1994–95: Formation and Sex Affairs Brandes knew Leigh from their Xanadu days, active from 1989 to 1992, where they were both members and one half of the group. In 1994, Brandes released a solo song "Helpless Dancer" with Leigh on guest vocals, before American-born Ras-Ma-Taz joined them to create E-Rotic. Together they scored the charts with their first three chart topping singles "
Max Don't Have Sex With Your Ex", which peaked #45 in the
UK Singles Chart and #4 in the Dutch Single Chart, "
Fred Come to Bed", #3 in the German Single Chart, and "
Sex on the Phone", #2 in Austria, followed by their debut studio album
Sex Affairs. Next to E-Rotic, Brandes continued, forming other dance projects, such as Apanachee in 1995 with Lydia Madajewski on vocals, who would later also become E-Rotic's studio lead singer in 2000.
1996–1997: The Power of Sex, Sexual Madness and departure of Raz-Ma-Taz After the fourth single release "
Willy Use a Billy... Boy", released in 1995 and peaked #5 in Austria, later in November 1995, both members left the band, due to a disagreement between Leigh and producer Brandes, who were quickly replaced by artists Jeane (Jeanette Macchi-Meier) and briefly Terence D'Arby (not to be confused with
Terence Trent D'Arby), who himself again was replaced by Ché Jouaner. Thus it has been later revealed, that Brandes was the rapper on all E-Rotic releases, except on the first album, where he shared raps with Raz-Ma-Taz, such on "Take My Love", and Leigh still had to continue to provide vocal work for E-Rotic's four follow up studio albums
The Power of Sex,
Sexual Madness, the
Abba cover album
Thank You for the Music until 1999 to the
Kiss Me studio album due to her contract. Also, raps on their first single "Max Don't Have Sex With Your Ex" were not done by Smith or Brandes, but instead were done by Marcus Thomas (aka Deon Blue) who would later join
Pharao. Meanwhile, Leigh, and Ras-Ma-Taz, formed their own band
S.E.X. Appeal in 1996. "He promised me a lot of things during my E-Rotic time, but never was willing to keep his promises. One of these promises was to produce a mixed video, with both cartoon and real people. We were never shown in the videos and so we had problems with our concerts, cause no-one really knew us as persons," Leigh revealed. On 27 June 1996, the group's second studio album
The Power of Sex was released, preceded by the latter mentioned lead single "Willy Use a Billy... Boy" and followed by the singles "
Help Me Dr. Dick", "
Fritz Love My Tits" and "Gimme Good Sex", all becoming moderate chart hits, peaking at #18, #16 and #3 in Austria respectively. In 1996, E-Rotic were featured in the supergroup, called "Love Message", on the same titled, Masterboy-produced charity single "
Love Message". They also appeared on the
Queen tribute compilation album
Queen Dance Traxx, with the song "
Who Wants to Live Forever", which also saw a promotional release. The tribute album also featured another Queen song "
We Are The Champions", recorded with all artists, who participated on
Queen Dance Traxx as a supergroup labeled as "Acts United". In 1997, the studio albums "Sexual Madness" and the
ABBA cover CD
Thank You for the Music was released with its single releases "Turn Me On", which peaked at #7 in Finland, "
Thank You for the Music" and "
The Winner Takes It All". The album
Thank You for the Music was released under the artist name "Jenn and C." in France. Ironically the music video for "Gimme Good Sex" was also the first one, not being a comic video, but still it never aired and was banned from music channels because of being too controversial for its sexual content, thus Leigh, alongside Ras-Ma-Taz, left the band earlier, because she wanted to be shown in music videos.
1998–1999: Greatest Tits, Kiss Me and departure of Leigh In 1998, E-Rotic have released their first Greatest Hits compilation album titled
Greatest Tits - The Best of E-Rotic, along with the single "Baby Please Me" and the megamix "Die geilste Single der Welt" (German for "The Horniest Single in the World") to promote the album in Germany. In 1999, their second and final single from
Sexual Madness, called "Don't Say We're Through", was released and later E-Rotic tried to enter the
Eurovision Song Contest 2000 representing
Germany but ended in sixth place in the pre-selection with the single "Queen of Light". This was the only time, where Macchi-Meier had to perform and sing live, when she was always lip syncing Leigh's and later Madajewski's singing parts on live shows. The song was later added on E-Rotic's sixth studio album
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and on Missing Hearts debut studio album
Mystery (labeled as Missing Heart), in 2000. After that, E-Rotic focused more on the Japanese music market, where they kept more popular when the interest in Eurodance music in Europe waned at the end of the 1990s. In 1999, the fifth studio album
Kiss Me was released in Japan with the three singles "Oh Nick Please Not So Quick", "Kiss Me" and "Mambo No. Sex", which all failed to chart. The latter mentioned single, was released on the later released German edition of
Kiss Me, retitled
Mambo No. Sex with a different track list and cover art leaned on the success of
Lou Bega's "
Mambo No. 5" at that time. The release of
Kiss Me/
Mambo No. Sex also marks the final with Leigh on vocals, who were replaced by Madajewski later in 2000.
2000–2001: Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Sexual Healing and Sex Generation Between 2000 and 2001, three studio albums had been released in Japan, titled
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme,
Sexual Healing and
Sex Generation with the singles "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme", "Missing You", "Don't Make Me Wet", "L.O.V.E. (Sex on the Beach)", "Billy Jive (With Willy's Wife)" and "
King Kong", all with limited success. Also the two compilation albums, titled "Dancemania Presents E-Rotic Megamix", a megamix, and "The Very Best of E-Rotic" was released in Japan respectively. The albums
Sex Generation and
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme were also released in Europe, with the latter retitled
Missing You with the same track list, except replacing the song "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" with the title track "Missing You". Macchi-Meier left E-Rotic in 2001, briefly replaced by the next stage performer Yasemin Baysal, previously of the group Das Modul.
2002–2003: Cocktail E-Rotic and Total Recall However, Baysal and Jouaner left E-Rotic in 2002, and instead of replacing her with a new stage performer, this time the real studio singer Lydia Madajewski (Lydia Pockaj), who had been providing vocals since Leigh's departure in 1999, had been introduced to face E-Rotic. She has been joined by the stage performer Robert Spehar. In 2002, they released the group's ninth studio album
Cocktail E-Rotic, the third compilation album titled
The Collection and in 2003, the remix album
Total Recall, all in Japan. The remix album has also been released in European territories with a different track list including new mixes. In 2002 a promotional single "Mi Amante" (Spanish for "My Lover") was released, labeled as e.R. In 2003, a new version of their very first single "Max Don't Have Sex With Your Ex" (2003 Dance Mix) was released to promote the remix album
Total Recall.
Cocktail E-Rotic saw one promotional single release, "Heartbreaker", which gained some radio airplay in Japan and ranked #1 on a Japanese radio chart. After that, E-Rotic went on an indefinite hiatus and both members, Madajewski and Spehar, left the band.
2004–2013: Hiatus Most former band members retired from the music scene. Brandes continued to produce for other artists and even reused dozens of E-Rotic songs for the Japanese girlgroup
Shanadoo for their albums
Welcome to Tokyo and
The Symbol. Shanadoo project discontinued in 2014. Leigh continues her solo project
S.E.X. Appeal. In 2006, an upcoming studio album, entitled
Lust 4 Life (refers to the Fancy solo song title "D.I.S.C.O. (Lust for Life)", recorded back in 1999 with Leigh on guest vocals), was rumored and turned out to be false. Also in 2008, it had been rumored, that E-Rotic would release a new track, a cover of Vanilla Ninja's track "Liar", which was also produced by Brandes.
2014–present: Return of Leigh, Level Up and The Hits In December 2014, original E-Rotic lead singer Leigh confirmed that E-Rotic would come back and that she would return as the vocalist of the group again alongside a new rapper, Stephen Appleton. She also confirmed that E-Rotic planned to release a new best of album with re-recorded past hits and brand new E-Rotic songs to be released sometime in 2015. The group would be managed and produced by Icezone Music. The official website appeared to be under maintenance and a new official Facebook page was launched. On 4 March 2016, E-Rotic released the single "Video Starlet", which included another song called "Murder Me". On 20 September 2024, E-Rotic released their first studio album in over twenty years,
Level Up. It was supported by the singles "Murder Me '21", "Head Over Heels", "Heaven Can Wait", "My Heart is Ticking Like a Bomb", "You Hooked Me Up", "Let's Get It Started", and "Out of My Life". Simultaneously, the group also released
The Hits, a compilation album of their most notable songs spanning their entire history, including a re-recorded version of "Sex On The Phone". ==Artistry==