of an edge," Murray remarked.

Their first single, "Around the World (La La La La La)" (which was an English cover of the song "Pesenka" by the Russian group Ruki Vverh!) was first released on 1 April 2000 and went number one in Germany for six weeks in summer 2000. In the United States, the song peaked at number 28, and in the United Kingdom, it peaked at number 15. Their debut album Planet Pop, featuring songs from Alex Christensen and Clyde Ward, was released on 6 February 2001 by Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Republic Records, for which they were awarded an ECHO for Best Dance Act.

In 2001, the group released the single "I'm in Heaven (When You Kiss Me)", which was moderately successful in parts of Europe. In 2002, "Set Me Free" was released as a single but was not successful. In 2003, German DJ and producer ATB successfully took the band's record label to court, and the band was forced to formally drop the ATC initials. In 2021, American singer-songwriter Ava Max interpolated the song in her single My Head & My Heart.

In 2020, the original 4 members of the band reunited for a photo, while hinting that the band could reunite for the sake of performing for 90s music festivals.

! style="width:35px;"| BEL

! style="width:35px;"| FIN

! style="width:35px;"| FRA

! style="width:35px;"| GER

!IT

! style="width:35px;" | NED

! style="width:35px;"| POL

! style="width:35px;"| SWE

! style="width:35px;"| SWI

! style="width:35px;"| UK

! style="width:35px;"| US

|rowspan="3"|2000

|"Around the World (La La La La La)"

| style="text-align:center;"| 11

| style="text-align:center;"| 1

| style="text-align:center;"| 10

| style="text-align:center;"| 7

| style="text-align:center;"| 12

| style="text-align:center;"| 1

|16

| style="text-align:center;" | 5

| style="text-align:center;"| 1

| style="text-align:center;"| 8

| style="text-align:center;"| 1

| style="text-align:center;"| 15

| style="text-align:center;"| 28

GER: Platinum
AUT: Gold
SWI: Gold
FRA: Silver

|rowspan="4"| Planet Pop

|"My Heart Beats Like a Drum (Dum Dum Dum)"

| style="text-align:center;"| 76

| style="text-align:center;"| 6

| style="text-align:center;"| 11

| style="text-align:center;"| 12

| style="text-align:center;"| 39

| style="text-align:center;"| 3

|46

| style="text-align:center;" | 37

| style="text-align:center;"| 18

| style="text-align:center;"| 38

| style="text-align:center;"| 21

| style="text-align:center;"| —

GER: Gold

|"Thinking of You"

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 46

|—

| style="text-align:center;" | —

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 51

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|rowspan="2"|2001

|"Why Oh Why"

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 16

| style="text-align:center;"| 39

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 16

|—

| style="text-align:center;" | —

| style="text-align:center;"| 29

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 64

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|"I'm In Heaven (When You Kiss Me)"

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 27

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 22

|—

| style="text-align:center;" | —

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 31

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|rowspan="4"| Touch the Sky

|rowspan="2"|2002

|"Set Me Free"

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 44

|—

| style="text-align:center;" | —

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|align="left"|

|"Call on Me"

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|—

| style="text-align:center;" | —

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|align="left"|

|rowspan="1"|2003

|"New York City"

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 81

|—

| style="text-align:center;" | —

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|align="left"|

|2019

|"All Around the World (La La La)" (with R3hab)

| style="text-align:center;"| —

| style="text-align:center;"| 35

| style="text-align:center;"| 11

| style="text-align:center;"| 10

| style="text-align:center;"| 63

| style="text-align:center;"| 29

|—

| style="text-align:center;" | 18

| style="text-align:center;" | —

| style="text-align:center;"| 62

| style="text-align:center;"| 39

| style="text-align:center;"| —

|align="left"|

SWI: Platinum

| colspan="17" style="text-align:center; font-size:8pt;" | "—" denotes releases that failed to chart or not released in that country.

References

External links

A Touch of Class on YouTube