Party songs: part seven of 1000 songs everyone must hear | Music | theguardian.com
808 State
1989
Very much done a disservice by being lumped in by some with the whole Madchester movement, 808 State, named after the Roland TR-808 drum machine, were true electronic innovators. The original line-up was Martin Price, Graham Massey and Gerald Simpson, but the later soon went solo as A Guy Called Gerald and made his own mark with Voodoo Ray. Massey and Price brought in two fresh-faced DJs by the name of the Spinmasters, aka Darren Partington and Andy Barker, who also hosted a seminal radio station on Sunset Radio. Their first two albums, Newbuild and Quadrastate, were pioneering records, and their big crossover hit Pacific State still sounds like nothing else. LB
Dancing Queen
Abba
1976
Not so much a celebration of dancing, more a piece of reflective melancholy told from the position of the wallflower, a broken-hearted woman who takes vicarious pleasure in watching a 17-year-old dancer. But it’s the musical mix of light and shade that brings this psychodrama to life, the way in which an effortlessly funky disco beat and Benny Andersson’s triumphant piano pounding are slyly undercut by the neurotic strings and the bittersweet vocal delivery. JL
AC/DC
1980
When vocalist Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning in 1980, AC/DC briefly considered calling it a day. Instead, they recruited singer Brian Johnson and released their best single a few months later. The sky-scraping verse, with its themes of immortality, was a typically audacious way for the band to reaffirm itself. The iconic riff remains a bedroom guitarist’s rite-of-passage, still pertinent in the Guitar Hero age, while the song’s surprisingly sparse arrangement predates modern minimalists such as Chicago rock trio Shellac. JP
Because I Got High
Afroman
2001
Joseph “Afroman” Foreman’s cautionary comedy about the drawbacks of the weed serves as the most effective anti-drug song of the 21st century thus far. A fondness for marijuana leads to an increasingly absurd chain of events in which the protagonist flunks his college class, misses his child support payments, gambles his money away, is unable to perform sexually, loses both his legs in a car accident and is left homeless. JL
Aphex Twin
1999
Rumour has it that there is a demo version of this song, with Richard D James, aka Aphex Twin, playing the original idea for the song on guitar. Windowlicker might sound like the strangest song ever to gain mainstream appeal, but at its heart lies a really good tune – and that’s why, despite the permanently shifting song structure and the lunatic polyrhythms, it’s become a something of a classic. EW
I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor
Arctic Monkeys
2005
In an explosion of buzzsaw guitar, Arctic Monkeys announced themselves to the world in spectacular style. Insanely addictive, it masked an observational narrative that made the simple act of eyeing a girl up in a nightclub sound like an act of espionage. Most of all, it made everyone who heard it want to dance – and instant megastars of its creators. Tom Jones, Joe Perry and Sugababes have all had stabs at it, cementing its status as the defining indie party track of the modern age. DM
Ashford and Simpson
1979
Husband and wife team Ashford and Simpson were both songwriters and artists in their own right. As songwriters they wrote for Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and several Motown artists, where their hits included Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and You’re All I Need to Get By for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. As artists, their biggest hit was the schmaltzy Solid. In between, they wrote some of the greatest, sweeping orchestral disco songs of the late 70s. Bourgie Bourgie, spun regularly by the legendary DJ Larry Levan at seminal New York nightclub Paradise Garage, was pretty much disco perfection. Anyone who still thinks disco equals Saturday Night Fever should do themselves a favour and search this out. LB
The B-52’s
1989
A seemingly effortless meld of Don Was’s slick big-band production, Fred Schneider’s fairground bark, the piping harmonies of Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson and the dirty blues guitar of Keith Strickland, Love Shack gave the B-52’s their first mainstream hit more than a decade into their career. Inspired by the cabin in Athens, Georgia, where the band wrote their early songs, it was a tribute to original guitarist Ricky Wilson who died of Aids-related illnesses in 1985. GM
Yes Sir, I Can Boogie
Baccara
1977
How female Spanish duo Baccara were ever earmarked for pan-European disco success considering their background in flamenco and traditional Spanish songs is anyone’s guess, but in 1977 they managed it with this humongous Eurodisco classic. All breathy vocals and Abigail’s Party seductiveness, if this doesn’t reveal your camp side on the dancefloor nothing will. MR
(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)
Beastie Boys
1987
It’s more than likely that all the woes listed by the Beastie Boys have been experienced by all western teenage boys (“Your dad caught you smoking and he said ‘No way!’”), yet Fight for Your Right was only ever intended as a parody of such meathead anthems as Mötley Crüe’s version of Smokin’ in the Boys Room. Its audience, however, didn’t care about irony and revelled in its gloriously crass rebellion without a cause. JP
Benga and Coki
2007
You didn’t have to be a dubstep aficionado to hear this 2007 crossover. The single, hooky electronic tone and devastating bass rumble piped out from teen-held mobile phones on buses all over the world, bridging the worlds of dubstep and grime. Currently usurped in soundsystem dancefloor ubiquity by Warp-signed Mujava’s similarly woozy Township Funk. EW
Big Time Sensuality
Björk
1993
Björk has gone on record as saying this song, the most club-friendly from the Nellee Hooper-produced Debut, is about a nascent, platonic friendship. As it was released at the height of a boom in UK clubbing, it was adopted as an ecstasy anthem and reflected a night out on the hug drug (“We just met and I know I’m a bit too intimate but something huge is coming up”). Further, in the last line Björk exclaims, “I don’t know my future after this weekend,” which will chime with many who “dropped out” due to their E experiences. JB
Let’s Start II Dance Again
Hamilton Bohannon
1981
Stevie Wonder’s former drummer Hamilton Bohannon scored his biggest hit with 1978’s Let’s Start the Dance, a massive chunk of irresistible boogie powered by Carolyn Crawford’s roof-raiser vocal. Bohannon recorded three more versions, the best of which was this, featuring a rap from Dr Perri Johnson. The good doc was more radio jock than rapper, but when a man announces himself with “tang, tang, boogie bang, let’s rock the house, let’s shock the house”, what’s not to love? SY
Let’s Dance
David Bowie
1983
Few people know more about making people dance than Nile Rodgers. As the guitarist in Chic, he helped write and produce some of the best songs of the disco era, including Everybody Dance, Le Freak and Good Times. No surprise then that when David Bowie asked Rodgers to produce his second album of the 80s, it resulted in a dancefloor gem. The clipped bass, rhythmic guitar chops and rising chants that telegraph the chorus work in any setting, from wedding discos to fashionable east London bars. CC
Laura Branigan
1984
Branigan rose to prominence through her contributions to the Flashdance soundtrack in 1983 but is best remembered for Self Control. An Italo disco-style production lends hipness: a languid electronic intro is rudely interrupted by a heavy guitar before snapping into a bouncy synthetic backing for Branigan’s hymn to nocturnal activity. Her dramatic alto voice and content about “creatures of the night” made this a worldwide hit in both pop and disco circles. JB
Hang On in There Baby
Johnny Bristol
1974
If Barry White had gargled with Listerine instead of iron filings he may well have sounded like Johnny Bristol. Mainly known as a songwriter and producer at Motown and CBS, although his solo career did not yield many hits, Hang On in There Baby is a song so triumphal that as the chorus takes from the verse you find yourself chuckling at how damn infectious it is. “I’m gonna give you more than you ever dreamed possible,” croons Johnny. It would be churlish to resist. BB
Cannibal and the Headhunters
1965
Originally recorded by New Orleans eccentric Chris Kenner and covered, over the years, by Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, the Walker Brothers and Patti Smith, this rambunctious rock’n’roll classic received its definitive version from this Chicano quartet from east Los Angeles. Based around a hollering “naaah/na-na-na/naaaa” riff, it not only references dozens of r’n’b dance crazes (the pony, twist, mashed potato, alligator, hand jive etc) but musically links Afro-Cuban rhythms with early rock’n’roll. JL
Love Will Keep Us Together
Captain and Tennille
1975
This huge debut hit from the oddly-named American MOR duo is officially a guilty pleasure. But why anyone should feel guilty about loving this prime slice of FM pop fluff remains a mystery. Written by Howard Greenfield and the perennially underrated Brill Building veteran Neil Sedaka, Love Will … is an emptily joyous and beautifully arranged pop nugget by a duo whose in-demand muso skills saw them moonlight with the Beach Boys, Elton John and Pink Floyd. GM
Ray Charles
1980
Until 1980 Ray Charles had never recorded this, which was sung first (as Shake a Tail Feather) by the Five Du-Tones, then more famously by James and Bobby Purify. But Charles became synonymous with it courtesy of his cameo in the Blues Brothers film. It’s an unashamedly corny take on the all-singing, all-dancing musical showstopper, with Chicago’s notoriously rough south side erupting as one hot-stepping mass. Ray’s performance was so electric even the two wannabes jumping in front of him couldn’t spoil it. SY
Le Freak
Chic
1978
The story is that Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were turned away from a New Year’s Eve party at the notoriously exclusive Studio 54 nightclub. They retreated to Rodgers’s nearby apartment for a jam session, angrily chanting “fuck off!” over a simple funk riff. The anger was soon replaced by exuberance and was sweetened by soaring strings, chicken-scratch guitar and a disco beat, but it’s Bernard’s throbbing, slapping bassline that compels you to dance. JL
Class Action
1981
A brilliant cover version of Phreek’s club classic, this electronically reconstituted version featured the original vocalist Chris Wiltshire, was produced by legendary New York figure Bob Blank and remixed by Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan (who apparently was absent from the studio during “his” remix). The lyrics are perfectly poised between the heartbreak of the verse to the forget-my-man partying of the chorus. Tonight is party time! BB
Machine Gun
Commodores
1974
Scoring their biggest hits with ballads such as Three Times a Lady, Nightshift and Easy, you could be forgiven for remembering Lionel Richie’s breakthrough band as something other than the hard-funk act they actually were. This instrumental funk anthem – the lead track of their debut Motown LP – complete with frenzied keyboard lines, proved to be a disco smash and remains widely used at US sports fixtures today. MR
The Cramps
1980
As might be expected of a man who once told the audience of a children’s TV show, “I’m on drugs, they’re good drugs,” Cramps frontman Lux Interior knew a thing or two about having a good time. And it sounds like the whole band had a blast on this tribute to getting loaded. Poison Ivy’s psychobilly guitar is suitably uninhibited, while Lux bellows “The drug train, woo woo!”. Sadly, Lux died in February, but evidently, he enjoyed himself while he was here. CC
Somebody Oughta Turn Your Head Around
Crystal Mansion
1972
Based around the talents of Philly singer Johnny Caswell (who also had a northern soul hit with You Don’t Love Me Anymore), Crystal Mansion included this song on their debut album, which was imbued with the optimism of Haight-Ashbury rather than the cynicism of Altamont. There’s something about the drum, guitar and vocal combination that is so winning; it usually has the dancefloor grinning like loons within 30 seconds. How can you not love a song that features the couplet: “We’ll build a far-out factory/ And manufacture harmony.” Ace. BB
Da Funk
Daft Punk
1995
Choosing just one party record by Daft Punk is no easy task. You could make a good case for Around the World, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and One More Time. But it has to be their second single, Da Funk, because it re-wrote the rulebook. At the time, house and techno dominated clubland. Da Funk’s mid-tempo drum slug and barking acid riff didn’t sound like anything else then, and they still don’t now. CC
Roy Davis Jr
1998
By the mid-90s this Chicago-based member of acid house innovators Phuture hit a new groove, confecting gospel, soul and a sweet trumpet loop into Gabriel. It was one of the biggest dance tracks of the year, selling more than 250,000 copies and becoming a cornerstone of the UK garage scene that dominated the late 90s. More than 10 years on, it’s now a key revival tune of the emerging funky house scene. EW
Groove Is in the Heart
Deee-Lite
1990
One classic song is all a career really needs, and this perennial party favourite is the track for which the New York trio will always be remembered. At its heart was the simplest of ideas; that falling in love is a bit like dancing. But there’s nothing simple in the delivery, pulling house, funk, disco and hip-hop together into a package that is wild, woozy and very, very strange. DM
Just Can’t Get Enough
Depeche Mode
1981
No matter how inventive the rearrangement, how annoying the charity cover version or how ubiquitous its appearance in advertising makes it, there’s no escaping the pure pop thrill of new-wave veterans Depeche Mode’s naive, breakthrough single, the final contribution from early songwriter Vince Clarke (before leaving to form Yazoo and later Erasure) and an anthem in British gay clubs ever since. MR
Doobie Brothers
1973
Not many country-tinged, California rock records can tear up a Balearic dancefloor two decades later, but Long Train Runnin’ is one of those rare songs that have managed to completely transcend genre and era, having been rediscovered by the next generation of DJs. It helped that the song had originally been born out of a loose jam, around a loose guitar riff and laidback funky bassline, which lent itself easily to the Balearic dancefloors of the late 80s and 90s, as did the rhetorical chorus of “without love, where would you be now?”. The later Bananarama cover, however, featuring the Gyspy Kings on guitar, is not a Balearic classic, trust me. LB.
Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
Ian Dury and the Blockheads
1978
Chas Jankel’s musical nous and Ian Dury’s wordsmithery combine to perfection on this blast of brilliant nonsense that sold nearly a million on its initial release. The music is a thick funk gumbo (largely down to Norman Watt-Roy’s heavy, busy bassline) as Dury rhymes the likes of “Borneo” with “Bordeaux”, “Eskimo” with “Arapaho” and “Milan” with “Yucatan” before breaking into the gloriously nutty chorus. Davey Payne’s double saxophone break is manic; the Blockheads never hit these heights again. MW
Boogie Wonderland
Earth, Wind and Fire
1979
Boogie Wonderland captures the essence of late-70s disco so perfectly it should be sealed and preserved for future generations. The winning formula was simple: take a bunch of veterans who knew which way the wind blew (EWF were former jazz-funkers, backing singers the Emotions were soul stars at Stax), add a song that celebrated the disco itself and a barrage of snares and horns that lit up like glitterballs. The song has since become a mainstay of 70s revival nights and film soundtracks. SY
Shirley Ellis
1965
Bronx soul songstress Ellis wrote her footnote into music history with this blistering novelty dance hit. Co-written with her husband Lincoln Chase, this go-go dance classic seems like an innocent playground skipping-rope rhyme set to a tough, brassy, post-Motown arrangement. But historians have posited the theory that the infectious chant about monkeys chewing tobacco and going “to heaven in a little rowboat” derives from coded slave songs about escaping bondage on the underground train to the Mississippi river. GM
Be Faithful
Fatman Scoop featuring the Crooklyn Clan
1999
Every DJ has an emergency record, a track that gets the party started in a hurry. In 1999, hip-hop jocks in trouble reached for Be Faithful. New York production duo Riz and Sizzahandz sampled the guitar from Faith Evans’s 1998 single Love Like This and added plenty of extra low end, while Fatman Scoop hyped the crowd with nonsense such as, “Can I get a ‘what what’?” Far from sophisticated, but it never failed. In 2003, it was re-released and went straight to No 1. CC
Doctor Love
First Choice
1977
Following guitarist Norman Harris and much of Philadelphia International’s MFSB orchestra to New York’s Salsoul stable in the disco boom, this trio are probably regarded today as underground disco’s best-loved girl group. Singer Rochelle Fleming needs only one man to cure her from the pain of her disastrous former encounters in love, the good Doctor. The instrumental break, with its irresistible, twinkling keys, has been sampled countless times in house music and is a delight to dance to every time it’s aired. MR
The Gnu
Flanders and Swann
1959
This exquisite three-minute gem serves as a fine introduction to this duo’s witty wordplay, well-crafted rhymes and surreal situations. Over Donald Swann’s genteel piano accompaniment, Michael Flanders introduces us to a talking gnu who casts a critical eye over the irregularities of the English language (“I’m a g-nu/ How do you do?/ I’m the g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo”) while pouring scorn on the pompous humans who continually misidentify him (“Call me bison or okapi and I’ll sue”). JL
Think About It (What Is Wrong With the World Today)
Flight of the Conchords
2008
In which the peerless Kiwi “digi-folk” duo pay homage to a certain strain of “protest song” – the vague, directionless, apolitical soul ballad exemplified by Buffalo Springfield, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, the Stylistics and any number of acid jazz copyists. As FOTC describe an inner-city dystopia where kids are “killing each other with knives and forks” and “getting diseases from monkeys” over the chords from Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), it’s clear that they’re actually rather good blue-eyed soul crooners. JL
One Nation Under a Groove
Funkadelic
1978
George Clinton was always as much cult as band leader, so it’s only right that his biggest hit aped the language of the pledge of allegiance. Smooth and mellifluous where p-funk was so often about cartoonish splashes of colour, One Nation is held together by the surprisingly melodic chorus. It starts mid-groove, as if the song has no beginning or end, but is simply a never-ending party the listener had dropped in on. “Here’s a chance to dance our way out of our restrictions,” sings Clinton. Funk as resistance movement. SY
Biology
Girls Aloud
2005
After sinking to a low in 2004 with insipid covers of I’ll Stand By You and Jump (For My Love), Xenomania saved the girls from going down the dumper with the Chemistry album and this incredible single. It outlandishly boasts a surfeit of melody and not one but three choruses. The lyrics warn sisters of the perils of desire delivered at a breathless pace: “You fall on your knees and the geek at your feet says you’re neat.” JB
Gorillaz
2005
Dare was the tipping point for Gorillaz, the moment when the music eclipsed the annoying virtual band concept. It starts with a Shepard scale, an auditory illusion that sounds like it’s continually rising, but in fact never gets any higher. A lot like the song itself. There’s no verse-chorus structure, just Damon Albarn’s falsetto, fuzzy synth bass and a guest appearance from Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder on loop, but the excitement keeps on building throughout. Clever stuff. CC
All I Want for Christmas Is a Dukla Prague Away Kit
Half Man Half Biscuit
1986
Aside from a passing reference in the Undertones’ My Perfect Cousin, Subbuteo had been criminally overlooked in rock’s canon. Until, that is, Wirral-based pop-culture obsessives Half Man Half Biscuit wrote this keenly observed reminiscence about playing in a tournament at a friend’s house, after his Scalextric failed to perform. A decade on, you could still hear the pain in: “You’d always get palmed off with a headless centre-forward, a goalkeeper with no arms and a face like his.” PMon
Rokit
Herbie Hancock
1983
One of the most influential figures in modern jazz, Herbie Hancock was quick to embrace the nascent New York rap scene. Displaying a surprising lack of virtuosity on Hancock’s part, Rokit centred around the trade off between an instantly recognisable synth line and some then groundbreaking scratch work from DJ Grand Mixer D.ST. Barely charting in the US, it went top 10 in Britain, soundtracking a thousand ill-advised lino-based excursions into breakdancing. CCat
WFL (Think About the Future)
Happy Mondays
1989
As the acid house revolution gripped the nation, Happy Mondays, in what was still quite an unusual move, let DJ Paul Oakenfold loose on their track Wrote For Luck. “I knew that rhythms in rock records never worked,” Oakenfold later reflected, “so it had to be more rhythmic, especially the bottom end.” Oakenfold changed the bassline and drums, with a loop from NWA, and brought Shaun Ryder’s vocals up in the mix. With layers of Mark Day’s swirling guitar and Paul Davis’s dreamy keyboard lines over the top, the end result was an elongated, spaced-out ecstatic dancefloor smash which reflected the euphoric mindstate of many on the dancefloors in 1989. LB
Richie Havens
1981
A cross genre, cross era, stone cold Balearic classic. Back to My Roots was originally written and recorded by Lamont Dozier – one-third of the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland Motown production team – for his solo album Peddlin’ Music On The Side. But it’s the Richie Havens version from 1981 that most DJs keep in their record boxes as an absolute guaranteed dancefloor filler to reach for in case of emergency. The long opening piano riff, funky wah-wah guitar, percussion from Sly and the Family Stone session legend Andy Newmark and gospel backing vocals, all build to one undeniable deep groove. Danny Krivit’s recent re-edit is worth searching out as well. LB
House of Pain
1992
Irish-American rappers House of Pain always played second fiddle to west-coast contemporaries Cypress Hill, who never fashioned anything as great as Jump Around. From the fanfare that launched a thousand cannabis habits to the squeal that ushers in every jump (sampled from Prince’s Gett Off), it united college halls and rock clubs long after they sank into insignificance. DM
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
Indeep
1982
It was some years before the notion of DJ as saviour would really take hold, and when it did, it wasn’t radio but club jocks who were the objects of adoration. Arriving at the fag-end of disco, Last Night … was all Chic-y guitar chops, dub-funk bassline and inspired sound effects (telephone, flushing toilet, car brakes). But the theme is a simple one of heartbreak cured by music, a statement of faith in the regenerative powers of the great song. SY
Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough
Michael Jackson
1979
A lot happened in the four years between Michael Jackson’s 1975 album Forever, Michael and the follow-up, Off the Wall. Disco had crossed into the mainstream and he’d grown from a boy into a young man. Like all young men, he had sex on his mind. “Touch me and I feel on fire,” he sings in a pure falsetto over a pulsing bass groove from Louis “Thunder Thumbs” Johnson. Years later, a similar request led to a courtroom. CC
Michael Jackson
1979
If Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough is the populist party choice from Michael Jackson’s fifth album, Off the Wall, disco connoisseurs prefer the title track. Written by British musician Rod Temperton, who went on to compose Thriller, it’s built on a nervous, high-pitched bassline. The tension is released when the song shifts into a lower key for the chorus and Jackson sings, “Tonight, got to leave the nine to five up on the shelf/ And just enjoy yourself.” Pure class. CC
I Love Rock’n’Roll
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
1982
Seventies beat-poppers the Arrows originally wrote and recorded this hymn to the devil’s music to worldwide indifference. Sassy ex-Runaway Joan Jett liked it so much she covered it twice, most successfully in 1982, when she condensed rock’n’roll’s intricate magic into a pounding three-chord strut. Even Britney armed with a vocoder could not match this for vitality. DM
Nightclubbing
Grace Jones
1981
Nightclubbing was written by David Bowie and Iggy Pop and appeared on Iggy’s 1977 solo debut, The Idiot. But Grace Jones claimed the song for herself when she made it the title track of her fifth album. The original is boozy, dog-end-of-the-night rock. Jones, a regular on the glitzy late-70s/early-80s New York club scene, injects it with icy glamour, her contralto voice slinking with feline grace around the one-finger piano line and Sly Dunbar’s echo-drenched percussion. CC
Grace Jones
2008
After a triumphant gig at last year’s Meltdown festival, Grace Jones comeback album was eagerly anticipated. Disappointingly, most of it, like Williams Blood, turned out to be quite pedestrian. That was until the up-and-coming Belgian cosmic disco duo and remixers du jour Aeroplane worked their magic on it, turning it into a slow burning, glitteringly futuristic disco smash that built into a intense euphoric crescendo. Unbelievably, the remix was initially rejected, but word of mouth, or word of internet blogs, spread, and it’s now available. Aeroplane’s debut album is due this summer. LB
Cocktails for Two
Spike Jones and His City Slickers
1944
The original 1934 version was a genteel ballad that celebrated the end of prohibition, a time where the “carefree and gay” were free to drink at a “romantic rendezvous”. Spike Jones gleefully pushed this gaiety to extremes, punctuating his 100mph arrangement with various hooters, whistles, honking horns and belching singers to create a symphony of silliness. It’s the perfect example of how Jones created comedy records where the hilarity was sonic rather than lyrical. JL
George Kranz
1984
Din Daa Daa was No 1 on the US dance chart in 1984. However, German percussionist George Kranz owes his clubland immortality to DJ Alfredo, resident at Ibiza’s iconic Amnesia nightspot in the late 80s, when the song became a Balearic classic. The words of the title are looped up, while Kranz, who has a serious case of onomatopoeia, echoes the drum fills (“Rat-ta-ta-ta-toom!”). Then the track explodes with a strident synth chord. Just try not dancing. CC
Upside Down
Fela Kuti
1976
When American political activist Sandra Smith (later Isidore) introduced visiting Nigerian musician Fela Kuti to the writings of Malcolm X and the philosophies of the Black Panther party in 1969, she could never have imagined the effect. The subsequent radical, angry politics of Africa’s first musical megastar informed most of his lyrics, including this blistering, near 15-minute epic, describing pan-African disorganisation. Sung by Isidore, you’d be hard pushed to find a better record to dance to. MR
Bappi Lahiri/Parvati Khan
1982
Recently sampled by MIA, this Parvati Khan-vocalled glitzy dance nugget is the sound of disco fever sweeping Bollywood. In its original setting (in the film Disco Dancer), it cures the Jimmy of the title of his disco phobia after his mother is electrocuted by an electric guitar (don’t ask). Yet even without the surreal plotlines, Bappi Lahiri’s Bontempi-electro settings and infectious Abba string stabs continue to help the most committed wallflowers get their bosh on to this day. MM
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Cyndi Lauper
1983
One of pop’s most ecstatic classics, this debut single and huge global hit from former Blue Angel singer Lauper is also one of pop’s greatest feminist statements. In an echo of Aretha Franklin’s dramatic female empowerment reworking of Otis Redding’s Respect, Girls … was written by new-wave popster Robert Hazard from an entirely male perspective. Lauper changed the gender of the lyric and transformed it into an electro-pop call-to-arms for the right to hen party. GM
LFO
1990
Old-school bassheads will remember fondly the purple sleeves and raw, outer-galactic bass’n’bleeps of early Warp records releases. LFO provided the fifth release on the label, which was recorded in the basement studio of Leeds rave emporium The Warehouse and was played, on C90, at the club before being signed. It sold 130,000 copies and went to No 12 in the charts. Brutal and brilliant. EW
Can’t Stand Me Now
The Libertines
2004
From a poetic point of view, the release of Can’t Stand Me Now could not have been more perfect. From an intra-band harmony perspective, it couldn’t have been worse. Released just as Pete Doherty and Carl Barât’s tumultuous relationship was beginning to finally fall apart due to Doherty’s drug habit, you can hear the spite in the love me/hate me lyrics. A No 2 hit at the time, it remains the most famous mission statement from the London could-have-beens. WD
Is It All Over My Face
Loose Joints
1980
Known primarily as a cult contributor to the leftfield disco scene, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Arthur Russell’s work across several genres of avant garde music has been rediscovered and critically acclaimed since his death from Aids in the early 90s. This hypnotic and truly unforgettable slice of disco voodoo was salvaged from tempestuous collaborative studio sessions by Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan, whose female-voiced remix is now classed as the definitive version. MR
Love Loves to Love Love
Lulu
1967
Despite having recorded a sublime version of Here Comes the Night with genius American r’n’b producer Bert Berns several years earlier (predating Them’s version), it wasn’t until Scottish singer Lulu teamed up with UK producer Mickie Most that the hits began to flow. This slightly psychedelic pop-funk track was the first, followed shortly by Shout, and is instantly recognisable for its fuzzed guitar intro, which Fatboy Slim famously sampled for Santa Cruz. MR
M
1979
Pop Muzik was produced and helmed by pop situationist Robin Scott and made in Paris by an all-star cast that included the wunderkind keyboard player Wally Badarou, who provides its bubbling swing. It had the high gloss of the Human League with a towering kickdrum that sounded like it was carved out of solid granite. The lyrics are pure bubblegum (“try some buy some fee-fi-fo-fum”), the result dancefloor candy floss. BB
Cross the Tracks (We Better Go Back)
Maceo and the Macks
1975
Bebop-influenced saxophonist Maceo Parker tried to leave his longstanding place within James Brown’s band several times over the years (for a while he even joined the Parliament/Funkadelic collective), but always returned having failed to secure equal success solo or as a band leader. This insane funk instrumental, heavy with Moog synthesizer, allegedly played by Brown, was an integral party piece of the early hip-hop movement and remains a soundsystem curveball to this day. MR
There But for the Grace of God
Machine
1979
In between the early success he enjoyed alongside his brother in Dr Buzzard’s Savannah Band and forming his own stage persona as Kid Creole, Tommy Browder – aka August Darnell – found time to lend his almost peerless satirical songwriting skills (not to mention his considerable production abilities) to this female-voiced disco anthem. Critiquing social attitudes of the time, the often misunderstood lyrics see new parents deciding to leave the Bronx in favour of “somewhere far away, with no blacks, no Jews and no gays.” MR
Beautiful Stranger
Madonna
1999
Pop queen Madonna rounded off the 1990s in fine style when, following successful collaboration on the Ray of Light album, she reunited with British producer William Orbit for this theme to the second Austin Powers movie. Inspired by the film’s 60s theme, the pair eschewed their previous dance styles in favour of an understated, Mamas and the Papas-sampling, guitar-led groove. Although successful on the UK charts, this song wasn’t released as a single in the US.
Curtis Mayfield
1970
In 1970, former Impression Mayfield was making a name for himself as a pioneer of gritty urban realism. Move On Up, however, reads more like a motivational pep talk: Mayfield’s super-sweet vocals imploring the listener to “remember your dreams are your only schemes” over an irresistibly kinetic mix of Latin rhythms, orchestral funk and Chicago horns. Nabbing the central hook for 2005’s Touch the Sky, Kanye West reintroduced the world to Move On Up’s relentlessly positive charms. CCat
White Lines (Don’t Do It)
Grandmaster Melle Mel
1983
It wasn’t just White Lines’ billing (originally credited to Grandmaster and Melle Mel, to imply Flash was involved) that was confusing. Although the title and much of the lyric indicate an uncompromising anti-drug song, the record was more than a little ambivalent, as shown in the repeated sniffing and their excitable way with the word “high”. The soundtrack to a million knowing winks on the dancefloor. SY
Kids
MGMT
2008
Brooklyn-based duo MGMT emerged in 2007 with an intoxicating blend of squelching electro-funk, wiggy progisms and 70s pop-rock sensibilities. Produced by Flaming Lips associate Dave Fridmann, Kids remains their signature tune; its mix of gurgling synths, pounding drum machines and make-believe lyrics overcoming hints of hipster irony to rock harder than a Shoreditch warehouse party. Much to the band’s chargrin, the track was recently appropriated by French premier Nicolas Sarkozy for use at political rallies. CCat
Missy Elliott
2001
Though we can’t say for sure whether it’s about ecstasy consumption, this club track, best heard as a Basement Jaxx remix, is taken from the album Miss E ... So Addictive (on the cover the E is circled) and is heralded by Elliott hollering, “This is for my motherfucking club heads!” In the song, Missy initially appears all coy after spotting a fella she likes across the dancefloor and so opts for an orange juice and to “go X it out”. A little while later she’s buying everybody drinks, wants to lick the fella’s face and demands they strip off their clothes. Must have been that orange juice, eh? JB
Dudley Moore and Peter Cook
1967
This stand-out moment from the film of the same name sees the satanic Peter Cook transform into a proto-punk crooner – somewhere between John Lydon and Berlin-era Bowie – mirthlessly outlining his utter lack of interest in a woman who is hopelessly in love with him (“I’m not available. You fill me with inertia,” he drawls). But it’s Dudley Moore’s instrumental backing – all phased psych-rock drums, ye-ye girls and avant jazz chord changes – that makes this such an exquisite pop parody. JL
Hot in Herre
Nelly
2002
“Good gracious ass is bodacious,” raps the southern short-ass on this steamy jam, before encouraging said hottie to get undressed. “It’s getting so hot I’m gonna take my clothes off,” she obliges, rather too quickly, over a slinky keyboard line and a jerky beat, courtesy of the Neptunes back when Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo were still intent on weirding out the charts. Hot in Herre may have lacked subtlety and spelling ability but it more than made up for it in the party-starting stakes. MM
New Order
1987
The year before the acid house explosion, New Order were perfectly placed to understand the power of the new drug that would fuel the scene. They owned a nightclub, The Hacienda, for starters, and their music was heavily influenced by visits to New York nightspots, with producer Stephen Hague appropriating a Jellybean style for True Faith. Sumner nailed the ecstasy experience in the opening lines: “I feel so extraordinary/ Something’s got a hold of me/ I get this feeling I’m in motion/ A sudden sense of liberty.” Peter Hook’s bassline and the rich melody were designed to enhance their new-found clandestine experience. JB
Randy Newman
1977
The funniest things about Newman’s only pop hit (which was only kept from the US No 1 spot by the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive) are not to do with the song. Despite its diatribe against the vertically challenged being an obvious satire on discrimination – starring the line, “We don’t want no short people round here” – many believed that Newman’s Disney-esque ditty was serious. Maryland went as far as drafting legislation to ban the song from being played anywhere in the state. GM
I’m in the Mood for Dancing
The Nolans
1979
Anyone who drunkenly selects this hen-party favourite at a karaoke night will quickly realise that it’s not as simple as it sounds. The identikit disco drums are overlaid with a fiendishly complicated series of chord changes that might have impressed Chopin. The song modulates after every chorus, first up, then down, then up again. Respect is due, Ms Bernie Nolan. JL
Oasis
1994
Never was hedonism so succinctly articulated. Britain wasn’t much fun in 1994 under John Major, encouraging a boozy, devil-may-care attitude. This shameless, streamlined T-Rex steal heralded the impending sea change that was Britpop in Liam’s cry: “You gotta make it happen.” JP
Got Your Money
Ol’ Dirty Bastard
1999
Get the girls on the floor and you’ve got yourself a party. Got Your Money is a hip-hop party all on its own. Produced by the Neptunes when they were at their peak, MCed by the sadly departed Ol’ Dirty Bastard and featuring Kelis, Got Your Money was an all-star cast of late 90s talent – and it shows. A tune that never fails to ignite a party. BB
Hey Ya!
OutKast
2003
Despite lyrics worthy of Morrissey at his most morose (“If nothing is for ever then what makes love the exception?”), this all-too-familiar story of a stalling relationship is set to an iconoclastically joyous backing: Funkadelic synths, a Prince-like rhythm and a stupidly addictive, Fisher-Price-keyboard figure. Besides exhibiting the ever-enjoyable sound of André 3000 at his most cocksure, this is one of the great “bollocks to love – let’s dance!” songs. JP
Phuture
1987
The record that named a movement was created by a series of accidents. Roland’s 303 was a synth that failed to recreate the bass guitar sound (its intended purpose) but threw out a wall of squiggly noise unlike anything else. Played off anonymous tape by DJ Ron Hardy, Acid Tracks was christened by his clubbers (its creators Phuture had provisionally called it In Your Mind), likening the 12-minute electronic maelstrom to a trip. Adopted by British clubbers, the subsequent revolution lived longer than this extraordinary, pummelling beast of a record. SY
Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag
Pigbag
1981
In which this strange collective – comprising various Cheltenham-based post-punkers with links to Mark Stewart and the Pop Group, among them future trip-hop pioneer Nellee Hooper – managed to take a wiry punk-funk bassline, a free-jazz saxophone freakout and the ancient riff from the Tarzan movies and somehow turn it into a Top 3 hit. Even weirder is the fact that this punk-jazz oddity remains a popular soundtrack at dozens of football grounds every Saturday. JL
Pitman
2002
The alter-ego of Nottingham producer Styly Cee, Pitman is the hip-hop heckler, the faux miner shouting abuse from the back of rap’s eternal game of show-and-prove. Witness the Pitness is a take on the Roots Manuva classic that belches out insults at Adam F and the Streets (“We don’t give a frig about your frigging aerial/ Stick it up your arse with your pirate material”) in the manner of a pub-crawling Viz character. The more witless the invective, the funnier it gets. SY
Streams of Whiskey
The Pogues
1984
In which Shane MacGowan’s twin obsessions of Brendan Behan and dangerously heavy drinking are laid bare. This was the Pogues in their early, full Celtic punk mode, a riotous tin-whistle-and-accordion stomp that revealed nothing of their subtler side, but secured their status as every piss-up’s ideal accompaniment. At the time, MacGowan’s own problems were but a twinkle in the bottom of a bottle, and the video depicting him popping up out of a wheelie bin seemed a good joke, not a prediction. SY
Tito Puente
1968
By 1968, Tito Puente was no longer the Afro-Cuban dance king, with a younger generation of Nuyoricans taking his beats and mixing them with funk and garage rock. The resulting hybrid (boogaloo) became so big that Puente decided to have a go himself. Based around an eight-note bassline and a thrilling horn fanfare, this song became the centrepiece of his live set – and would be later sampled to death by hip-hop producers. JL
Sorted for Es and Wizz
Pulp
1995
The ultimate after-the-Britpop-party anthem, as Jarvis Cocker and co steal the melody of Leo Sayer’s Moonlighting and define the dark side of drugs, festivals and coming down. The Mirror got itself in a tizz about the single sleeve that explained how to make a drug wrap, but if they’d listened they would have heard one of the most despairing of all drug anthems, with its pensive acknowledgment that communal highs are always followed by private lows. GM
Queen
1974
This standout track from their finest album, Sheer Heart Attack, is a reminder that, beneath the music-hall whimsy and the operatic pretentions, Queen were also a fabulous heavy metal quartet. Here Brian May flits between chugging, Angus Young-style power chords and heavy blues riffage while the rest of the band belt out multi-tracked harmonies. As Queen started to conquer stadiums in the 80s, an echo-drenched, nine-minute call-and-response version would become the highlight of their live shows. JL
Feel Good Hit of the Summer
Queens of the Stone Age
2000
“Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol, C-C-C-C-C-cocaine!” So runs the entire lyric of this aptly titled single, on which veteran hellraiser and ex-Judas Priest singer Rob Halford guested. This mantra, bolstered by the California band’s trademark thrashy but compressed sound, was initially dismissed by the band’s label, but eventually released on the grounds that it wasn’t actually condoning drug abuse. The message isn’t exactly “just say no”, either. JP
The Rapture
2002
Exhuming the post-punk experiments of PiL and the Pop Group, New York’s the Rapture created a punk-funk monster for their breakthrough 12-inch. The result of a collaboration between Tim Goldsworthy and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, and with no real lyrics outside of the title, the group sadly never came close to topping this – a hypnotic fusion of dirty bass, disjointed guitar and flagrant cowbell abuse. CCat
All Night Long (All Night)
Lionel Richie
1983
Before blowing his credibility for good with the mawkish Hello, Richie delivered a sophisticated single that has proved timeless. Lionel’s first line, after some nifty percussion and a flurry of strings, makes this a perfect song for kick-starting a party – “Well, my friends, the time has come, to raise the roof and have some fun.” The song reaches a crescendo of Jamaican chanting that, though difficult to sing along to, cements its life-affirming quality. JB
Ce Ce Rogers
1987
Maybe it was MDMA-induced empathy, but when house music exploded in the late 80s it really felt like it could change the world. Cleveland singer Kenneth Jesse Rogers III and house music pioneer Marshall Jefferson summed up the egalitarian mood on Someday. “If we can just open our eyes / We can make the world a paradise,” sang Rogers over minor piano chords. On the dancefloor of clubs such as The Hacienda in Manchester it felt, briefly, like paradise had already arrived. CC
Witness (1 Hope)
Roots Manuva
2001
Rodney Smith’s party-starter has become one of the few UK hip-hop tracks to gain status outside of the narrow confines of that scene. Smith is on record as saying he wanted to make something that translated in clubs with “a shit system and pissed-up people”, and its wild, cranked-up bassline certainly transferred. Possibly the biggest sound ever achieved by UK hip-hop. EW
Rufus featuring Chaka Khan
1974
If it were possible to entirely power sound systems on happiness (and clearly it is not), then Once You Get Started might be the appropriate fuel. Co-written by Chicago stalwart Gavin Christopher (who also co-wrote his sister Shawn Christopher’s sole hit Don’t Lose the Magic), it is given wonderous life by Chaka Khan’s effortless voice. It’s not the best song she ever did but it’s the most fun. “Once you get started/ Oh it’s hard to stop.” Can’t argue with that. BB
Baby Let’s Dance Together
Sapan Chakraborty
1978
The 1978 Hindi movie Shalimar might have flopped but its soundtrack album remains a highly collectable favourite with freak-funk fans. This crazy slice of big-band r’n’b – all wobbly drums and lip-smacking horn riffs – is a perfect example of how Bollywood’s music directors (in this case RD Burman’s assistant) would take western pop idioms (jazz, funk, soul, disco) and put them through an exotic eastern prism in one of Bombay’s ramshackle recording studios. JL
Runaway
Salsoul Orchestra
1977
At disco clubs the opening guitar of this singalong favourite is a call to arms to anyone not yet on the dancefloor. Sung by Loleatta Holloway and backed by a sizeable number of the SO/MFSB staple players, the lyrics see the former soul diva revelling in the position her carefree, unattached status enables. It was covered virtually note for note by Masters at Work’s Nuyorican Soul project in the 1990s. MR
The Bottle
Gil Scott-Heron
1974
A rare protest tune that delivered its message on site, as it were, railing against the dangers of drink over a jazz-funk beat that tore up UK clubs from the northern soul meccas to London’s rare groove scene. The Bottle’s cast of characters (prison widow, discharged backstreet abortionist) are all skid-row alcoholics, portraits drawn with a journalist’s eye by the poet-singer. The lyrical vérité makes for an odd party anthem, demonstrating how little people are engaged with the words when their bodies are in motion. SY
Pluto Shervington
1976
This jaunty, calypso-tinged Top 10 hit introduces Ozzy, a Rasta who’s too slack to observe Rastafarianism’s vegetarian dietary code. He is embarrassed at the market when the butcher boy offers him meat (“Hush your mouth, mind me brethren hear”) before furtively asking for a pork chop, euphemistically described as “dat”. This “Carry On Rasta” scenario is continued as Ozzy hides the meat in his hat before bumping into a rather more observant Dread on the way home. JL
Gin House Blues
Nina Simone
1975
Nina always could start a fight in an empty room. Her cover of this 1925 blues song (best heard on her 1975 Paris live album) makes the drunkard’s bragging seem like a mix of Dutch courage and stroppy militancy (she could’ve fought the army and the navy without the benefit of booze). It also has staying power, almost doubling the length of the song as Nina and her band keep swinging punches. SY
Sister Sledge
1979
The major works of disco geniuses Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic were always double-edged celebrations of dancing. They gave several of their greatest songs to Philly sisters Kathy, Kim, Debbie and Joni Sledge, and on the surface, Lost in Music is a loving tribute to making music. But the chorus is in a troubled minor key, and the lyrical imagery of losing everything including sanity and being permanently “caught in a trap” is hardly the stuff of dreams. GM
He’s the Greatest Dancer
Sister Sledge
1979
This Chic-composed and produced disco hit is a gay anthem that just happens to be sung by women. She’s out “cruising” with friends in “Frisco”? She spots a guy who has the body of Adonis and a face “that would make any man proud”? This guy has the moves and the designer threads … but never even notices our heroine? Typical Edwards/Rodgers disco subversion, full of elegant ideas like the perfect man being full of “arrogance – but not conceit”. GM
Skee-Lo
1995
Emerging into a hip-hop world increasingly preoccupied with self-aggrandisement and gangster posturing, Skee-Lo was something of an anomaly. Referencing Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth and concerned chiefly with being a short-arse who can’t pull, I Wish harked back to the good-time rap of A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. Fourteen years on its laid-back grooves and self-deprecating humour still raise a smile. CCat
Dance to the Music
Sly and the Family Stone
1968
Dance to the Music was the ideal introduction to Sylvester Stewart’s rainbow coalition, a democratic calling card that gave everyone their say while stressing the primacy of the unit. But Dance to the Music mixed more than genders and races, blending rock, pop, jazz and funk with psychedelic soul, a sound that inspired much of the best music of the next half-decade. Despite Sly’s dominance, pride of place here goes to trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, who bellows the title as introductory command and later tells all the squares to go home. SY
The Specials
1979
Suggesting the best refuge from rising unemployment and approaching Thatcherism was to go on the lash, Nite Klub proved the Specials were equally adept at storming Stax soul musicianship as they were at amphetamine-fuelled ska. Ever the curmudgeon, however, Terry Hall refused to join in the fun – “the girls are slags and the beer tastes just like piss”. Improbably, an even more thrilling version can be found on 1981’s live Dance Craze LP. CCat
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
Sylvester
1978
Formerly a member of ramshackle, San Fransisco-based transvestite performance troupe the Cockettes (who at one time also counted Divine among their number), sizeable singer Sylvester had already released some great soul, funk and rock records by 1978, but success eluded him until he upped the tempo considerably and focused on disco. Speedy yet subtle, his biggest hit served as a template for the hi-NRG disco sound and was memorably performed, in part, at half-speed during live shows by Syl and formidable backing singers Two Tons of Fun. MR
The Smiths
1985
In retrospect, the Smiths’ sixth single seems an unlikely party record. Johnny Marr’s keening guitar paired with Morrissey’s despondent vocal are anything but upbeat. But mid-80s indie clubs were about who was the most misunderstood, not having fun. The lines, “There’s a club if you’d like to go/ You could meet somebody who really loves you/ So you go and you stand on your own/ And you leave on your own/ And you cry and you want to die”, captured the mood perfectly. Remember, this was before ecstasy. CC
Memorabilia
Soft Cell
1982
In 1982, following the success of their synth-pop cover of Tainted Love by Gloria Jones, Soft Cell travelled to New York, where they met Cindy Ecstasy, a face on the city’s club scene who introduced them to the drug of the same name. The lads from Leeds were smitten and recorded the mini-album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing under its influence. The driving bassline and nagging synth buzz on opening track Memorabilia anticipated house music four years later. If only they hadn’t let Cindy rap. CC
Sparks
1979
After expressing admiration for disco producer Giorgio Moroder’s innovative work on Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, oddball brothers Ron and Russell Mael were teamed up with him for their revitalising No 1 In Heaven album, which produced this gameshow-inspired hit single. “Too bad there ain’t 10 of you, then I’d show you what I’d do,” mocks Russell over a metronomic, hi-NRG-edged disco rhythm that still sounds fresh, and for Sparks, unusually accessible. MR
I’m a Man
The Spencer Davis Group
1967
The final single for the Spencer Davis Group prior to brothers Muff and Steve Winwood, the latter the group’s singer and chief songwriter, leaving the band. An uncompromisingly tough and fast-paced beat number, its percussion builds intensely before the stirring Hammond organ line crashes in. It was famously given a proto-heavy metal workout by Chicago on their debut album. MR
Sueño Latino
1989
Manuel Göttsching’s 1984 album E2-E4 repeated one bubbling synth riff for 59 minutes. Far from being boring, it was an ambient masterpiece. It became a Balearic favourite thanks to DJ Alfredo (him again). Then, in 1989, Italian DJ collective Sueño Latino lifted the track’s hypnotic hook and added a house beat and some breathy vocals from Carolina Damas. Thus the Balearic sound went global. Ex-ravers of a certain age still get watery eyed when they hear the opening bird call. CC
Saturday Nite Special
The Sundown Playboys
1972
Released on the Beatles’ Apple label, this manic slice of Cajun zydeco is performed by an outfit who’ve been making manic party music since 1945, singing in the archaic dialect known as Acadian French. The eerily androgynous, high-pitched yodelling vocals on this track – belted out at top volume to make themselves heard above the sound of the accordion and fiddle – have been cited by Morrissey as a key influence. JL
Wipe Out
The Surfaris
1962
One of those happy pop accidents, whereby Surfaris members Bob Berryhill, Pat Connolly, Ron Wilson and Jim Fuller hastily threw together a tune intended as a B-side and ended up with one of rock’s most enduring classics. A punk-tempo surf-guitar instrumental illuminated by Wilson’s high-speed drum tattoo, it introduced itself with the sound of a surfboard breaking and a manic male voice giggling excitedly and girlishly announcing the title. Said voice belonged to Surfaris’ manager Dale Smallen. GM
The Sugarhill Gang
1979
Having a DJing nightmare? Dead dancefloor and you need a pee and a fag? Cue up the full, 14-minute version of the first hip-hop hit single and leave the party to take care of itself. Based on the backing track of Good Times by Chic and rapped by three dodgy MCs borrowing heavily from the early Bronx rhymes of street-party pioneers such as the Cold Crush Brothers, Rapper’s Delight is still the best party rap tune of all time. GM
Do What You Wanna Do
T-Connection
1977
Nassau’s greatest export – alongside Beginning of the End – produced one of disco’s great feel-good records. The vocal, squeezed into the first third of the song, is over before the main course arrives in the form of a series of stupendous breaks accompanied by keyboards slaloming off-piste, punctuated by a joyous “woo” or two before the mayhem resumes. Woo! BB
West Street Mob
1983
Although Break Dance – Electric Boogie wasn’t the first old-school hip-hop record to dismember the Incredible Bongo Band’s take on Apache, it’s the most cherished for the way it blends the original’s crucial elements (bongo intro and brass fanfare) with the emerging electro. This amounted to little more than a vocoder delivering instruction in the way of the breakdance. But repeating “spin on your back, spin on your knees” in a robot’s voice was as much a part of the B-boy era as visits to the chiropractor. SY
My Generation
The Who
1965
In four chords and three minutes, My Generation neatly encapsulates the attitude of every teenage wave of the past 40 years. It transcends its own modish origins by being completely non-specific to any particular time, place or youth movement; punks, indie kids and emos can all revel in its two-fingered sentiment. A prime example of a song that, once released, no longer belongs to the band, but to The Kids. JP
Last Night Changed It All
Esther Williams
1976
It’s no fun being dumped, but you get over it eventually. This song by little-known 70s soul/disco singer Esther Williams is about the precise moment you realise it’s all going to be OK. Lush strings glide over a drum break that’s been sampled by Public Enemy, Eric B and Rakim and De La Soul, while Williams sings the chorus, “Last night changed it all/ I really had a ball,” like she’s gone straight from the club to the studio following her epiphany. CC
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
Jackie Wilson
1967
Originally unable to nail the vocal track, Wilson was instructed by producer Carl Davis to “jump and go along with the percussion”. It worked a treat. In perhaps the most joyous two and a half minutes ever committed to tape, Wilson – backed by members of the Funk Brothers – builds Higher and Higher up into a crescendo of gospel-inspired ecstasy, capturing the optimism and seemingly endless possibilities of new-found love. CCat
Turn Off the Lights
Larry Young
1975
Originally released in 1975, Larry Young’s tune became an unlikely warehouse anthem during the rare groove era. Propelled by a growling bassline, Linda Logan’s maniacal vocal and what sounded like a toddler tap-dancing on a Stylophone (Young was the keyboard player), Turn Off the Lights was that rare beast: a jazz-fusion tune you could actually dance to. BB