Krezip

Emerging as a leading adult alternative act within the Netherlands, Krezip features vocalist, composer, and keyboardist Jacqueline Govaert at the helm. Their sophomore full-length, Nothing Less from 2000, launched straight to the summit of the domestic chart, a position the band would occupy again with the immediate follow-ups Days Like This in 2002 and What Are You Waiting For in 2005. After a temporary dissolution in 2009, the group resurfaced a decade later through their sixth studio album, Sweet High, which climbed to number two during 2019.

Assembled in Tilburg during 1997 while all participants were still attending secondary school, the lineup originated with Jacqueline Govaert alongside guitarists Anne Govaert and Annelies Kuijsters, bassist Joost van Haaren, and drummer Thijs Romeijn. Early festival appearances helped cultivate a following, yet the collective stayed without a label until 2000, having first distributed the demo collection Run Around in 1999. Warner subsequently stepped in, issuing the pivotal single “I Would Stay” that same year; the track topped the Belgian chart and reached number two in the Netherlands, while its parent album, Nothing Less, claimed the number-one slot in both territories.

The 2002 effort Days Like This, which included the Top 20 singles “You Can Say” and “Promise,” once more hit number one in the Netherlands and peaked at number 13 in Belgium; around this time Kuijsters shifted to keyboards, allowing Thomas Holthuis to join on guitar. Warner issued the live package That’ll Be Unplugged (And More) in 2003, then declined to extend the contract. With Holthuis and Romeijn departing, Bram van den Berg assumed drumming duties ahead of the band’s eventual signing to Sony BMG. That partnership yielded the third consecutive Dutch chart-topper, 2005’s What Are You Waiting For, featuring the Top Ten single “Out of My Bed.” During the same period the band’s track “Same Mistake” appeared in the romantic comedy Het Schnitzelparadijs, the highest-grossing Dutch film of 2005.

Another Top Ten entry, “All My Life,” arrived in 2007 from the album Plug It In, which settled at number three on the Dutch album ranking. The original song “Sweet Goodbyes,” drawn from the late-2008 retrospective Best of Krezip, advanced to number two on the singles chart in 2009, while the compilation itself reached the summit. Stating a desire to conclude at their peak, the members performed a pair of farewell concerts at Amsterdam’s Heineken Music Hall in June 2009; the final show was documented on the release Sweet Goodbyes, which Sony put out shortly afterward.

Jacqueline Govaert subsequently pursued a solo path that produced three Top Ten albums between 2010 and 2017, among them the number-one set Songs to Soothe from 2014. Following a ten-year separation, news surfaced in early 2019 that Krezip would reconvene for a June appearance at the Pinkpop Festival. They also premiered the new song “Lost Without You” on the program De Wereld Draait Door. Later that year the ensemble delivered the album Sweet High, which rose as high as number two in the Netherlands. In 2021 they returned with the original track “You Are Not Alone.”