A personal music journal · since 2024
Every track here is one that wouldn't let me go. 629 of them so far, each with a review, a listening guide and the story behind it. Press play: the music keeps going while you read.
· 544 words
trentemøller
Trentemøller's exclusive cover for his 2011 Late Night Tales mix slows Chris Isaak's 1987 Blue Hotel into a noisy, dusty male-female duet for Marie Fisker and Sort Sol's Steen Jørgensen.
dOP
The Paris trio dOP's 2014 return to Circus Company: a vocal house single with JAW's falsetto over a straight, shimmering machine groove and soft pads, which the label called addictive and Groove magazine found limp until the voice came in.
Zwicker
Sleepwalking, from Zurich producer Zwicker's 2009 album Songs of Lucid Dreamers on Compost Records: a song about dreaming, written and sung by the Australian Jamie Lloyd, whose voice the label calls blue-eyed soul meets folk.
Zwicker
A dream track from Zwicker's 2009 album Songs of Lucid Dreamers on Compost Records: the spoken-word artist Billy Oden's lines about getting lost in a jungle of white crocodiles and millipedes, dedicated to the producer's son Ryu.
My most played tracks on Spotify this month that have a review here, as of 2026-11-14.
Thylacine, Camille Després
The opening track of Intuitive, the first EP by Thylacine, the Angers producer and former saxophonist William Rezé, released in December 2012 with the singer Camille Després on three of its seven tracks.
Nôze, Wareika
The fourth track of Dring, the 2011 Get Physical album of the Parisian duo Nôze, made with the Hamburg live trio Wareika: a bluesy house track that came out first, as a radio edit, on the single Dring Dring / Exodus.
Jain
One of the six songs and versions Jain added to Zanaka in November 2016, also released on their own as the Zanaka EP: written by Jain, arranged, produced and mixed by Yodelice, with Jain on keyboards and Yodelice on guitar and bass.
Gabriella Cilmi
A smoky, retro-soul kiss-off from Gabriella Cilmi's independent third album: an old flame walks out with somebody new, and a sparse arrangement leaves room for a vocal that is pure venom wrapped in velvet.
Robin Schulz
Sun-bleached deep house with a soul hook: Robin Schulz builds a sweet, bouncing groove around Francesco Yates and an interpolation of Baby Bash's 2003 'Suga Suga', a number one in seven countries in 2015.
Caribou
The opening track and first single of Caribou's 2010 album Swim: Dan Snaith's pop song about a failing relationship, set over a bassline built from a Bernard Parmegiani sample and a clattering beat, in dance music meant to sound like water.
Flume, Chet Faker
The slow, head-nodding single of Flume and Chet Faker's joint EP Lockjaw: Faker's sultry voice over Flume's swishing synths and deep bass, with a video of the Brooklyn dancer Storyboard P.
Zwicker
A dream track from Zwicker's 2009 album Songs of Lucid Dreamers on Compost Records: the spoken-word artist Billy Oden's lines about getting lost in a jungle of white crocodiles and millipedes, dedicated to the producer's son Ryu.
Wamdue Project, Roy Malone
Roy Malone's King Mix turned Chris Brann's downtempo King of My Castle, sung by Gaelle Adisson, into the house record that topped the UK singles chart in 1999: a club hit whose title echoes Freud's line that the ego is not master in its own house.
The Crooked Spoke
Copenhagen producer Be Svendsen turns Black Tower Hotel, a dreamy song by the Danish duo The Crooked Spoke, into seven minutes of deep electronic house on Acker Records: a mysterious hotel, a voice from times long gone, double bass chords and synthesizer riffs.
Radio Citizen, Bajka
Summer Days is the third track of Hope and Despair, the 2010 Ubiquity album by Niko Schabel's Radio Citizen, a song the singer Bajka wrote herself, music and lyrics: in the label's words the more organic and live of her three appearances on the record.
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629 tracks
trentemøller
Trentemøller's exclusive cover for his 2011 Late Night Tales mix slows Chris Isaak's 1987 Blue Hotel into a noisy, dusty male-female duet for Marie Fisker and Sort Sol's Steen Jørgensen.
dOP
The Paris trio dOP's 2014 return to Circus Company: a vocal house single with JAW's falsetto over a straight, shimmering machine groove and soft pads, which the label called addictive and Groove magazine found limp until the voice came in.
Zwicker
Sleepwalking, from Zurich producer Zwicker's 2009 album Songs of Lucid Dreamers on Compost Records: a song about dreaming, written and sung by the Australian Jamie Lloyd, whose voice the label calls blue-eyed soul meets folk.
Zwicker
A dream track from Zwicker's 2009 album Songs of Lucid Dreamers on Compost Records: the spoken-word artist Billy Oden's lines about getting lost in a jungle of white crocodiles and millipedes, dedicated to the producer's son Ryu.
Y'akoto
The opening track of Babyblues, the 2012 debut album of the Hamburg-born singer Y'akoto, who grew up partly in West Africa: a song she wrote with Amo Jr., produced by KAHEDI, that OkayAfrica heard as a smooth excursion into golden R&B with a raspy voice and staccato pop choruses.
Weval
A track from Half Age, the 2013 debut EP of the Amsterdam duo Weval on Atomnation, a record its own note sums up as chopped-up minimal vocals, analogue sounds and ever-evolving chords; the duo were still playing it live ten years later.
Wamdue Project, Roy Malone
Roy Malone's King Mix turned Chris Brann's downtempo King of My Castle, sung by Gaelle Adisson, into the house record that topped the UK singles chart in 1999: a club hit whose title echoes Freud's line that the ego is not master in its own house.
Wamdue Project, Jonathan Mendelsohn
The full eight-minute original of Forgiveness, the 2006 single on which Chris Brann's Wamdue Project gave an early break to the New York singer Jonathan Mendelsohn, as Fierce Angel reissued it among the remixes of Forgiveness, Vol. 1.
Waldeck, Patrizia Ferrara
A catchy, francophile song from Atlantic Ballroom, the 2018 album Klaus Waldeck released on Dope Noir as the successor to Ballroom Stories, sung by Patrizia Ferrara, the voice he found through his Italian-flavoured album before it.
Urban Species
Destructive is the second track of Blanket, the 1998 album by the Tottenham hip-hop group Urban Species: a jazzy beat with light guitar that starts small and swells into a wall of sound by its chorus, sung by Elisabeth Troy and Jeffrey Darnell, with strings arranged by Everton Nelson.
Tube & Berger, Ghost Loft
Tube & Berger's Set Free, with the Los Angeles producer Ghost Loft singing: a 2016 Kittball single that dances between deep house and indie electronica, dark and melancholic, here in its original mix.
Tricky, Francesca Belmonte
The track Tricky shared ahead of Adrian Thaws, the 2014 album named after his birth name: a bloopy electro beat, Francesca Belmonte's expansive vocal and his answer to a fan surprised that he liked house music.
Tom Misch, De La Soul
A song from Tom Misch's 2018 debut album Geography: a riff-laden tribute to the power of music, with a bossa-tinged guitar groove and a guest verse from De La Soul's Posdnuos.
Thylacine, Camille Després
The opening track of Intuitive, the first EP by Thylacine, the Angers producer and former saxophonist William Rezé, released in December 2012 with the singer Camille Després on three of its seven tracks.
The White Stripes
The second track of Elephant: a fast, punk-edged garage-rock blast from The White Stripes, aimed at a high-school maths teacher, carried by Jack White's riff and wail and Meg White's loose, relentless drums.
The Supermen Lovers
A track from The Supermen Lovers' third album Between the Ages, composed and produced by Guillaume Atlan, which led the Fantasma Disco EP with remixes by Jupiter and A.N.D.Y. and a video drawn by nearly twenty designers.
The Roots, Jill Scott
The Roots' live take of their Grammy-winning You Got Me from The Roots Come Alive (1999), with Jill Scott, who co-wrote the song and sang its first version, reclaiming the part the label gave to Erykah Badu: almost nine minutes from love poem to frenzied noise.
The Crooked Spoke
Copenhagen producer Be Svendsen turns Black Tower Hotel, a dreamy song by the Danish duo The Crooked Spoke, into seven minutes of deep electronic house on Acker Records: a mysterious hotel, a voice from times long gone, double bass chords and synthesizer riffs.
Tez Cadey feat. Nina K Lucas & Cab Canavaral, Nina K Lucas, Cab Canavaral
Two years before Seve, a nineteen-year-old Tez Cadey remixes Cab Canavaral's electro-swing take on the blues standard Peggy Lee made famous, with Nina K Lucas singing and Cab Canavaral on saxophone.
Terranova, Nicolette Krebitz, Udo Kier
Gui Boratto's remix of Prayer, the Terranova song with the voices of the actors Nicolette Krebitz and Udo Kier: the opening track of Kompakt's 2012 remix album Hotel Amour (Nightporter), stretched from five minutes to almost seven.
Team
The biggest hit of Team's 1988 debut album on Opus, the record that made the band from Martin famous: music by the producer Július Kinček, words by Daniel Hevier, sung by the newly arrived Pavol Habera, and decades later still an encore of the band's tours.
Synapson, Anna Kova
The French duo Synapson's 2015 hit with the singer Anna Kova, from the album Convergence: a top-ten single in France that stayed on the chart for seventy weeks.
Stereofysh
The four-minute radio edit of The Race, the title track of the Berlin electronic act Stereofysh's 2015 album on Lebensfreude Records, with words by Lysann Zander, released first on the two-track single Igor.
Stereoclip
The seventh track of Hometown, the 2013 debut album Brussels producer Stereoclip made at home for Délicieuse Records: a vocal song first released in March 2013 in a longer version with a video, and shorter on the album.
Stella
The opening track of Σtella, the 2015 debut album the Athens singer-songwriter Stella Chronopoulou wrote, arranged and co-produced for Inner Ear Records: a synth-pop love song she sings and plays most of herself, on guitar, bass, synths and programmed drums.
Stee Downes, Gabe
The São Paulo producer Gabe turns Stee Downes's soul song Asunder into deep house for the 2013 Secret Place EP on Berlin's OFF Recordings: in the label's words, a slow, ragga-infused song that puts the vocals in motion, made for sunsets at the beach.
Stavroz
The title track of the Ghent band Stavroz's first EP on their own label Moodfamily, 2015: frivolous bass guitars and a broad-shouldered melody carry seven minutes of organic deep house, with a piano hidden in the breaks.
Spada, Hosie Neal, Bakermat
The Dutch producer Bakermat's full remix of Feels Like Home (Red Velvet Dress), Italian producer Spada's 2014 vocal song with the New York singer Hosie Neal, released on Ego's Hysterical imprint beside a radio edit of the same remix.
Spada, Hosie Neal
The short version of Italian producer Spada's 2014 single with Hosie Neal: the vocal song named after his Red Velvet Dress, cut to 2:42 as the Video Edit and released on Ego's Hysterical imprint.
Sonique
Sonique's 2000 single Sky, co-written with Rick Nowels: light vocal trance from a DJ who sang her own records, number two in the UK, here in the 4:26 album version from Hear My Cry.
Solee, Unique Repeat
The duo Unique Repeat's eight-and-a-half-minute remix of Phoenix by the German producer Solee, from the Phoenix remix single Parquet Recordings released in February 2015, one of several versions of the same track to come out within a year.
Solee
Sommerliebe, German for summer love, is an eight-and-a-half-minute track the German producer and Parquet Recordings label head Solee released in August 2013 on the EP Sommerliebe / Traumschiff, with remixes by Eelke Kleijn and by Roland M. Dill and Koook.
Smoke City
The first track of Smoke City's debut album Flying Away: a gentle, constant guitar strum, samples of rainforest, Luiz Bonfá and James Brown, and Nina Miranda's voice moving between English and Portuguese, a UK number four after a Levi's advert in 1997.
Seelenluft
The radio edit of Seelenluft's Manila, the Swiss producer Beat Solèr's 2002 club hit voiced by twelve-year-old Michael Smith from Compton, which reached the UK and Australian charts.
Say Yes Dog
The seventh track of Say Yes Dog's 2019 album Voyage: electro-pop that wraps its 1980s-style synths and synthetic drums in R&B, with a rhythm one critic heard as a cousin of I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
Say Yes Dog
The two-minute fifth track of Say Yes Dog's second album Voyage (2019), a song built around one line, on a record a critic heard as warmer and more analog than the trio's debut.
Say Yes Dog
The fourth track of Say Yes Dog's 2019 album Voyage: one of its quiet, spacey songs, which one German critic heard as close to Air and another picked as the album's track to try first.
Say Yes Dog
A late track on Say Yes Dog's 2015 debut album Plastic Love that reviewers heard as the record's vulnerable, slightly offbeat turn: funky keyboard touches, echoing choruses and a band that wanted real synthesizers and live drums.
Say Yes Dog
The second track of Say Yes Dog's 2013 debut EP A Friend: electric-piano-led synth-pop, a little more introspective than the title track, its buzzing synths warming a gloomy subject.
Satori, Miou Amadee, Crussen
Crussen's ten-minute remix of Days Without You, the song the Dutch producer Satori recorded with the singer Miou Amadee for his album In Between Worlds: the opening track of the third and last remix EP Underyourskin Records released in March 2016.
Sascha Braemer
The title track of No Home, the 2015 debut album of the Berlin DJ and producer Sascha Braemer on WhatIPlay and Kontor: one of the album's few songs with vocals, written with Dan Caster and Boris Köhler, whose tinkling synths and main melody one critic traced to the 1980s and to Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy.
Ronald Christoph, Orlando
The original mix of Take Off, Baby!, the 2012 single of the Berlin producer Ronald Christoph with the Belgian singer Orlando, released on vinyl and as a download by EVAMORE MUSIC: almost seven minutes of club music that later travelled, shortened, onto a Paris lounge compilation.
Ron Flatter, Nick D-Lite
A seven-minute 2013 collaboration between the Halle producer Ron Flatter and Nick D-Lite, released on Oliver Koletzki's Stil vor Talent and chosen to open the label's restaurant compilation Schneeweiß II.
Robag Wruhme
A short, vocal track from Wuzzelbud KK, the 2004 debut album of the Jena producer Robag Wruhme on Musik Krause: three minutes forty with words and voice by Delhia, later licensed to Sonar Kollektiv as a remix single and carried onto many lounge compilations.
Red Axes
Tel Aviv duo Red Axes and the São Paulo-born singer Abrão on the 2013 Correspondant record that made both names: psychedelic house with a weatherbeaten bassline, kinky cowbells, raspy guitar hooks and an eccentric vocal.
Radio Citizen, Bajka
Summer Days is the third track of Hope and Despair, the 2010 Ubiquity album by Niko Schabel's Radio Citizen, a song the singer Bajka wrote herself, music and lyrics: in the label's words the more organic and live of her three appearances on the record.
Purple Disco Machine, Lorenz Rhode
The opening track of Soulmatic, the 2017 debut album of the Dresden producer Purple Disco Machine: written with Lorenz Rhode, a German musician whose specialty is the talk box, and credited to Rhode as featured artist, co-producer and talk box player.
Purple Disco Machine, Boris Dlugosch, Karen Harding
Love for Days is the vocal house song Purple Disco Machine made with the Hamburg producer Boris Dlugosch and the English singer Karen Harding for his 2017 debut album Soulmatic, later remixed by Kenny Dope, Lee Foss and Motez.
Purple Disco Machine
Tino Piontek's 2017 club single as Purple Disco Machine, built on samples of Sylvester and Patrick Cowley's Do Ya Wanna Funk and Hot Streak's Body Work, here in the four-minute version of his debut album Soulmatic.
Poni Hoax, Olga Kouklaki
Poni Hoax's 2006 club hit, sung not by Nicolas Ker but by the Greek singer Olga Kouklaki: a disco bassline, a catchy keyboard refrain and a ghostly vocal about an iced game of chess in Budapest, heard here in its 2025 remaster.
Poncho Warwick
Poncho Warwick, the alias of the Los Angeles artist Wally Callerio, turns Tainted Love into a seven-minute jazzy reinterpretation that opened a 2011 soulful house mix and later joined the Buddha-Bar Hotel: Paris DJ mix.
Pitto
The track on which Pitto sings himself, from his 2011 debut album on Green: the label heard heartfelt music in it, and a Polish review called it the one exception on a dreamy record, indie pop with a kick and a store of positive energy.
Pischinger & Dermota, Anne Eck
Can't Breathe is the fifth track of Reisedrang, the 2015 debut album of the Viennese duo Pischinger & Dermota on 35 Grad Records, with lyrics and vocals by the Viennese singer-songwriter Anne Eck, and the album's single, released that September with a video and a radio edit.
Phonique, Antonia Vai
The first single from Phonique's fourth album Green Supreme, sung and written by Antonia Vai: a 7:28 piece of deep house in which, for Soundplate, the delicate vocal and the deep production balance perfectly.
Phil Kieran
The title track of Belfast producer Phil Kieran's fourth album, released by Hot Creations in 2016: Jess Brien's and Kieran's voices with bass, guitar, cello, violin and percussion, from a record meant to feel like the drive home at the end of the night.
Peggy Gou
The shorter edit of Peggy Gou's 2019 Starry Night: acid-tinged piano house with machine claps, a staccato bassline and a vocal in Korean and English about how quickly popularity and tastes change.
Parra for Cuva, Anna Naklab
The closing track of Parra for Cuva and Anna Naklab's 2013 Fading Nights EP, the song that first won over the label Délicieuse: ethereal synth arpeggios coming and going under Naklab's voice, deep house that the label called Deep Pop.
Parra for Cuva, Anna Naklab
The middle track of Fading Nights, the 2013 debut EP of Parra for Cuva with Anna Naklab on Bordeaux's Délicieuse Records: six and a half minutes of melodic deep house that the label heard as sensual, easy and full.
Parra for Cuva, Anna Naklab
Seven minutes from Parra for Cuva and Anna Naklab, the title track of their 2013 EP on Délicieuse: a hypnotic beat and synths under an emotional voice, deep house with the pull of pop.
Paji
The title track of Six O'Clock E.P., a 2013 Kittball record by Paji, the Aachen-born, Berlin-based producer Pajwan Faroch, who joins electronic music with classical instruments: six and a half minutes filed under deep house and techno.
Pablo Nouvelle, Fiona Daniel
The 2012 debut single of the Bern producer Pablo Nouvelle, built from a song by the Zurich singer Fiona Daniel that he sampled to win her over: her voice, sung torchily, over sample-based production, with a friend's short film as its video.
Oliver Koletzki, Fran
The first single from Oliver Koletzki's 2009 album Großstadtmärchen, with the newcomer Fran singing an electronic love story about the night turning into day over a piano melody and a smooth, poppy beat.
Oliver Koletzki, Fran
The first single of Lovestoned, the 2010 album the German producer Oliver Koletzki made with the singer Fran: a love song his label called a thrilling trip into 1980s pop, all synthesizers and clap snares, heard here in its original version.
Nôze, Wareika
The fourth track of Dring, the 2011 Get Physical album of the Parisian duo Nôze, made with the Hamburg live trio Wareika: a bluesy house track that came out first, as a radio edit, on the single Dring Dring / Exodus.
Nu, Jo.Ke, Acid Pauli
Acid Pauli, the former Notwist programmer Martin Gretschmann, remixes Nu and Jo.Ke's Bar 25 sunset song for the 2011 We Love The Sun EP, keeping the same vocal track and, as one Swiss review heard it, making the whole thing more cheerful.
Nu
The third track of Nu's 2011 We Love The Sun EP on Bar 25 Music, made with Christopher Schwarzwälder: a danceable original mix with short vocal snippets, wind instruments and even harmonica, which a Swiss club magazine called the record's real insider tip.
Nonku Phiri
Nonku Phiri's 2015 debut solo single, produced by Narch Beats of PHFat: a sultry tale of a fling gone wrong, set to hazy beats, click percussion and a deep, bass-rooted beat grown from jams on old-school kwaito.
Noir, Haze, Solomun
Moodymann's edit of Solomun's vocal mix of Around by Noir & Haze, cut to 3:20 inside his DJ-Kicks mix for !K7 in 2016: Resident Advisor's remix of the year 2011, heard as one chapter of a Detroit DJ's long, winding set.
Nightmares On Wax
The opener of Nightmares On Wax's 1995 album Smokers Delight: George Evelyn's second turn on a loop from Quincy Jones's Summer in the City, a slow, cinematic piece of trip-hop that one reviewer called four glorious minutes of chill out.
Nicole Moudaber, Carl Cox, Danny Tenaglia
Danny Tenaglia's remix of See You Next Tuesday, the 2014 techno collaboration of Nicole Moudaber and Carl Cox, released in December 2017 on her label MOOD; its title points back to Twilo, the New York club where Tenaglia began a Saturday residency in 1996.
Nicola Cruz
A slow, dub-tinged cumbia from Prender el Alma, the 2015 debut on which Ecuadorian producer Nicola Cruz set out his Andes Step: plucked, reverberated guitar over a laid-back rhythm section, made, in his words, for forgetting past love affairs.
NTO
Time is the A-side of a 2015 Hungry Music single by the Marseille producer then called N'to and now NTO, whose melodic techno is known for repetition, bass-driven rhythm and slowly evolving melodic motifs.
NTEIBINT, Σtella
Greek producer NTEIBINT and Athenian singer Σtella's 2015 love song on Belgium's Eskimo Recordings: a steady-paced electronic track with disco flourishes, held together by vocal hooks and muted guitars in the chorus.
Muse
The lead single of Muse's 2009 album The Resistance: a glam-rock stomp that critics compared to the Doctor Who theme, a call to rise up against control, and the band's best-selling single.
Mount Sims
One of the dark and intense tracks of the American edition of UltraSex, Mount Sims' 2002 debut on Emperor Norton: old-school electronics combined with modern techno layers, in the words of Exclaim's review.
Monkey Safari
An eight-minute track from HI, the 2019 third album of the Halle brothers Monkey Safari on their own label Hommage, which a premiere heard as the feeling of leaving a club at dawn, its brighter side revealed like a sunrise.
Michelle Gurevich
Left You At The Farm is a home-recorded ballad from Party Girl, the 2007 debut Michelle Gurevich made as Chinawoman at home in Montreal: a song about a promise to stay until the end, and leaving instead.
Micatone
The second track of Is You Is, the 2003 album of the Berlin band Micatone on Sonar Kollektiv: a song sung by Lisa Bassenge over real instruments with a little help from machines, also released as a 12-inch single with a Tiefschwarz remix for the clubs.
Metronomy
The third single from Metronomy's The English Riviera (2011): jolting synths, high-pitched harmonies and Joseph Mount's list of the cities this stretch of Devon coast is not, a summer song that one critic called the album's centrepiece.
Melody Gardot, Bakermat
The Dutch producer Bakermat's 2016 remix of Same to You, a song from Melody Gardot's fourth album Currency of Man, released by Decca as a single in July 2016: four minutes that carry a Larry Klein production into house music.
Matzak, Forensic
French producer Matzak hands the microphone to the hip-hop troupe Forensic on his 2010 album Bring Me the Moon: rolling vocals over a strutting beat and plinking synths, a track Resident Advisor noted for its Skeletor reference.
Massive Attack, Gui Boratto
Gui Boratto's remix of Massive Attack's Paradise Circus, with Hope Sandoval's voice: a long, tense club reworking that Resident Advisor called Trentemøller-esque and better than the original, here in the 7:41 cut of the Madrid Fashion Week compilation.
Mario Basanov
The 2012 Needwant single of the Lithuanian producer Mario Basanov, later known as Ten Walls: a slow-motion house original with a smooth, sultry vocal by Minalga, the follow-up to his Lonely Days.
Marc Houle, Miss Kittin
The title track of a 2013 Items & Things EP that paired the label's co-founder Marc Houle with Miss Kittin: what the label called a jagged hybrid of Houle's signature style and Kittin's deadpan vocal talent.
Marbert Rocel
Track ten of Catch A Bird, the 2009 Compost Records album by the Thuringian trio Marbert Rocel: four minutes credited to Marcel Aue's programming and Panthera Krause's saxophone, by a band that says it makes music in major with chords in minor.
Marbert Rocel
The fourth and, at 6:23, the longest track of Small Hours, Marbert Rocel's 2012 album on Compost Records: a record the Leipzig band describes as ballads at 130 bpm, moving from early evening to early morning.
Marbert Rocel
The shortest track on Catch A Bird, the 2009 Compost Records album by the Thuringian trio Marbert Rocel: three minutes of Antje Seifarth's voice over bass, acoustic guitar, saxophone and programmed beats, by a band that says it makes music in major with chords in minor.
Marbert Rocel
Like Abby Said is the eleventh track of Marbert Rocel's Catch A Bird, a Leipzig trio's song of programmed beats, bass, synthesizer and saxophone around Antje Seifarth's voice, made in major with chords in minor.
L.E.J
Three friends from Saint-Denis sing the Hunger Games murder ballad with a string section and a backing choir: the cover that opens L.E.J's 2015 album En attendant l'album, first sung at the Paris premiere of Mockingjay Part 2.
Kölsch
The brass-infused Grey, first a Kompakt Speicher 12-inch and then one of the tracks named for grey on Kölsch's 2017 album 1989, a record about grey teenage years built on melodies that break through like sun through cloud.
Kungs, Luke Pritchard
The opening track of Layers, the 2016 debut album of the French producer Kungs, written with and sung by Luke Pritchard of The Kooks, the band Kungs grew up hearing with his father.
Klyne
Klyne's second single is a compact slice of electronic pop, staccato synth lines under Nick Klein's soulful voice, about chasing a lifelong desire past the fear that fate has already decided.
KlangTherapeuten, Melokind
The Saarland producer Melokind stretches KlangTherapeuten's Perlentaucher, the pearl diver, to seven and a half minutes at 125 BPM on the duo's 2013 Lochmann Records EP, beside remixes by Robin Schulz and Matthias Kick.
Kellerkind
The deep house single that the Swiss producer Marco Biagini, alias Kellerkind, released on Sirion Records in 2012 and put on his album Basement Story, with a birthday-party video shot in the Bern club KAPITEL Bollwerk.
Katalyst, Stephanie McKay
The Sydney producer Katalyst opens his third album, Deep Impressions, with reggae soul: tremolo guitar and a driving bass under the floating melodies of his long-time collaborator, the American soul singer Stephanie McKay.
Kalabrese, Sarah Palin
The B-side of Rumpelmusig's 2014 twelve-inch Hello Asshole / Kafi Lied: Kalabrese's ode to the morning coffee, sung with the Zurich singer Sarah Palin, a choir from his Rumpelorchester and, in the label's words, his characteristic analogue synth pads.
Kalabrese
The eighth track of Independent Dancer, the 2013 album of the Zurich producer Kalabrese on his label Rumpelmusig: an airy ballad over a light bossa nova rhythm, with cello by Dominik Löhrer and an uneasy piano under a song about the stresses of ambition.
K.Flay, Aire Atlantica
Aire Atlantica's remix of Blood in the Cut, the breakup anthem that earned K.Flay a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song, collected on the Night Street and Interscope remix release of 2017: an alternative rock song moved into electronic dance-pop.
Junior
The first single from Self Fulfilling Prophets, the 2014 debut of the Berlin-Missouri duo Junior: laconic vocals over a bubbling bass and simple, hypnotic synths, a driving electro-pop song with cynical words.
Joris Delacroix, Synapson, Schérazade
The one track on Joris Delacroix's 2018 album Night Visions made with Synapson and sung by Schérazade: the collaboration he says they were supposed to make together, from a record fed by the nights he plays.
Joachim Pastor
Eternity is Joachim Pastor's 2016 single for Hungry Music, the Aix-en-Provence label he founded with Worakls and N'to: six minutes of melodic techno from a conservatory-trained producer who calls himself an analog gear geek.
Jeanne Added
The first single from Jeanne Added's debut album Be Sensational: two and a half minutes of militaristic mood, a simple melody over a stuttered march rhythm and her own voice multiplied into choirs that warn of a coming war.
Jain
One of the six songs and versions Jain added to Zanaka in November 2016, also released on their own as the Zanaka EP: written by Jain, arranged, produced and mixed by Yodelice, with Jain on keyboards and Yodelice on guitar and bass.
JANIS
Hypnotized, the 2015 single with which the French singer once known as Sliimy returned as a Paris electro-pop producer, in its 4:08 audio version; its video, directed by Ludovic Zuili, filmed dancers under the influence of hypnosis.
Hindi Zahra
Imik Si Mik, Little by Little, is the song on Hindi Zahra's 2010 debut Handmade that begins in Shilha, the Berber language of her family, and moves without pause into jazz; she produced, arranged and mixed it herself, and it is heard here in its remastered form.
Hijacked
A track from Rising Path, the self-released 2016 EP of the Paris duo Hijacked, in which the steel-drum player and producer Clément Bazin composes and mixes and Jésabel Domberger writes, sings and directed the video.
Hermanos Inglesos, meme
The 2010 single of the Belgian brothers Cedric and Didier Engels, produced with Ramon Tapia: the three-and-a-half-minute radio edit of Wanderland, sung by Lara Chedraoui of Intergalactic Lovers under the name meme.
Her, AnnenMayKantereit, Roméo Elvis
On the 2018 debut album of the French band Her, the German band AnnenMayKantereit and the Belgian rapper Roméo Elvis join a satire of social media's dictates set over electro, written by Victor Solf and the late Simon Carpentier.
Her
The first song the Rennes duo Her put online, in 2015: a sensual, soulful love poem to women by Victor Solf and Simon Carpentier, later on Her Tape #1 and on their only album, Her (2018).
Henry Mancini
Audrey Hepburn sings Moon River as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961): a small, folk-like waltz that Henry Mancini wrote for her range and Johnny Mercer filled with his Savannah childhood, kept in the film over a studio executive's objection.
GusGus
The Icelandic collective GusGus at their peak on Arabian Horse (Kompakt, 2011): a funky house groove, heated synth atmospheres and the duet of Daníel Ágúst and Urður Hákonardóttir, also released as a single.
Groovejuice
The original mix of Café Prague, the 2010 single Niels Reinhard released as Groovejuice on the Mannheim label 120dB Records: a tech house track that the label sold on its hypnotic jazz piano and snare drums in the style of Gene Krupa.
Gotan Project
The track of Gotan Project's debut album La Revancha del Tango that took electro-tango into the cinema, named after the first name of Buenos Aires and heard in The Bourne Identity, Shall We Dance? and Knight and Day.
Gater, Chesty Morganstein
Taboo is the title track of the 2002 debut EP by Gater, the New York producer Brian Suarez, released on Zombie Nation's new Munich label Dekathlon: an electroclash song sung by his friend Chesty Morganstein, whose lyric plays on ambiguity and is, by its author's account, about a board game.
Gabriella Cilmi
Xenomania's swinging, retro-sounding pop with subtle electro touches, and a sixteen-year-old Gabriella Cilmi singing it in a voice a critic called sweet and coarse at once: her breakthrough, a number one in Australia.
Francis Harris
The first single from Leland, the 2012 debut album the Brooklyn producer Francis Harris wrote as a requiem for his father: a contemplative, atmospheric pop song in a deep house frame, sung by the Danish singer Gry with trumpet by Greg Paulus.
Flume, Chet Faker
The slow, head-nodding single of Flume and Chet Faker's joint EP Lockjaw: Faker's sultry voice over Flume's swishing synths and deep bass, with a video of the Brooklyn dancer Storyboard P.
Federleicht
The B-side of Federleicht's On The Streets Xtra 10-inch on Connaisseur Recordings: an eight-minute track by Florian Schirmacher and Marc Bammann, pressed opposite Kollektiv Turmstrasse's Let Freedom Ring remix.
Faul & Wad, PNAU
The German DJ and producer Pretty Pink, known for a low, bass-heavy deep house, remixes Faul & Wad Ad and Pnau's German number one, a track built on the children's-choir refrain of Pnau's Baby.
FEATHERED SUN
The eight-minute title track of the Berlin collective Feathered Sun's 2015 Saubohnen EP on Circus Company: six friends, among them Acid Pauli, Raz Ohara and Nu, whose label heard playful vocal intonations and live instruments over laid-back grooves.
Etienne de Crécy, Alex Gopher, Asher Roth
Etienne de Crécy's low-funk groove with his old friend Alex Gopher, from Super Discount 3, given a vocal by the American rapper Asher Roth: the 2015 Vocal Mix, whose video follows a morning commute through Los Angeles.
Estelle, Kanye West
Estelle's breezy R&B and disco-funk hit about falling for an American suitor, built by will.i.am on the instrumental of his own Impatient and joined by a Kanye West verse; it went to number one in Britain and won a Grammy.
Emika
The sixth track of Emika's self-produced 2015 album DREI and the one that strays furthest from her usual sound: a real guitar, a Banks-like R&B intimacy and, to one critic, a drift towards twisted lounge jazz.
Emika
The fifth track of DREI, Emika's self-produced 2015 album, where the record turns towards seductive R&B pop; a critic heard its blissful decay as familiar to fans of The xx, and a remix 12-inch later turned it into dubby techno.
Emika
The eighth track of DREI, Emika's self-produced 2015 album: one of the songs where, as Ibiza Spotlight heard it, the record nudges towards seductive R&B pop, with a moody allure that reminded The Electricity Club of Róisín Murphy.
Emika
Rache (Revenge), the seventh track of DREI, the 2015 album Emika reportedly wrote in two weeks and produced and mixed herself: a song Spectrum Culture heard as a celebration beneath a dark exterior, her revenge on the corporate monolith of the music industry.
Emika
The second track of Emika's DREI and its promo single in April 2015: intricate pulsing layers, an electroclash-inspired sound and a solemn, detached vocal, written, produced and mixed by Emika herself.
Emika
The third track of Emika's 2015 album DREI, a prelude of under two minutes that Spectrum Culture heard as a dissonant trip-hop duet, leading into the song Miracles that follows it.
Emika
The fourth track of Emika's DREI (2015), which follows its own short prelude: a vampish song in which she pitches her voice down to duet with herself, written, produced and mixed by Emika alone.
Emika
The closing track of DREI, the 2015 album Emika wrote in two weeks and produced and mixed herself: a dubbed-out soundscape with eerie piano chords that one critic heard as a song about the confusion of artistic limits.
Emika
The opening track of DREI, the 2015 album Emika reportedly wrote in two weeks and produced and mixed herself: a song about limits and freedom, with pitch-shifted vocals, sibilant cut-ups used as percussion and her trademark sub-bass.
Dusty Kid
Dusty Kid's homage to Bach, its melody reshaped to fit the notes that spell his name, B-A-C-H: a techno track from A Raver's Diary (2009) with eerie synths and a progressive build, here in its ten-minute extended version.
Dirty Doering
Catalogue number KATER001: the tech house track that opened Katermukke, the Berlin label Dirty Doering, a former Bar 25 resident, founded in 2011, and that the label's DJ mixes still carried eight years later.
David Guetta, Bebe Rexha, J Balvin
The seventh single from David Guetta's 2018 album 7: a Latin-tinged dance-pop song in which Bebe Rexha demands that a suspect lover say her name and J Balvin answers in Spanish, built, Guetta said, from very few elements.
Daso
The A-side of Daso's 2007 Meine Idee EP on Ghostly's Spectral Sound: a euphoric eight-minute ascent that became a Panorama Bar favourite and, for Resident Advisor, one of the best songs of the century so far.
Dapayk & Padberg, Caro, Nôze
The duo Nôze's 2008 remix of Island, the Dapayk & Padberg song with Caro, released on Mo's Ferry's Black Beauty Rmxs Part 2 and mixed by Will Saul into his Balance 015 compilation a year later: the version of the song that DJ compilations kept returning to.
Daft Punk
The radio edit of the Grammy-winning live Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, recorded at Bercy in June 2007, where Daft Punk set the walking bassline of Around the World under the bridge of their Discovery hit.
Console
The second track of Herself, the 2010 album Martin Gretschmann released as Console on Disko B: the first big appearance of the singer Miriam Osterrieder, and the record's only song with a straight bass drum.
Compuphonic, Marques Toliver
Belgian producer Compuphonic and the American soul singer and violinist Marques Toliver made Sunset in 2012: pained vocals over deep, heartbroken house beats, an underground hit that spread by word of mouth and kept being remixed for years.
Clyde P
Blow closes Sleep And Fuck, the October 2014 EP the Parisian producer Clyde P released on CUFF, the label whose G-house sound Mixmag celebrated; a year later it was picked for the label's best-of mix FFUC Vol. 2.
Claptone, Say Yes Dog
The B-side of Claptone's 2016 Heartbeat single: a new original blending pop and house, with the masked Berlin producer at the keys and the Berlin trio Say Yes Dog on vocals.
Christopher Schwarzwälder, Iannis Ritter
The opening track of Three Rivers EP, released on the Berlin label URSL in 2015: almost seven minutes of club music by Christopher Schwarzwälder and Iannis Ritter, filed under deep house and tech house.
Chicken Lips
The eight-minute 12-inch version of Chicken Lips' 2012 single for Southern Fried, a disco-minded house track whose title spells out Don't Rain On My Parade and which one reviewer heard as a fun funk workout turning clattery and percussive.
Chaim, Meital De Razon
The Tel Aviv producer Chaim's 2010 BPitch Control single with the singer Meital De Razon, in its original version of seven minutes forty: song-minded tech house that his debut album Alive remade a year later.
CAMELPHAT, Elderbrook
The full-length club mix of Cola, the 2017 Defected single that became one of the defining tunes of Ibiza that summer: moody pads, a bouncing bass line and Elderbrook's hypnotic vocal, later nominated for the Grammy for Best Dance Recording.
Bronski Beat
Bronski Beat's cover of the Gershwins' Porgy and Bess song in its full album version from The Age of Consent (1984): sleek synth-pop, a clarinet solo and a gay male choir around Jimmy Somerville.
Brasstronaut
Opportunity by the Vancouver band Brasstronaut, the original mix on the limited Millionhands 12-inch of 2013: a song the label heard channelling the loose, discoid funk of ESG and Hercules & Love Affair, set between remixes by Jacques Renault and OFFMSG.
Boys Noize
The summer track of Boys Noize's 2013 Go Hard EP: in his own words a 909 acid and disco-house piece, happy disco samples and acid blips looped over and over, a sunny departure from his heavy-hitting electro.
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack's 1968 cover of the Mamas and the Papas' California Dreamin', from his debut solo album Fly Me to the Moon: a jaunty folk-pop hit turned into rough-voiced soul, with a coda he invents himself.
Black Rose, Luisa Gerstein
Black Rose, the duo of Henrik Schwarz and Jesse Rose, with Luisa Gerstein singing: a soulful, joyous, Latin-flavoured house track first heard in Schwarz's Boiler Room set and released on his label Sunday-Music in 2013.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir, Trio Gudmundar Ingólfssonar
On Gling-Gló, the 1990 album of Icelandic popular songs she recorded with a veteran piano trio, Björk sings Pabbi minn, an Icelandic version of the Swiss song O mein Papa, a daughter's memory of her father, in an arrangement unlike the rest of the record.
Björk
Björk's biggest hit was a 1951 Betty Hutton B-side she first heard on a tour bus: a big band cover that lurches between whispered calm and shouted joy, the third single from Post, with a Spike Jonze video of a whole street breaking into dance.
Belleruche
A lightly funky, danceable track from Belleruche's darker fourth album Rollerchain (Tru Thoughts, 2012): tribal rhythms and a melody that will not leave, which one German critic heard as a distant cousin of Moloko.
Belleruche
Anything You Want (Not That) opened Belleruche's second album The Express (Tru Thoughts, 2008) and was its first single: Kathrin deBoer's smoky voice over a tougher-edged beat, with Ricky Fabulous on guitar and DJ Modest on turntables.
Bedouin Soundclash
Jay Malinowski of the Toronto band Bedouin Soundclash and the Montreal singer Cœur de pirate sing a duet the BBC called the peak of Light the Horizon (2010): a sinuous, witty study of dysfunction, like Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra attempting Europop.
Beauty Freak, Malee
The 2017 debut single of Beauty Freak, three DJs from Lille, sung by Stéphane Chenu and MaLee: electro-swing with a 1960s air that later joined the soundtrack of Luc Besson's film Anna in an edit of its own.
Be Svendsen
Circle, the 2014 single that the Copenhagen producer Be Svendsen released on the Danish label Iboga Records: six minutes of deep house that the label described as groovy summer vibes and organic vibes in a spirit of celebration.
Bakermat, GoldFish, Marie Plassard
The radio edit of Games Continued, the 2016 collaboration of the Dutch producer Bakermat and the South African duo GoldFish with the Parisian singer Marie Plassard: the second song of Bakermat's Games EP, chosen as Corona's Sunsets anthem that year.
Bakermat, Alex Clare
Living, the 2016 single of the Dutch DJ and producer Bakermat with the English singer Alex Clare: a deep house song with a summer sound that reached the Dutch Tipparade and was used in television commercials, including one for Suzuki.
Ash, Naila
The Cairo-born, Montreal-based producer Ash and the singer Naila remake Sing It Back, the 1998 song Róisín Murphy and Mark Brydon wrote for Moloko, as a deep house track: released in February 2018 on Ash's own label, it charted on Greece's most Shazamed songs.
Asaf Avidan & the Mojos, Wankelmut
The radio edit of the remix a Berlin philosophy student made of Asaf Avidan's Reckoning Song without asking: cut, filtered and set on a simple four-four groove, it went from SoundCloud to number one across Europe in 2012.
Artenvielfalt, The Project, Miss NatNat
A short deep house song by the German producer duo Artenvielfalt with The Project and the singer Miss NatNat, released by the French label Délicieuse: three minutes thirty-nine, with a club mix and two remixes beside it.
Alec Troniq, GABRIEL VITEL
The longest track of The Aviating, the 2015 EP the Dresden live-act partners Alec Troniq and Gabriel Vitel wrote and produced together for Broque: almost nine minutes of what the label called swinging yet narrative house music, a song with words built for the dancefloor.
Alec Troniq, GABRIEL VITEL
The opening track of Alec Troniq's 2013 EP Mind Mill on the German label Broque, sung by Gabriel Vitel: almost seven minutes of house and tech house that Broque later answered with a whole release of other artists' versions of it.
Agoria, NOEMIE
The eighth track of Drift, Agoria's 2019 album on his own label Sapiens: what Modzik called a sung digression from his instrumental Up All Night, composed with Rami Khalifé and carried by the voice of NOEMIE, on her first track.
Wax Tailor
Wax Tailor's Que Sera, his early track built on Doris Day's song from Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, re-orchestrated in 2014 for the concerts with a 35-piece orchestra and a 17-voice choir that marked ten years of his music.
Utah Jazz
Liquid funk from Utah Jazz's 2010 album Vintage, finished in a few sleepless early-morning hours on headphones: drum and bass that, in its maker's words, fuses prog rock piano samples with a great blues vocal and guitar.
Trinidad Senolia
You Showed Me is the love story of Trinidad Senolia's 2014 EP Postcards From Strangers: a seventies-inspired dialogue between a heroine and her hero, wound around the Turtles' classic and turned, in the label's words, into a deep soulful groove.
Trauma
Traum:a turns Bobby Hebb's 1960s standard Sunny into deep house for 2014; the extended mix, at 5:26, gives the old melody two more minutes of room than the radio edit.
Tones And I
The title track of Tones And I's 2019 debut EP, written by Toni Watson and produced by Konstantin Kersting: a generational anthem of horns, finger snaps and a spoken-word elder that split critics between rallying cry and empty gesture.
Tones And I
Tones and I's 2019 song about busking, built by producer Konstantin Kersting from the loop-station arrangement she played on the street, which spent 24 weeks at number one in Australia and became one of the most streamed songs on Spotify.
Tom Fire, Linval Thompson
No Food brings the Jamaican roots singer and producer Linval Thompson to Low Fidelity, the 2015 second album of the Paris producer and beatmaker Tom Fire: reggae from a studio built on keyboards, with a refrain a dub reviewer promised would stay in your head.
Tinush
Je Veux, French for 'I want', opens the 2019 debut album the Berlin producer Tinush released himself, first listed as the Tinnitush EP and now titled Collection 01: four and a half minutes from a producer who builds on accessible club music and a grounding in jazz.
Timmy Trumpet, Vini Vici
The Australian trumpeter-DJ Timmy Trumpet and the Israeli psytrance duo Vini Vici meet again on Thunder, a 2020 Dharma single that WeRaveYou heard as a kick-and-bass track infused with trumpet sounds, under three minutes long.
Timmy Trumpet, Gabry Ponte
The Australian trumpeter and DJ Timmy Trumpet and Eiffel 65's Gabry Ponte take the Gary Jules piano version of Tears for Fears' Mad World to the festival stage: a pitched-up vocal, a piano drop and trumpet runs, with a video shot in Philadelphia in November 2020.
Tim Love Lee
Tim 'Love' Lee's previously unreleased dub of New Young Pony Club, once signed to his Tummy Touch label as Organic Audio, made in his Brooklyn studio on a modified vintage radio mixing board for the label's fifteenth-anniversary album Fully Bearded in 2011.
The White Stripes
The White Stripes' 2003 opener of Elephant: a seven-note riff played on a guitar pitched down an octave, Meg White's heartbeat drum and a song with no sung chorus, which became a stadium chant around the world.
The Weeknd
The Weeknd's Blinding Lights, written and produced with Max Martin and Oscar Holter, is a neon 1980s pastiche of racing drum machines and a chiming synth hook that became the most streamed song in Spotify's history.
The Toilet Bowl Cleaners
The biggest hit of Matt Farley's toilet-humour band The Toilet Bowl Cleaners: a two-minute song named for the word children shout at smart speakers, and by his estimate streamed millions of times on Amazon Music.
The Source, Candi Staton, The Rhythm Masters for Seven Music Promotions
The radio edit of the New Voyager Mix, the 2006 remake of You Got The Love that took Candi Staton's gospel-rooted vocal back into the UK top ten for the third time, number 7, on Positiva.
The Retrosettes Sister Band
The Retrosettes' cover of Candi Staton's You Got The Love opens Paolo Sorrentino's 2015 film Youth, sung by a Manchester band's chanteuse on a spinning podium, and became the title track of its soundtrack.
The Lost Fingers
The Quebec trio The Lost Fingers open their debut, Lost in the 80's, by turning Technotronic's 1989 hip-house hit into gypsy jazz for two guitars and double bass, in the manner of Django Reinhardt.
The Limp Twins
The Limp Twins were Will 'Quantic' Holland and Russ Porter, and Sunday Driver comes from the funky, guitar-driven album they made in their bedrooms for Tru Thoughts in 2003: three and a half unhurried minutes that the Hôtel Costes series later put on its seventh volume.
The Colorist Orchestra, Emilíana Torrini
The Belgian ensemble The Colorist Orchestra and Emilíana Torrini rework her 2009 hit Jungle Drum live, with homemade percussion, a piano line doubled on bass and strings that lift its euphoria.
The Avener, Ane Brun
The French electro-house producer Don Rimini's version of The Avener's rework of Ane Brun, a 5:48 track released in July 2016 on We Go Deep, Saison 3, a 96 Musique compilation mixed by The Avener himself.
Swing Republic, The Mills Brothers
Danish electro-swing project Swing Republic puts the Mills Brothers, the vocal quartet who sang Moanin' for You for Decca in 1935, on a 2015 dance record: a film song first recorded in 1929, old voices and new electronics.
Super Flu, Solomun
Solomun's eight-minute remix of mygut, from the Halle duo Super Flu's 2017 album Musik 3: an after-hours deep house track built on a warm bassline, a breakdown of reverb-soaked, faintly unsettling vocals and a piano that arrives only in the last minute.
Stimming, David Christensen, Bernd Ruf
Stimming's original November Morning: blue, melancholic house chords, a pseudo violin, field recordings and his own whistle, building to a climax that is not obvious but effective; the track he later had played by a 60-piece orchestra.
Stepart, Pupajim
The Paris producer Stepart and Stand High Patrol's MC Pupajim on the 2013 release that introduced Stepart on the sound system's own label: dark, lo-fi electro dub that a reviewer found better suited to headphones than to a sound system.
Son Of Dave
Devil Take My Soul is the Son of Dave song with Martina Topley-Bird on the chorus: a pact with the devil for one more night, from the 2006 album O2 on which the Canadian harmonica player and beatboxer Benjamin Darvill set old blues against modern R&B.
Sofa Surfers, Mani Obeya
An album track from Superluminal, the Viennese band's 2012 record that Falter hailed as proof of their standing: Broken Together is sung by Mani Obeya, the band's singer since 2004, here credited as a featured artist.
Slove, Sarah Rebecca
The radio edit of Flash, the 2011 single of the French duo Slove, sung by Mississippi-born Sarah Rebecca Krebs: seductive electro-pop that a reviewer called the highlight of their album Le Danse.
Slackwax, Anna Leyne
The best-known song of the Nuremberg production duo Slackwax, sung by Anna Leyne: written to order as the music of a BMW campaign, released in 2010, carried onto their 2013 debut album Night Out and covered by Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa.
Simion, Roland Clark
The German producer Simion and the house veteran Roland Clark on Lost, a late-night deep house club mix first released on Suara in 2014, heard here in the 6:09 cut from Buddha Bar Clubbing by Ravin.
Seth XVI
The Lyon singer and self-taught producer Seth XVI introduced himself with Give It All, the 2017 single from his debut EP Symbolic on DDM Recordings: French electro-pop in which voice, guitar and piano matter more than the beat.
Session Victim
An early track by the German duo Session Victim, first pressed on Wolf Music's Paw to the Floor EP in 2010: seven minutes of disco-flecked deep house whose title reads like a thank-you note to the dance floor.
Seelenluft
Swiss producer Beat Solèr, as Seelenluft, with Florian Horwath on vocals, turns America's 1972 hit into light, airy Balearic disco-pop, the cover PopMatters singled out on the 2008 album Birds and Plants and Rocks and Things.
Say Yes Dog
The opening track of Say Yes Dog's 2015 debut album Plastic Love: synth-pop in which hopeful synth notes meet a wary voice, singing of the fear that too many words damage a relationship.
Say Yes Dog
The first single from Say Yes Dog's 2015 debut album Plastic Love: bouncy electronic melodies in support of the trio's vocal harmonies, and the strong hook that made it the album's calling card.
Say Yes Dog
A single from Say Yes Dog's 2015 debut album Plastic Love, titled after the material the album keeps returning to: phasing synths, a groovy bass and a song that reviewers heard working on the dance floor.
Say Yes Dog
The second single from Say Yes Dog's 2019 album Voyage: upbeat electro-pop that leans harder on the bass than the rest of the record, with 80s-style synths and a video of one man dancing at the back of a crowd.
Say Yes Dog
A 2015 single from Say Yes Dog's debut album Plastic Love, recorded in Haarlem: synth-pop that one critic heard as a nod to the Neue Deutsche Welle and another singled out for its funky keystrokes and echoing choruses.
Say Yes Dog
The third single from Say Yes Dog's 2019 album Voyage: catchy electro-pop with an 1980s sheen, and a video by Adam Sait that turns its chorus hook into a liberating mantra.
Say Yes Dog
The opening track and first single of Say Yes Dog's 2019 album Voyage: soft synth-pop that starts from an old recording of a rocket launch and drifts out into space.
Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone
The duet of City of Stars from La La Land: Justin Hurwitz's melody and Pasek and Paul's lyric, sung by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone around a piano, and the winner of the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Rodríguez
Rich Folks Hoax, from Rodríguez's 1970 debut Cold Fact, is a short, dark piece of Detroit psych-folk aimed at the wealthy, recorded with the soul veterans Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore and rediscovered decades later.
Richard Muller, Banket
Po schodoch is the biggest hit of the Slovak synth-pop band Banket and its singer Richard Müller: a 1986 song by Vašo Patejdl and the lyricist Daniel Mikletič from the debut album Bioelektrovízia, more conventional than the band's electronic pop and still sung at nearly every Müller concert.
Queen
John Deacon's Chic-inspired bassline, Roger Taylor's drum loop and Freddie Mercury's lead vocal, with no synthesisers at all: Queen's best-selling single, heard here in the 2011 remaster of The Game.
Pupkulies & Rebecca
Fou de toi, from Pupkulies & Rebecca's 2012 album Looking for the Sea, is a short French-language song from the German duo who make house music that their label calls more chansons than tracks.
Portugal. The Man, Coldabank
The London DJ and producer Coldabank stretches Portugal. The Man's Grammy-winning sleeper hit into a four-minute club version for Atlantic, keeping the Motown-borrowed hook and the band's vocal while giving the groove more room.
Poni Hoax
From Poni Hoax's dark, cinematic fourth album Tropical Suite (2017): The Wild sets Nicolas Ker's words and voice over the Paris band's guitars, bass and drums, heard here in its 2025 remaster.
Pitto, Woodie S
Utrecht producer Pitto and Woodie S stretch Shadows over almost ten minutes of deep house on Joris Voorn's Green label: a clicking pattern, a synthesised bassline and a melody that seems to hover just out of reach.
Peter Bjorn and John
Peter Bjorn and John's 2006 single is a cautious duet with Victoria Bergsman, built on a whistled placeholder that became the hook, bongos, a cymbal-less beat and a lot of room sound.
Pepe Deluxé
The Finnish trio Pepe Deluxé's breakbeat-funk hit from Super Sound, rewritten from their own Woman in Blue around a Tony Hatch sample, carried to the UK top 20 by a Levi's campaign in 2001 and heard here in its 2025 remaster.
Patti Smith
Patti Smith's 2007 cover of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, from her covers album Twelve, trades the grunge roar for banjos, fiddle and acoustic guitar, and adds her own poetry before the final chorus.
Parson Jones
The debut single of the Northern California soul-pop duo Parson Jones, released in 2014 by the Paris label Underdog Records and greeted by Les Inrocks as a sun-soaked, nonchalant find.
Oliver Koletzki
The turning point at the centre of Oliver Koletzki's 2017 album The Arc of Tension, where the Berlin producer starts upping the tempo into his own melodic reading of techno.
OOFT!
The Glasgow DJ and producer OOFT! opens The Pitch Down Jamz EP, catalogued FOTO-007 on his own label Foto Recordings, with Love & Soulsaving: slow, pitched-down deep house with disco in its roots, released in October 2012.
ONUKA
The title track of ONUKA's 2016 EP, a countdown dedicated to the Chornobyl disaster: Nata Zhyzhchenko's commanding voice over a repeating figure of electro-brass and Ukrainian folk colour.
Nôze, dOP
The fifth track of Dring, the 2011 Get Physical album by the Parisian duo Nôze, made with their friends from the live trio dOP: a reggae-leaning detour on a record that pulled house toward jazz, brass and chanson.
Nils Penner
Nils Penner's first single for Berlin's Exploited is light-footed deep house built on a heavy groove and a carefully shaped bassline, made for the first warm evenings of spring.
Nicolas Repac
Nicolas Repac, Arthur H's guitarist turned sample collagist, builds a modern, repetitive jungle out of old records on the second track of his 2004 debut Swing-Swing, its title a wink at Singin' in the Rain.
Mélissa Laveaux
A short song Mélissa Laveaux wrote alone for her 2013 album Dying Is a Wild Night, where the Montreal-born singer of Haitian descent traded folk-pop for rhythm-led arrangements by the trio that produced the record.
Ms. Dynamite
Ms. Dynamite spells out her own name in a singalong hook and raps about where she came from: a Salaam Remi production from the Mercury Prize-winning A Little Deeper that took her to number five in the UK in 2002.
MonteRosso
Huacachina, named after a desert oasis in Peru, opened the compilation Kitsuné Parisien 4 in May 2017: electro-pop from MonteRosso, a Paris duo of a singer-violinist and a guitarist-composer whose label hears airy vocals over an underground bass.
Moderat
The opener of Moderat's 2009 debut, where Modeselektor and Apparat march a simple machine beat under detuned synths and an anthemic buzzing bass: melancholy that moves, later borrowed by Xavier Dolan's Laurence Anyways.
Method Man, Mary J. Blige
The Puff Daddy Mix of Method Man and Mary J. Blige's 1995 duet sets a Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell love song inside a Wu-Tang rap, over a new beat with a repeated Notorious B.I.G. vocal: the radio version of a Grammy-winning single.
Max Manie
The Salzburg-born, Vienna-based producer Max Manie's 2016 single for Crosswalk Records in its three-and-a-half-minute radio edit, the only version on the single; six longer remixes for DJs followed later that year.
Mat.Joe, David Keno, Shamoozey
Early Morning is the after-hours house track the Berlin duo Mat.Joe and the producer David Keno made with Shamoozey for Katermukke's hundredth release in 2015: funky, built on a vocal hook, and made, the label says, to keep the memory of a Berlin party night.
Martina Topley-Bird, Mark Lanegan, Warpaint
The original mix of a cover of The xx's debut single, released by Art Department's No.19 label in 2013: Martina Topley-Bird and Mark Lanegan take the two voices over Warpaint's playing, a slow brew of rueful vocals, heavy-limbed bass and chiming percussion, as Resident Advisor heard it.
Martin Waslewski
A seven-minute deep house homage from the Halle producer Martin Waslewski to his grandfather: driving percussion, piano chords, shakers and a guitar riff, a long build-up and a drop after a long break.
Maroon 5, Cardi B
Maroon 5's placid, sentimental pop-rock song from Red Pill Blues, reissued in 2018 with a verse by Cardi B: the version that spent seven weeks at number one and came with a video full of famous women.
Mark Farina, Kaskade
Kaskade's mix of Dream Machine, the tender song Mark Farina made with Sean Hayes for his 2003 Om Records album Air Farina, released a month later as the closing track of the To Do single: two Chicago-born DJs of San Francisco's house scene on one record.
Marian
The opening song of Marian's debut album: a sub bass rising from the depths, cello around Fabian Reichelt's voice and Marek Hemmann's mid-tempo house, a love song that dissolves into a bittersweet groove.
Marcus Worgull
Marcus Worgull turns The Cure's Lovesong into a slow-building deep house cover sung by Fink, a Dixon set-closer that circulated for a year before Innervisions released it in 2018.
Marc Moulin
The peppy opening track of Top Secret, the 2001 Blue Note album on which the Belgian keyboardist Marc Moulin, a veteran of jazz-rock and of Telex, set cool-jazz vibraphone, organ and a soul vocal over electronic bass and a brushed hi-hat.
Marbert Rocel
The eleventh track of In the Beginning, the fourth album by the Leipzig trio Marbert Rocel, released on Compost Records in 2015, an album its label describes as delicate synth pads and percussion around Antje Seifarth's guiding voice.
MYDY
Freedom, a two-and-a-half-minute single of May 2019, is the song the Prague electropop band Mydy Rabycad called the dividing line between their career so far and the new era that came with the album Numbers and the shorter name MYDY.
MARUV, Boosin
The December 2017 single that made the Ukrainian singer MARUV and the producer Boosin a hit from Moscow to Warsaw: an English-language dance track whose melody, she said, uses the melodic minor of Slavic romances and chanson rather than the pentatonic scale of American pop.
MAMA, Tiefschwarz, Solomun
Solomun's remix of Corporate Butcher, the song Tiefschwarz made with the singer Mama for their Watergate 09 mix CD: released on a Watergate Records EP in November 2011 and later chosen for Solomun's own Selected Remixes 2009–2015.
M.A.N.D.Y., Booka Shade
The 2005 Get Physical anthem by M.A.N.D.Y. and Booka Shade, remastered in 2023 for the label's 21st year: chunky drums, warm bass and a melodic hook that climbs up and down the scale and has not stopped uniting dance floors since.
Luiz Henrique
The Brazilian singer and guitarist Luiz Henrique recorded Jorge Ben's Mas Que Nada in New York in 1967 for his Verve album Barra Limpa, with accordion, bass and drums around his voice and guitar.
Lonely Boy
A 2013 deep house single by the Los Angeles producer Lonely Boy, the second release of the young US label Dance:Revolt: five minutes of club music issued alongside five remixes and picked up within months by a Hed Kandi compilation.
Lipka
The Geneva duo Lipka's 2015 single, later the second track of their album Grande Giocatore: a three-minute song from two childhood friends who fused punk, folk, dancehall and electronica, heard here in its label video, on a balcony and in a remix.
Leska
French producers Les Gordon and Douchka, together as Leska, made L&H the track on their debut EP Circles that the band itself calls haunted by Motown's ghosts: three minutes of electronic pop with an old soul's memory.
Lemaitre, Jennie A.
Oslo duo Lemaitre pair a sprightly piano line and a brash horn hook with Swedish singer Jennie A.'s floaty voice: an airy electro-pop single that found a second life in a Google Pixel launch film and the first episode of Skam.
Las Aves
The Toulouse rock band The Dodoz reborn as Las Aves: a glossy electro-pop single from Die in Shanghai (2016), produced by Dan Levy of The Dø, with a London video about girls doing their own thing.
Lana Del Rey, Solomun
Solomun's eight-minute remix of Lana Del Rey's West Coast sets her sultry, unhurried vocal over a deep, thrumming house groove and a dark, shifting bass, one of the 2014 remixes Del Rey commissioned for the Ultraviolence single.
Laidback
The Banzai Republic vs. Trentemøller remix of the Danish duo Laid Back's Beautiful Day, in the 6:58 cut from the Ibiza compilation Kumharas Vol. 2: beachy beats for sunset sets.
Kruder & Dorfmeister
Kruder & Dorfmeister's Johnson, a 1995 track found again on old DAT tapes and released in 2020, loops a filtered, slowed line from Robert Johnson's Sweet Home Chicago into slow Viennese downtempo.
Koudlam
Koudlam's See You All was first heard in Cyprien Gaillard's film performance Desniansky Raion and then anchored Goodbye, his 2009 album on Pan European Recording, a record its label called epic and a critic called symphonic, which French cinema kept borrowing.
Konstantin Sibold
Stuttgart DJ Konstantin Sibold's nine-minute house track opened Innervisions' Secret Weapons Part 5 in 2013, was a DJ weapon before it was a record, and came back as a radio edit almost ten years later.
Kelis, Terrar
A swaggering Neptunes groove from Kelis's debut Kaleidoscope: funk bass wobbles, a husky, desire-flushed vocal and a guest part from a young Pusha T, then still called Terrar.
Kelis
Sugar Honey Iced Tea, a Neptunes production from Kelis's 2003 album Tasty, is a laid-back R&B love song whose title spells out a well-known euphemism, sung by Kelis in a relaxed, playful tone.
Kelis
A Neptunes production from Kelis's third album Tasty, written by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo: bruised soul in which a lover's woes and a citizen's social concerns share one lyric.
Kalabrese, Sarah Palin
Track four of Independent Dancer, the 2013 album Kalabrese released on his Zurich label Rumpelmusig: a duet between Sacha Winkler and Sarah Palin, a singer from Zurich and not the American politician, which BlackPlastic called beautiful.
Kalabrese, Khan
Ten and a half minutes from Independent Dancer, the Zurich producer Kalabrese's 2013 album on his own Rumpelmusig: a calm, low-slung jazz house blues with the Berlin singer Khan as guest and a groove bassline from his band, played by Nicolas Jaar years before the album and later rebuilt by Matthew Herbert.
Kakkmaddafakka
The second track and second single of Hest, the 2011 album Erlend Øye produced for the Bergen band Kakkmaddafakka: light, cheerful indie pop sung by Jonas Nielsen.
Jojo Effect
The German lounge project Jojo Effect takes Sonny Bono's 1967 hit for Sonny & Cher into the bar: a five-minute cover from their album Not With Me that went on to fill lounge and electro-swing compilations.
Jan Blomqvist
The track from Jan Blomqvist's first EP for Oliver Koletzki's Stil vor Talent, Ink of 2012, that made him known: a stripped-down dance track that builds patiently towards a climax of washed-out piano and whispers, and a rooftop video from Berlin that he calls the moment it all began.
Jan Blomqvist
One of the long tracks of Jan Blomqvist's 2016 debut album Remote Control: eight and a half minutes from the Berlin singer and live electronic bandleader, written with his lyricist Ryan Mathiesen.
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop takes In the Death Car, his song with Goran Bregović for Emir Kusturica's Arizona Dream, on stage at the Agora in Évry on 23 April 1994: a live bootleg made official and remastered on Roadkill Rising in 2011.
Him_Self_Her, Kieran Fowkes, Compuphonic
Belgian producer Compuphonic's remix of Him_Self_Her's Gone Too Long, the Crosstown Rebels reissue of 2013, which the label notes say adds bounce, bleeps and emotive melody to Kieran Fowkes' vocal.
Her, Zefire
Her and the singer Zefire play Queens at their sold-out 2017 concert at La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris: a seven-minute live version, nearly twice the length of the studio track, from Her Live Tape #2.
Henri-Pierre Noel, The Reflex
The French disco reworker The Reflex takes the long road into Henri-Pierre Noel's unreleased 1979 session take on Walter Murphy's disco Beethoven, letting the beats build until the percussive piano gives the classic away.
Guts, Patrice, The Studio School Voices NYC
The tenth track of Guts' 2014 album Hip Hop After All, where the French beatmaker sets the soul singer Patrice against a New York children's choir, with Florian Pellissier's Rhodes underneath.
Gorillaz, De La Soul
Feel Good Inc. is the 2005 lead single of Gorillaz' Demon Days: a killer bass line, a windmill chorus that could be a sixties protest song, a verse by De La Soul's Trugoy and Maseo's laugh, and a Grammy-winning cartoon about freedom and the media.
General Elektriks
The single that announced General Elektriks' 2016 album To Be a Stranger: Hervé Salters' electro-funk verses, more soulful refrains and a closing keyboard solo that French reviewers singled out.
Gaullin, Julian Perretta
The Lithuanian producer Gaullin and the London-raised singer Julian Perretta turn the White Stripes' seven-note riff into a short dance record for Columbia and B1 Recordings: a 2021 cover of a song that already belonged to stadiums.
Galt MacDermot
Galt MacDermot's piano with guitar, bass and Bernard Purdie's drums on Shapes of Rhythm, 1966, a year before Hair: a short, sensual instrumental that hip-hop producers have sampled in at least 28 songs.
GYM
A 2014 cover of White Town's 1997 UK number one by GYM, an act from the Lille indie label Play It Loudly, released on the label's covers compilation and tagged there as 8-bit synth-pop.
Frivolous
The closing track of Meteorology, the 2011 album the Vancouver producer Daniel Gardner made as Frivolous for Luciano's Cadenza label after a breakup on a Pacific island: sample-padded tech house whose title Textura called a risky move under the circumstances.
Format:B, Fran
The full six-and-three-quarter-minute version of the vocal track on Format:B's second album Restless, where the Berlin tech house duo hand the microphone to Fran, the singer of Oliver Koletzki & Fran.
Fergie, Q-Tip, GoonRock
Fergie's flapper-era party song for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, with Q-Tip as hype man and GoonRock's electro house beat under jazz-inflected vocals and saxophone.
Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart
Eurythmics' 1983 synth-pop landmark, made on eight tracks in a north London attic: a drum computer driving a Roland SH-101 bass sequence, a string preset against it and Annie Lennox's vocal, in the album's 2005 remaster.
Ephemerals, Wolfgang Valbrun
The breakthrough song of the London soul band Ephemerals, written and produced by Hillman Mondegreen and sung by the New York-born, Paris-based Wolfgang Valbrun, from their 2014 debut Nothin Is Easy.
Elephanz
The Nantes brothers Jonathan and Maxime Verleysen built Maryland from a beat, a bass line, a riff and chords; the song from their self-titled 2017 album became a gold-certified single and returned in 2018 as a duet with Eugénie.
Earl Zinger
On My Way Home is the first song on Earl Zinger's 2002 album for !K7, the prank-loving alter ego of Galliano's Rob Gallagher: a short, chilled track that a review at the time heard as old-school and Tom Waits-y, at the start of a colourful mix of dub, funk and crooner ballads.
Deluxe
The quiet turn on Deluxe's 2013 debut album The Deluxe Family Show: a dreamy song of a little bass, piano and drums under Liliboy's voice, unlike anything around it on the record.
Dapayk & Padberg, Caro
Island, with Caro as guest, is the eighth track of Black Beauty, the 2007 second album by the German minimal-pop couple Dapayk & Padberg on his label Mo's Ferry, later remixed by Nôze and Florian Meindl into versions DJ compilations kept returning to.
Daft Punk
The last track of Daft Punk's 1997 debut album Homework: fifty-one seconds of their single Da Funk played backwards, a reversed clip that closes the album instead of a final song.
DRAMAS
Bloodbath by the Viennese art-pop duo DRAMAS began as a song built from real-life sounds, footsteps, table tennis, crushed ice, a car crash, and became a dark, defiant single about offender and victim.
DNCE
DNCE's 2015 debut single turns a Swedish production duo's mishearing of 'sex on the beach' into a cheeky disco-pop hook, carried on what Billboard called a pop-funk beat all the way to the US top ten.
DJ Marky, Stamina MC, XRS, Stamina MC Carol Carolina Bela
The vocal original mix of LK, the Brazilian producers DJ Marky and XRS's 2002 drum and bass crossover, as collected on their 2004 album In Rotation: a Jorge Ben and Toquinho guitar sample, Stamina MC's freestyle turned hook, and a breakdown that crowds sang back.
DJ Disse, Will Buhrkall
Danish DJ and producer DJ Disse, with Will Buhrkall credited as featured artist, twists the Doors' 1967 opener Break On Through with dub and bossa beats: a six-minute reworking from his Music for Dreams album When I'm Bored I Change Colour.
Curtis Harding
Need Your Love is the urgent soul shout of Curtis Harding's 2017 album Face Your Fear, made with Danger Mouse and Sam Cohen: a purring bass, humming synths and a voice that nails down every syllable, with a video about love in many forms.
Clement Bazin
One of the first tracks in which the Paris steel-drum player Clément Bazin set his childhood instrument inside electronic music, the opener of his Night Things EP, released by With Us Records in December 2013.
Clara Moto
The radio edit of the title track of Clara Moto's 2017 InFiné EP: Mimu singing about sentimental disputes over a passionate bassline, cut from six minutes to just over three.
Chopstick & Johnjon
The lead single of Chopstick & Johnjon's debut album Twelve (2014): a warm, unhurried house song with words by the London singer Chris James, which the Berlin duo also used to close the record in an acoustic version.
Charlie Straight
Platonic Johny, the first single from She's a Good Swimmer, the 2009 debut of the Třinec band Charlie Straight, is English-language Czech britpop with a stadium-sized feel and an animated video that won an Anděl.
Cassius
Cassius open 15 Again with under three minutes of dance rock: a Clash-style guitar riff from -M-, a dance beat and Philippe Zdar's megaphone-distorted vocal, the riff Madonna later borrowed on her Sticky & Sweet tour.
Caribou
The opening track and first single of Caribou's 2010 album Swim: Dan Snaith's pop song about a failing relationship, set over a bassline built from a Bernard Parmegiani sample and a clattering beat, in dance music meant to sound like water.
Busta Rhymes, Mariah Carey, Flipmode Squad
Busta Rhymes takes an R&B turn with Mariah Carey: a song about a couple kept apart by the road, produced by Rick Rock, with a chorus the two share and verses from four Flipmode Squad rappers, that reached number three in the US and the UK in 2003.
Busta Rhymes, Jamal
The lead single of Busta Rhymes' 1997 album When Disaster Strikes..., built by Shamello and Buddah on a Seals and Crofts sample, opened by ad-libs in the style of Puff Daddy and remembered for Hype Williams' Coming to America video.
Busta Rhymes
A 1998 single from Busta Rhymes' album Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front, two and a half minutes of rapid-fire rap over a DJ Scratch beat built on the violin riffs of Bernard Herrmann's Psycho theme.
Buddy Rich Big Band
Buddy Rich's big band takes Sonny & Cher's hit of early 1967 at a faster tempo, in a Shorty Rogers chart taped at Hollywood's Chez Club, with his young daughter Cathy singing a vocal added later in the studio; Blue Note's Blue Break Beats series brought it back in 1998.
Bronski Beat, Arnaud Rebotini
Arnaud Rebotini's 2017 remix of Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy, made at Robin Campillo's request for the film 120 Battements Par Minute: Jimmy Somerville's falsetto set in house and disco layers, as if the remix had been made in 1993.
Bronski Beat
Thirty years after Smalltown Boy, Jimmy Somerville sang it again over a piano: a stripped-down 2014 reprise that the expanded Age of Consent reissue credits to Bronski Beat.
Bronski Beat
Screaming is the starkest song on Bronski Beat's 1984 debut The Age of Consent: Jimmy Somerville's falsetto over an arrangement stripped back to an austere mood, a portrait of inner turmoil, with a song of the same name already credited to Somerville in the 1983 documentary Framed Youth.
Bronski Beat
The six-minute closer of Bronski Beat's The Age of Consent folds Donna Summer's I Feel Love into John Leyton's ghostly Johnny Remember Me and ends on Love to Love You Baby: Jimmy Somerville's falsetto turning disco heat into something colder.
Bronski Beat
Bronski Beat's 1984 single turns the Gershwins' Porgy and Bess song about doubting the Bible into sleek, subversive synth-pop, heard here in its four-minute single version.
Brodka, Kamp!
The Łódź trio Kamp! rework Dancing Shoes from Brodka's 2012 EP LAX into a strong, house-tinged dance track; Polish reviewers heard a potential radio hit with underground glamour, one of them a remix better than the original.
Brodinski, Louisahhh
Let the Beat Control Your Body, with Louisahhh on vocals, is Brodinski's half of Bromance #1, the November 2011 first release of the label he had just founded: a club track that a 2012 writer heard grow from a Winter Music Conference banger into one of the biggest songs of Coachella.
Brandt Brauer Frick, Emika
On Mr. Machine, their 2011 album for !K7, the German trio Brandt Brauer Frick and their acoustic ensemble remade Emika's song Pretend around her own vocal: seven and a half minutes of struck percussion, strings and a rigid 4/4 beat.
Booka Shade
Booka Shade's own reworking of their 2005 club anthem for the album Movements: more relaxed, broken-beat and acoustic in feel, with a jazz guitar trading phrases with a storytelling bassline.
Boogie Belgique
The opening track of Boogie Belgique's 2013 album Nightwalker Vol. I, from the years when the Antwerp project was one man working with samples: jazzy hip-hop, downtempo and swing, given away free and later played by a full live band.
Blue Monday, Stahsi
A 2016 house single on the Australian label Onelove whose credits run in two directions: streaming services list Blue Monday and Stahsi performing Dance Cult, while the writing credit goes to New Order.
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish's 2019 single, written with and produced by her brother Finneas: a whispered song from the point of view of the monster under the bed, over a galloping beat and scattered synths, whose line gave her debut album its title.
Belako
The Basque post-punk band Belako turn Nina Simone's ten-minute spiritual into a tight, electronic three and a half minutes on their 2016 album Hamen, a live favourite that critics singled out as the record's boldest moment.
Azealia Banks, Lazy Jay
Azealia Banks's 2011 debut single, rapped, sung and shouted over Lazy Jay's house instrumental Float My Boat: three and a half minutes of Harlem wordplay that critics heard as a fully formed persona and placed among the defining songs of the decade.
Aphex Twin
Richard D. James's 1999 Warp single: chopped and reprocessed breakbeats, gasps speculated to be his own and a sleazy R&B glide, ending in a spiral drawn into the sound itself, with Chris Cunningham's notorious video.
Anthony Rother
The original mix of the song Anthony Rother came to know too well: the second track of his 2004 album Popkiller on Datapunk, an electro pop song that Resident Advisor called stirring, uplifting and melodic, which Erick Morillo had remixed and Sven Väth and Tiga put in their mixes.
Ane Brun
Ane Brun takes Alphaville's 1984 synth-pop hit about two friends lost around Berlin's Zoo station and makes it a delicate folk cover, recorded in 2008 for the Swedish TV documentary Stor i Japan.
Andy Bey
Celestial Blues opens Andy Bey's 1974 Atlantic album Experience and Judgment: his own song, recorded at length by Gary Bartz's NTU Troop in 1971, recut as three minutes of soulful jazz-rock with electric bass, keyboards and strings around his deep voice.
Alok, Zeeba, Bruno Martini
The song that made Alok a world name: a 2016 Spinnin' single with Bruno Martini and the singer Zeeba, a smooth guitar lick and a flute over a Brazilian bass groove, and a video about a son and his father that hundreds of millions have watched.
Aloe Blacc
The studio original of Aloe Blacc's 2010 hard-times plea: a song he heard as a spiritual, cut with Truth & Soul in Brooklyn over a jam whose chords fitted words he had carried for years, and the theme of HBO's How to Make It in America.
Alligator
Rafale is the song that made the French synth-pop duo Alligator heard: a three-and-a-half-minute track from their 2017 album Octets on La Souterraine, keyboards and drum machines in a lo-fi haze under a French lyric about someone left alone with dark thoughts for the night.
Alice Russell
Six minutes of Brighton-made soul from Alice Russell's 2005 album My Favourite Letters, written and built with TM Juke: a patient groove with room for a voice that critics called bold and full.
Alec Troniq, GABRIEL VITEL
A six-and-a-half-minute club track by the Dresden live-act partners Alec Troniq and Gabriel Vitel, the second of six tracks on their 2015 EP The Aviating, which they wrote and produced together for the German label Broque.
theAngelcy
Plucked strings, a chorus of voices and Rotem Bar Or's raw tenor make this Tel Aviv folk song feel like a lullaby sung in a dark, uneasy time.
filous, LissA
The Austrian producer filous strips the Gorillaz classic down to a delicate xylophone, plucked strings and airy beats, and LissA's light voice turns the old windmill anthem into a hazy daydream.
ayokay, Quinn XCII
Bright synths and Quinn XCII's easy vocal paint a memory of summers when you and your friends felt untouchable: the 2016 breakthrough of two school friends from Michigan.
Yoko Duo, Stimming
Stimming wraps Yoko Duo's fragile song in velvet: a slow, organic deep house remix full of soft textures, a hushed vocal and the feeling of a room going quiet.
Whilk & Misky
Whilk & Misky's London soul-pop at its most direct: a warm, swinging groove and a voice that asks for exactly one thing, over and over, until you want it too.
Whilk & Misky
Whilk & Misky blend acoustic warmth with electronic pulse on this track from My Round, Charlie Dickens' soulful voice and Nima Khaste's production chasing a simple wish: to get what we want.
Whilk & Misky
The 2014 breakthrough of the London duo Whilk & Misky: a barefoot, bossa-nova-tinged acoustic song with handclaps for percussion, played on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show and later carried onto dance floors by a Solomun remix.
Whilk & Misky
A hushed, smoky vocal floats over plucked folk guitar and a slow electronic pulse, turning a simple declaration of devotion into a late-night confession.
Waldeck
Waldeck sets Zeebee's smoky voice inside a crackling, sepia-toned ballroom swing, a downtempo daydream about a love that only lives on in memory.
WHTKD
WHTKD loops a soulful, pleading vocal over a warm, rolling deep house groove, a track that sounds like late afternoon turning into evening.
The Supermen Lovers, Jay Lamar, Jesse Oliver
The Helsinki duo Jay Lamar and Jesse Oliver stretch Moments, a 2013 single by the French producer behind Starlight, into a warm, unhurried deep house glide of soft chords, rounded bass and wistful melodies.
The Supermen Lovers, Herr Styler, Cristine
A flirtatious slice of French pop-funk house from Guillaume Atlan's project, two voices trading lines over a springy bassline until the title becomes a shrugging, grinning verdict on the night.
The Supermen Lovers
A warm slice of French disco-funk from the man behind Starlight, where synths and a rubber-band bassline turn a fleeting moment into a long, glowing groove.
The Hacker, Mount Sims
Oxia turns The Hacker and Mount Sims' cold-wave electro into a patient, rolling techno journey, all brooding synth lines and a build that keeps tightening the screw.
The Avener, Ane Brun
The Avener wraps Ane Brun's fragile Scandinavian folk confession in a slow, rolling deep-house groove, turning a private surrender into a sunset dancefloor moment.
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
A brassy, technicolour psych-pop stomp from Denmark, Mette Lindberg's helium-bright voice riding horns and a strutting beat that make heartbreak sound like a parade.
TEEMID, Joie Tan
Gnarls Barkley's frantic classic slowed into a hazy deep-house lullaby: TEEMID and Joie Tan make Crazy sound like a confession whispered at four in the morning.
Solomun
Nine minutes of Solomun's signature deep house, released on his experimental label 2DIY4: Friends rides a supple, swinging groove and moody chords that keep rising just enough to keep a dancefloor leaning in.
Solange
Solange and Dev Hynes wrap the end of a relationship in a skittering, eighties-tinted R&B groove: the 2012 lead single of the True EP on Terrible Records, with a Melina Matsoukas video shot in Cape Town's Langa township.
Santé, Richard Judge
Santé lays a deep, rolling groove under J.U.D.G.E's grave, soulful voice, six minutes of dark-room house that feels like the first clear thought after a long night.
Robin Thicke, T.I., Pharrell Williams
A cowbell-clacking, falsetto-laced funk-pop strut from Robin Thicke, Pharrell and T.I. that owned the summer of 2013 and then the courtroom.
Robin Schulz
Sun-bleached deep house with a soul hook: Robin Schulz builds a sweet, bouncing groove around Francesco Yates and an interpolation of Baby Bash's 2003 'Suga Suga', a number one in seven countries in 2015.
Recable
Recable lifts Angus & Julia Stone's wistful Big Jet Plane onto a gently rolling house groove, keeping the song's daydream of flying away intact.
Queen, The Miami Project
A Skillz chops John Deacon's immortal bassline into a strutting breakbeat workout, keeping Freddie Mercury's swagger front and centre while the drums hit like a b-boy battle.
Polo & Pan
Breathy duet vocals, bright percussive melodies and a lazy tropical groove: Canopée is Polo & Pan's invitation to climb into the treetops and forget the city for four and a half minutes.
Platinum Doug
A punchy, no-nonsense club mix from the Swiss house producer Platinum Doug on Enormous Tunes, where a repeated vocal hook and a bouncing bassline push the dance floor forward bar after bar.
Peaches
Peaches at her most gleefully filthy: Pickles rides a stark, rubbery electro beat while she raps about desire with a grin you can hear in every line.
Paloma Faith
Paloma Faith's brassy, swing-tinged retro-soul romp about a world turned on its head, with a stomping rhythm section and a voice that relishes every theatrical flourish.
Nu, Jo.Ke
Nine sun-warmed minutes of organic deep house from the Bar 25 world, where Jo.Ke's gentle, sing-along vocal drifts over a loping groove made for golden-hour dancing.
Noir & Haze
Solomun's vocal mix of the Noir & Haze single, Resident Advisor's remix of the year 2011: a rolling, bass-heavy deep house groove under Haze's aching voice, released on Noir Music and later licensed to Defected.
Nils Ohrmann
Six and a half minutes of bumping Berlin house from Nils Ohrmann: a cheeky vocal taunt, a springy bassline and a groove that never lets go.
Niklas Ibach
Niklas Ibach slips Dotan's aching folk-pop plea onto a soft deep-house pulse, keeping the ache while giving it somewhere to move.
Nicolas Jaar
A young Nicolas Jaar's slow, sultry minimal-house classic, a crooned vocal and dusty, swaying textures that famously sink from dance tempo into a long, swooning breakdown nobody wants to mix out of.
Mount Sims, Toby Dammit
Mount Sims trades the club for a scuffed, shrugging groove, with Toby Dammit of Iggy Pop's and Nick Cave's bands on drums: What's the Big Deal asks its question with a sneer and a beat that will not sit still.
Mount Sims, Jessie Evans
A short, sharp electroclash track from Mount Sims' 2008 album Happily Ever After, with André Lang's live drums under the synths and the underground punk singer Jessie Evans adding saxophone.
Mount Sims
Cold machine rhythm and a detached croon from the American edition of Mount Sims' 2002 debut UltraSex, an electroclash meditation on being close to someone and still completely on your own.
Mount Sims
Cold synth stabs and a deadpan, sneering vocal turn revenge into a dancefloor chant: Mount Sims at his most wiry, sleazy and defiant.
Mount Sims
Seven minutes of slow-burning tension, Restless loops a nervous synth figure and a stalking beat until the repetition itself becomes the thrill.
Mount Sims
A night drive with the headlights off: grinding analogue bass, clipped drum machines and Mount Sims's cool, menacing croon from the darker side of electroclash.
Mount Sims
Mount Sims trades his electroclash gloss for the guitar-driven shadows of his post-punk turn, a short, tense blast of darkwave unease.
Mount Sims
Mount Sims at his most driven: a tight, menacing electro pulse and a vocal set on walking straight into trouble, one of the songs added to Happily Ever After...Again, the 2010 reworking of his darkwave album.
Mount Sims
A slow, cold-blooded crawl through synths, live drums and a graveside croon: Grave, from the 2008 album Happily Ever After produced by Thomas Stern, turns Mount Sims' taste for horror into five minutes of nocturnal dread.
Mount Sims
Deadpan vocals, buzzing analog synths and a drum machine with attitude: Good Service is Mount Sims serving early-2000s electroclash with a sly, suggestive grin.
Mount Sims
A smouldering piece of dark synth-pop that opens Mount Sims' 2004 album Wild Light: cold machines and a weary croon circle the remains of something that burned out long ago.
Michelle Gurevich
Michelle Gurevich croons a deadpan, candlelit elegy for love gone cold, with lo-fi synths and a slow-dance sway that make heartbreak feel strangely elegant.
Michelle Gurevich
A slow, smoky synth ballad in which Michelle Gurevich's deadpan contralto toasts the giddy first months of a romance while already hearing the ending coming.
Michael Jackson
One of pop's most recognisable bass lines carries Michael Jackson's paranoid tale of a paternity claim, a tight, shadowy groove that sounds as sharp now as it did on Thriller.
Metronomy
Soulwax strip Metronomy's sixties-tinged pop down to a gleaming machine groove and rebuild it, six and a half minutes of neon disco-pop driven by the bassline and a slow-burning release.
Marek Hemmann
Nine minutes of melodic German minimal from the Jena label Freude am Tanzen: Marek Hemmann's Gemini drives on a swinging house groove while synth patterns and funky tenor-sax licks twist around each other.
Marcus Marr & Chet Faker
Marcus Marr and Chet Faker (Nick Murphy) recorded this disco-funk jam in four days in a Brixton studio in July 2015: a funk-flecked guitar riff and a soulful plea about a relationship going wrong, made into a reason to dance.
Marcus Marr, Nick Murphy
Nearly eight minutes of sleek, disco-tinged house: Marcus Marr's springy production and bright synths carry Nick Murphy's smoky voice towards a long dancefloor release, the opener of their 2015 EP Work.
Mando Diao
Mando Diao trade garage-rock grit for a disco-rock floor-filler, a pulsing four-on-the-floor beat and a shout-along chorus about needing someone to dance with.
Lilly Wood and The Prick, Robin Schulz
Robin Schulz lifts a mournful 2010 French folk-pop song onto a bouncing deep house beat, Nili Hadida's bleak prayer and a looping guitar riff becoming a number one across Europe in 2014.
Lamomali
The song that names Matthieu Chedid's Franco-Malian collective: Toumani Diabaté's cascading kora, the voices of Amadou & Mariam and Jain, and a pun on 'the soul in Mali', from the 2017 album Lamomali.
Labyrinth Ear
A three-minute haze of blurred synths, soft beats and a distant, weightless voice, Navy Light feels like city lights seen through rain on a night bus window.
Kölsch
Kölsch's melodic techno meets the warm, weathered voice of WhoMadeWho's Tomas Høffding in Bloodline, a slow-burning track from 1983, an album about childhood road trips across Europe, that swells like a sunrise over the booth.
Kygo, Maty Noyes
Soft-focus tropical house from Kygo, with plucked melodies and a warm, pleading vocal from Maty Noyes asking someone not to leave just yet.
Kosheen
Deep, dark bass, insistent drums and Sian Evans' voice cutting through the fog: Addict opens Kosheen's Independence with the pull of something you cannot quit.
Klyne
A slow, stripped-down slice of dark electronic R&B from the Dutch duo Klyne, where Nick Klein's soft, close-miked voice drifts over sparse beats and muted synths; the new song on their 2015 Closer EP.
Klyne
A hushed, slow-burning slice of electronic soul from the Dutch duo Klyne, where a fragile falsetto floats over muted beats and a heart too stunned to move.
Klyne
A hushed, late-summer slow jam from the Dutch duo Klyne, where a feather-light falsetto floats over soft keys, tropical-leaning drums and pulsing synths.
KlangKuenstler
The British producer Miguel Campbell turns KlangKuenstler and Alice Phoebe Lou's 2014 moon song into a warm, rolling groove for Sunday Best, her voice floating weightless over a bassline that never stops gently pushing forward.
Klangkuenstler, Alice Phoebe Lou
KlangKuenstler wraps Alice Phoebe Lou's soft, folk-tinged voice in a warm, unhurried deep house shuffle that feels like a slow drive home under a full moon.
Klangkuenstler
A rolling tech-house groove with classic house warmth underneath: Soul Digger finds the soul in the machine and keeps the floor moving for almost seven minutes.
Klangkuenstler
A six-minute house workout from Klangkuenstler's early, groove-first years, built for the long middle stretch of a club night when the floor just wants to jack.
Klangkuenstler
A late-night techno roller from Klangkuenstler's 2015 debut on Great Stuff: a massive, rounded bassline, a nasty but beautiful sawtooth lead and a bed of vinyl noise that makes the dark groove feel strangely warm.
Kele
Kele Okereke opens his after-hours record Trick in a whisper: a cool, late-night house groove about the electricity of meeting someone new, sung with Yasmin.
Kav Verhouzer, BullySongs
Sunny deep-house chords and a warm, raspy BullySongs vocal: Get What You Came For is an easygoing dancefloor invitation that never pushes, only pulls you in.
KANT
The Copenhagen production team KANT stretch Leo Stannard's aching vocal across a seven-minute club arrangement on Black Butter Records, melancholy piano chords and a steady deep house pulse turning heartbreak into something you can dance through.
Joss Stone
A teenage Joss Stone leans into a lilting, reggae-kissed soul groove and sings about wanting less with the husky authority of a singer twice her age.
John Newman, Kove
Kove drives John Newman's northern-soul plea for a second chance into rolling drum and bass, the raw voice riding fast breaks and big, bright chords.
Jan Blomqvist
The Zürich duo Animal Trainer fold Jan Blomqvist's hushed 2011 cover of Big Jet Plane into a rolling, late-night deep house remix, released on the Berlin label Dantze, where a longing vocal drifts above a patient, pulsing groove.
Jan Blomqvist
Jan Blomqvist slows Angus & Julia Stone's folk lullaby into a long, glowing melodic-house drift, his weary vocal hovering over the pulse like a plane above night clouds.
James Newton Howard, Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence's eerie Mockingjay folk song recast as an uptempo, drum-heavy rebel anthem, the unaccompanied verse growing into a pounding march with strings and a dance pulse.
James Newton Howard, Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence's bare, unpolished voice sings an eerie murder ballad from Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay, set to a melody by the Lumineers, that swells into a rebel anthem as James Newton Howard's orchestra gathers behind her.
Jain
Zanaka's gentle closer, a reggae-tinged sway where Jain lets the album's travels settle into calm, sunlit contentment.
Jain
Handclap-light percussion, a bouncing bass and Jain's playful, slightly mischievous delivery make Mr Johnson one of Zanaka's sunniest little stories.
Jain
Jain's light, sing-song voice, her own drum programming and Yodelice's bass and trombone carry a small, sunny plea for a better world, the title track of her first EP in 2015.
Jain
Jain's debut hit hides a lovesick lyric under a happy bounce: chugging guitar, bashful horns and double-tracked vocals, under three minutes of Afro-pop lightness that went to number one in France.
Jain
The closing song of Jain's 2015 Hope EP, produced by Yodelice: her bright, slightly mischievous voice riding a homemade-sounding beat that mixes pop simplicity with the rhythmic colours of a childhood spent between Dubai, Congo and Abu Dhabi.
Ivy Levan, Cadre
Ivy Levan's smoky, swaggering vocal slinks over a sleek, bass-heavy pop beat, with a rap verse from Cadre: a track from her 2015 'swamp-hop' debut that fits its title, tight, dark and made to measure.
Infinity Ink
Infinity Ink's Infinity is a bassline-led deep house anthem whose endlessly looped, half-whispered hook made it a platinum hit in Belgium and a club staple since 2012.
Imany, Filatov & Karas
Imany's smoky contralto meets a sleek, pulsing house remix from Filatov & Karas, turning a slow seduction from a film soundtrack into a continental dancefloor hit.
Hindi Zahra
The slow, dreamy closing song of Hindi Zahra's debut Handmade, which she dedicated to her ancestors: a husky voice layered into a quiet choir, turning memory into something warm and quietly aching.
Hindi Zahra
Hindi Zahra sings a love letter to music itself, her warm, smoky voice swaying over interlocking guitars and soft percussion that blend folk, soul and Berber roots.
Hindi Zahra
Hindi Zahra's smoky voice glides over a lilting, desert-blues guitar and soft percussion in Beautiful Tango, a slow dance of a song that sounds like dusk in a small room.
Him_Self_Her, Kieran Fowkes
A slow-rolling deep house groove under Kieran Fowkes' soulful, yearning vocal, the Leicester duo's Crosstown Rebels release made for the last, emotional hour of a night.
Her
A brief, late-night breath on Her's first tape, the French duo's velvet electronic soul pared back to just over two minutes of mood, space and a slow, sensual glow.
Gotan Project
Bandoneon, guitar and Cristina Vilallonga's voice drifting over a slow electronic pulse, La Vigüela is Gotan Project's tango heading out into the open pampas.
Gorillaz, Neneh Cherry
A cold, clanking Gorillaz track from Demon Days where Damon Albarn's weary vocal and Neneh Cherry's spectral backing turn a nursery-rhyme melody into a quiet alarm about children and violence.
Gorillaz
The Soulchild Remix turns Gorillaz's woozy 19-2000 into a bright, bouncing cartoon road trip, a 2001 UK top-ten single and the title theme of FIFA Football 2002, with a chorus everyone remembers: get the cool shoeshine.
Gorgon City, Zak Abel, Dj Anna
DJ Anna pulls Gorgon City's pop single into the dark: a heavy rolling bassline, Zak Abel's soulful voice in fragments and nearly eight minutes of late-night pressure.
Gorgon City
Will Saul, remixing as CLOSE, stretches Gorgon City and MNEK's 2014 UK number four into a six-and-a-half-minute, dub-tinged deep-house journey, the soulful vocal echoing through a late-night haze.
Gorgon City, Katy Menditta, WEISS
WEISS stretches Gorgon City's Imagination into a six-minute, groove-led house workout for the 2015 remix EP, leaving Katy Menditta's voice to flicker in and out over the bass.
Gorgon City, Katy Menditta
A sleek, sunlit house cut where Katy Menditta's soulful vocal floats over a rubbery bassline and crisp garage-tinged drums, built for the moment a club exhales.
Glass Animals, Gilligan Moss
Gilligan Moss stretches Glass Animals' sticky love song into a glistening electronic daydream of chiming percussion, warped vocal slivers and a slow-blooming groove.
Glass Animals
Glass Animals' breakout is a slow, syrupy jungle of a love song, Dave Bayley's murmured vocal drifting over finger-snap beats, soft guitar and a bassline that oozes.
Gin Wigmore, Suffa, Logic
Gin Wigmore's raw-throated hook meets verses from American rapper Logic and Hilltop Hoods' Suffa on a heavy, defiant anthem built over a sampled field recording.
Gin Wigmore
Gin Wigmore snarls through a short, stomping blues-rock number from her 2015 album Blood to Bone, her raspy voice squaring up to fate, and splits its video into a two-part outlaw story.
Gin Wigmore
Gin Wigmore's 2015 comeback single, co-written with Charlie Andrew, hits like a jolt of adrenaline: pounding drums and a chant-along chorus pushing her husky voice towards a fresh start after a stifling relationship.
Gin Wigmore
A stomping blues-soul strut in which Gin Wigmore's raspy, fearless voice lays out exactly the kind of man she wants, produced by Butch Walker for Gravel & Wine and later sung in a Heineken James Bond ad.
Gin Wigmore
Gin Wigmore's smoky rasp prowls over stomping drums and a swaggering, bluesy strut, a midnight hunt sung by someone who fully intends to win.
Gin Wigmore
Swaggering and swampy, Dirty Mercy pairs Gin Wigmore's raspy snarl with a stomping groove and a sly, sinister edge, the opening shot of her Ivory era.
Gin Wigmore
Stomping drums, chanted backing vocals and a shout-along hook frame Gin Wigmore's gravel-edged voice in a proud anthem for everyone who never fit the flock.
Gabriella Cilmi
A smoky, retro-soul kiss-off from Gabriella Cilmi's independent third album: an old flame walks out with somebody new, and a sparse arrangement leaves room for a vocal that is pure venom wrapped in velvet.
Gabriella Cilmi
A sixteen-year-old Gabriella Cilmi takes Justin Timberlake's 2002 break-up hit into smoky, live soul territory, backed only by guitar and bass: a 2008 B-side recorded by Xenomania, her husky voice carrying all the hurt.
Future Forward, Mount Sims
A long, strutting electro groove released on Kompute Musik, with Mount Sims' deadpan vocal riding a relentless machine pulse that barely changes and never needs to.
Future Forward Society, Mount Sims
The HV Thrillseeker Mix stretches The Creep into a longer, harder club tool, with the menace of the original pushed through a relentless, driving groove.
Future Forward Society, Mount Sims
A long, prowling electro mix that keeps its shadows close: The Creep in its Capri Mix stretches Mount Sims's sly menace over six and a half minutes of pulsing synths.
Future Forward Society, Mount Sims
Future Forward Society and Mount Sims build a slinking, shadowy electro crawl, all low-slung bass, cold synths and a voice that seems to whisper from the corner of the room.
Foster The People
A breezy, whistled indie-pop earworm with a chilling story underneath: the demo Mark Foster wrote and recorded alone in five hours, which went viral in 2010 and spent eight weeks at number three in the US.
Format:B
A rubbery, swaggering tech-house stomper from Berlin's Format:B, built on a fat bassline and chopped vocals from Shorty Long's 1966 Motown single Function at the Junction, cut down to a radio-sized strut.
Flume
A chopped-up soul vocal, wobbling synth chords and a swinging, head-nodding beat: Flume's breakout cut is two and a half minutes of pure, woozy elation.
Faul & Wad, PNAU
Faul & Wad Ad build a sax-lit, bittersweet house groove around the children's-choir refrain of Pnau's Baby, a song about growing up that became a European number one.
FKJ
The neo-house track that introduced FKJ: chopped vocals, warm filtered chords and an elastic bassline wrapped into four and a half minutes of slow-burning, sunlit intimacy.
Ed Sheeran
A plucked marimba-like loop, a dancehall bounce and a flirtation that starts at the bar: Shape of You is the minimal pop machine that took over the world in 2017.
Dusty Kid
The Sardinian techno producer closes his debut album A Raver's Diary (Boxer, 2009) with an unexpected, tender song of layered guitars and his own fragile voice that swells into a wall of sound.
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode's jagged litany of mistakes, hammered out live in Barcelona with snarling synths, live drums and Dave Gahan relishing every bad decision.
David Lynch, Karen O
Trentemøller strips Karen O away and leaves only the nightmare: a throbbing, sinister synth drive that sounds like a car speeding down a Lynchian highway at night.
Daft Punk
Nile Rodgers' chicken-scratch guitar, Pharrell's easy vocal and Daft Punk's robot choir turn a four-chord loop into the most irresistible disco revival of the 2010s: the lead single of Random Access Memories, in its radio edit.
Daft Punk
A chopped funk loop and a robot reciting a workout mantra: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger is Daft Punk turning a sample into one of the most quoted hooks of the century.
Daft Punk
The curtain-raiser of Random Access Memories: live drums, Nile Rodgers' guitar and a vocoder mission statement announcing that Daft Punk came back to make music breathe again.
Daft Punk
Giorgio Moroder tells his own origin story over a click track, then Daft Punk unfold nine minutes of arpeggiated disco, live drums and strings into a time-travelling tribute to the sound he invented.
Daft Punk
Recorded live at Bercy, Daft Punk fold the sunny house bounce of Face to Face into the jittery robot funk of Short Circuit, and the pyramid crowd goes up with it.
Daft Punk
Nile Rodgers tells his own story in the third of Daft Punk's Collaborators films, a warm, funny portrait of the guitarist whose rhythm runs through Random Access Memories.
Daft Punk
Giorgio Moroder opens Daft Punk's Collaborators films, remembering the Moog, the dance floor and the perfectionism of the two Frenchmen who brought him back into the studio for Random Access Memories.
Daft Punk
One phrase, one bassline and seven minutes of repetition: Around the World is Daft Punk proving that a loop can be a whole world on its own, and Michel Gondry's video turned its arrangement into choreography.
DJ S.K.T
DJ S.K.T rebuilds the vocal hook of Wamdue Project's 1999 number one King of My Castle into a tight, sunny 2017 house edit for DFX, using a replayed sample rather than the original master.
DJ Patife
Fernanda Porto's breezy bossa melody rides a rolling São Paulo drum and bass break, sunlit samba swing meeting rattling breakbeats and deep sub-bass.
DJ Fitchie, Joe Dukie
Seven unhurried minutes of Pacific dub-soul from two Fat Freddy's Drop mainstays, Joe Dukie's honeyed voice drifting over a deep, patient bassline built for the small hours.
Corinne Bailey Rae
Corinne Bailey Rae's sun-dappled soul-pop single is a gentle invitation to let your hair down, all breezy guitar, soft horns and a warm voice telling you to grow into yourself.
Codec & Flexor
Cold, pulsing analogue-style synths and a detached vocal make Codec & Flexor's electroclash-era club hit sound like a rave remembered through frosted glass.
Cléa Vincent
Cléa Vincent turns Ace of Base's 1992 hit into breezy, homespun French synth-pop, trading its reggae-pop strut for a dreamy, lo-fi groove closer to hip-hop and R&B.
Claptone, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Claptone sets Alec Ounsworth's fragile, quavering indie vocal over a patient deep house groove, a dancefloor track that sounds like it is mourning something.
Chet Faker
A wistful, treated saxophone line, a lazy, warm beat and Chet Faker's husky croon make this Built on Glass lead single the definition of late-night electronic soul, and triple j's number one song of 2014.
Chet Faker
Chet Faker's smoky late-night soul over a slow, finger-snapping electronic groove, a minimal track that gets all its heat from his weathered voice and a bassline that barely moves.
Camel Power Club
Soft beats, sunny loops and a sampled Son House blues voice: Ourson is a short, cuddly piece of French chillout, first a 2015 single and later part of Sputnik II, that feels like a teddy bear rendered in warm sound.
CLAAP!, S.A.N.T.A.N.A.
A slow Sunday-afternoon deep house cut from a Paris duo's debut EP on La Belle Records, all warm chords, an unhurried beat and Santana's soft vocal drifting in and out of the haze.
Broken Back
Bright acoustic strumming over a gentle electronic beat, Broken Back's first single sounds like optimism earned the hard way.
Branko, SKIP&DIE, Fellow
Branko's global club sound in miniature: an Amsterdam meeting with SKIP&DIE and Fellow on his debut album ATLAS, a gleaming, bass-heavy groove built for a crowd.
Bodyrockers
A crunching dance-rock riff, a strutting beat and a hook about the way you move: Bodyrockers' 2005 floor-filler is pure, unashamed swagger.
Bobby Nourmand
A laid-back, smoky slice of deep house where a rolling bassline meets a bluesy vocal: the Los Angeles producer's mystery track from The Magician's Magic Tapes, released on Potion in 2016.
Bob Moses
Bob Moses stretch a smoky, heartsick vocal across a slow-burning deep house groove, all brooding guitar, rolling bass and late-night tension that never quite breaks; its RAC remix won a Grammy.
Blankets
Blankets carries the Mockingjay murder ballad out of the woods and onto the dancefloor: a 2015 French electronic cover that keeps the song's hummable, unsettling melody and sets it to a pulsing beat.
Big Data, Joywave
A strutting, paranoid electro-rock stomp where Joywave's Daniel Armbruster sneers the hook over clipped funk guitar, heavy handclaps and a bassline built for headphones and dance floors alike.
Ben Khan
Two and a half minutes of warped, woozy funk: Ben Khan's cool falsetto slides over wobbling synths, guitar stabs and brass that sounds trapped inside a bubble.
Basement Jaxx
Bright, bouncing and slightly unhinged, Galactical sends Basement Jaxx and singer Vula off into space on a house groove built for dancing in zero gravity.
Ayọ
Ayọ pleads for a lost love over acoustic guitar and a gentle reggae lilt: the 2006 debut single, recorded with a live band in five days in New York, that made a German-Nigerian singer a star in France.
Axwell, Max C
Axwell's piano-lit house anthem distilled to under three minutes: a rolling bassline, a gospel-tinged vocal from Max'C and a chorus built for arms in the air.
Axwell
Axwell's 2004 club record in its original long form: a pumping, filtered house groove that keeps building until the whole floor is lifted with it.
Avicii
Avicii wraps the standard Nina Simone made famous in soft, swelling synths and lets Audra Mae's smoky, soaring voice carry a song about new dawns, recorded for a 2015 film about his own recovery from years of touring.
Asaf Avidan & the Mojos
A cracked, ageless voice over a few acoustic chords: the original Reckoning Song from 2008 is a campfire confession about growing old, four years before Wankelmut's remix turned it into a European number one.
Arctic Monkeys
Alex Turner pleads with a lover to wake up from someone else's spell over a swaggering, hand-clapped shuffle and a chorus hook that sticks for days: the sixth single from AM.
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys turn a jealous late-night text into a riff-heavy stomp, with Alex Turner's rapid-fire wordplay riding a fuzzed-out, swaggering guitar line.
Arctic Monkeys
A heavy, crawling riff, stomping handclaps and a late-night text that should never have been sent: Do I Wanna Know? turns romantic doubt into slow-burning swagger.
Anna Lunoe
Anna Lunoe's Radioactive, her 2016 debut on OWSLA, is a strobe-lit 'hyperhouse' banger sung in her own voice, all clipped vocal hooks, rave stabs and a low end built to rattle a festival tent.
Angus & Julia Stone
Soft guitars, sibling harmonies and a daydream of flying away with someone: Big Jet Plane drifts in slowly and stays with you long after it lands.
Amy Winehouse
A slinking, horn-stabbed confession of infidelity from Back to Black, written by Amy Winehouse and produced by Mark Ronson with the Dap-Kings' players: retro soul with a lyric no 1960s girl group would have sung.
Alle Farben, Graham Candy
Alle Farben's sun-warmed deep house meets Graham Candy's quivering, unmistakable high voice in a wistful Berlin summer song about the days that do not go to plan.
Adam Freeland
Melodic synths crash into live drums and a snarling rock vocal: Do You opens Freeland's Cope with a breakbeat-punk jolt that sounds like a band and a DJ at war.
AWOLNATION
A slow, menacing electro-rock crawl that erupts into a howled confession, AWOLNATION's Sail is equal parts dread and release.
Codec & Flexor
Erfurt's Northern Lite rework Codec & Flexor's electroclash-era club hit for the 2004 remix EP: a six-minute version that keeps the song's cool, detached refrain and gives it the band's own blend of electro and pop.
Louisahhh
Vitalic reworks the opening track of Louisahhh's techno-punk debut The Practice of Freedom into a five-and-a-half-minute industrial club track, released on the album's 2021 deluxe edition by HE.SHE.THEY.
Hania Rani
A serene, immersive 36-minute KEXP session recorded in July 2022: the Polish pianist and composer Hania Rani plays 24.03, Ghosts, Komeda Part 3 and Buka on piano and synthesizers, pieces that would reach her later albums.
Chicks On Speed
Munich art collective Chicks On Speed turn Cracker's 1990s alt-rock road song into a deadpan electronic cover: an early electroclash single, first pressed on their own Go Records in 1998.
Louisahhh
A dark and pulsating techno track that closes Louisahhh's intentionally brutal 2017 EP A Trap I've Built, delving into desire, control and liberation.
Brazilian Girls
A walking-pace daydream named after an old Istanbul harbour district: Sabina Sciubba's supple voice and soft trumpets carry a song of wandering and missing someone, from Brazilian Girls' 2018 comeback album Let's Make Love.
Pigeon John
The Los Angeles rapper Pigeon John opens his 2010 album Dragon Slayer with The Bomb, a bright, bouncing single co-produced with General Elektriks' Hervé Salters from sampled live instrumentation rather than old records.
Electric Guest
A piano-driven, falsetto-led romp produced by Danger Mouse, 'This Head I Hold' was Electric Guest's 2012 debut single: retro soul-pop swagger wrapped around a reminder that you don't have to follow the steps society lays out.
C2C, Pigeon John
'Because of You' by C2C featuring Pigeon John is a bright collision of hip-hop, electronics and soul from four French world-champion turntablists, with the Los Angeles rapper's warm voice riding a beat built by hand on record decks.
Bakermat
'The River' is a short, warm house track from Bakermat's second album The Spirit (2021), a record the Dutch producer built from gospel, soul and folk material: a two-and-a-half-minute sketch of uplift rather than a club epic.
Lulu Rouge
From Lulu Rouge's 2008 debut Bless You, a slow, dub-shadowed Copenhagen downtempo track in which Alice Carreri sings Mikael Simpson's words over deep bass and spacious, echoing textures.
Lulu Rouge
Danish duo Lulu Rouge and their old ally Trentemøller in seven and a half minutes of nocturnal minimal house: reverberating dub bass, slow-building layers and a Basic Channel shadow.
Mickey Avalon
A darkly comic outlaw ballad from Mickey Avalon's 2020 album Speak of the Devil, produced by Eli Meltzer as Smoov-E: two small-town boys, a shovel and a getaway, over a jangly guitar and a refrain that nothing in this world is free.
Kazy Lambist
The title track of Kazy Lambist's 2015 debut EP: a smooth, sunlit electronic pop song by the Montpellier producer Arthur Dubreucq, laid-back beats and a playful melody built for summer.
Eli
Eli Meltzer, better known as the Bay Area rapper and producer Smoov-E, borrows the swagger of early rock and roll for a short, cocky chase song built on one taunting refrain.
Saschienne
'Knopfauge' is a track from Unknown (Kompakt, 2012), the debut album of Saschienne, the duo of Berlin DJ Sascha Funke and French singer and synth player Julienne Dessagne: minimal electronic music built on Moog lines and patient layering.
Headman
Headman's own club version of Moisture, his song with the singer Luca Santucci: a sleek, hypnotic nu-disco and house groove stretched for the dance floor, a bonus track on the 2016 deluxe edition of his album ON.
Bonaparte, Acid Pauli
Berlin's dance-punk ringmaster Bonaparte and the electronic producer Acid Pauli, once of The Notwist, trade a sly, defiant refrain in a 2020 single that sings from the point of view of something humanity has wronged and now asks for rescue.
Sworn Virgins
The B-side of the anonymous London disco project Sworn Virgins' 2018 12-inch on Soulwax's DEEWEE label: a driving, chugging late-night cut that The Vinyl Factory called a Harvey-esque freak-out for saturated nightcrawlers.
Aloe Blacc
A hard-times plea set to a Brooklyn retro-soul jam: Aloe Blacc's 2010 hit, the theme of HBO's How to Make It in America, heard here live in Berlin in 2011, where a chorus about a job lost and a dollar borrowed is made for a room to sing.
IDLES
IDLES' song about the cycle of alcoholism passed from mother to son, from their 2021 album Crawler: a menacing one-note riff, heavy chords and Joe Talbot howling a gospel-preacher call, here in a live KEXP session.
C.A.R
Roman Flügel turns C.A.R.'s cold-wave Idle Eyes into patient, hypnotic minimal house: a rattling bassline, spiralling keys and pads that swell slowly toward a euphoric peak.
2raumwohnung
The night side of a song recorded twice: 2raumwohnung's 2017 single sets Inga Humpe's German verses and English refrain over a darker, 1980s-flavoured synth arrangement, one of two versions on their double album Nacht und Tag.
Indiana
A hypnotic, synth-driven song about dancing alone, the 2014 single that took the Nottingham singer Indiana to number 14 in the UK and became the centre of her debut album No Romeo.
Northern Lite
The 2001 debut single of Erfurt's Northern Lite, released on their own 1st Decade Records: techno roots turning into electronic pop, with ambient pads, a steady bassline and a slow build toward a driving finish.
Mafia Klvb
The closing track of Mafia Klvb's 2022 debut, made with Pilocka Krach and Mommo G: underground lifestyle rap that turns the credit card into a symbol of excess and the persona into the point.
JPattersson
A laid-back fusion of dub, reggae and deep electronic beats from East Germany: JPattersson's 2016 Elevator, the opening track of the EP Rühn, which also carries its own dub version and two remixes.
Inigo Montoya
'Inigo Montoya - .E.S' is a hypnotic fusion of electronic beats and introspective melodies, creating a dreamlike atmosphere that invites listeners into a reflective journey. The track's mysterious soundscape makes it both haunting and deeply engaging.
Anthony Rother
A pulsating electro track from Anthony Rother's 2006 album Super Space Model on his own Datapunk label: machine rhythms, hard synthesizers and a chanted list of names that turns into the hook.
Alic
A seven-minute slab of psychedelic techno from the German duo Alic, released free on their own netlabel Digital Diamonds in 2012: punching drums under slowly shifting atmospheric layers.
Ultraísta
'Smalltalk' is the 2012 lead single of Ultraísta, the trio of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, drummer Joey Waronker and singer Laura Bettinson: layered synthesizers and afrobeat-minded drums under a plea to stop the small talk, heard here in Four Tet's garage-shuffle remix.
Mélissa Laveaux
Mélissa Laveaux, a Montreal-born singer-songwriter of Haitian descent, recasts Elliott Smith's bleak 1995 song for percussive finger-style guitar, double bass, claps and drums on her 2008 album Camphor & Copper.
Marbert Rocel
A soulful downtempo song from the German trio Marbert Rocel's second album Catch A Bird: Antje Seifarth's gentle voice over soft, slowly unfolding electronics, made for winding down.
Fischerspooner
'Emerge' is Fischerspooner's debut single and one of the defining records of electroclash: a pounding, theatrical electro-pop anthem from a New York duo that began as a performance art piece about entertainment.
Felix Da Housecat
'Madame Hollywood' by Felix Da Housecat featuring Miss Kittin is an electroclash single that plays the glamour of stardom deadpan: a Chicago house producer's taut electro beat and a French voice that sounds bored by fame.
ACRAZE
Orlando producer ACRAZE turned the vocal of Cherish's 2006 R&B single into a two-and-a-half-minute tech house track that spread through DJ sets before it was released and reached the UK top ten in 2022.
Tinush
'Sandburg', German for sandcastle, is the title track of the Berlin producer Tinush's 2014 EP on Crosswalk: seven minutes of melodic deep house, later cut to a three-minute radio edit, with remixes by Alec Troniq and Umami.
The xx
'Crystalised', The xx's 2009 debut single, is minimal indie pop at its most intimate: a muted guitar riff, a sparse beat by Jamie xx, and two voices, Romy Madley Croft's and Oliver Sim's, answering each other verse by verse.
The Police
Sting wrote 'Roxanne' after seeing street workers near the band's Paris hotel in 1977: a plea to a woman to leave that life, set to off-beat reggae guitar and a tango-like rhythm, the A&M debut single that became the Police's signature song.
Lucky Luke
The Lithuanian producer Lucky Luke's 2019 deep house reworking of Mike Posner's 2010 debut hit, released on Columbia/B1: a song about feeling snubbed, turned into a laid-back club anthem that became a radio hit in France a year later.
Klangkarussell
'We Want Your Soul' is Klangkarussell's remix of Adam Freeland's 2003 anti-consumerist breakbeat single: the speech-synthesizer verses and Bill Hicks sample of the original, slowed into a long, hypnotic house groove on the album Netzwerk.
Groove Armada
Groove Armada's 2001 single fuses house with dancehall, reggae and dub over a speed-garage bassline, with MC M.A.D. on vocals and a live horn section; a UK number 12 and a 2003 Grammy nominee.
Gorgon City
Gorgon City's sleek, late-night deep house meets Maverick Sabre's raw, soulful voice on Hard On Me, the closing track of their 2014 debut album Sirens: a plea for gentleness carried by a steady, rolling groove.
Gabriella Cilmi
A teenage Gabriella Cilmi takes Justin Timberlake's 2002 break-up hit out of Timbaland's beatbox-and-clavinet production and sings it as a stripped-down soul lament, her husky voice carrying all the hurt.
Freeland
The lead single of Freeland's Cope swaps the guitar riff for a roaring synth and puts Kurt Baumann's deadpan vocal over breakbeat-bred drums: electronic rock with a raw, defiant edge.
Fort Minor
'Remember The Name' by Fort Minor is an anthem of perseverance: Mike Shinoda and Styles of Beyond trade verses over a cello loop and a chorus that breaks success down into percentages, a song that became the soundtrack of sport.
Eurythmics
An uncredited 2015 deep-house rework of Eurythmics' 1983 synth-pop classic: Annie Lennox's cool, haunting vocal set on a laid-back summer house beat, a lesson in how a famous bassline survives any remix.
AnnenMayKantereit x Parcels
AnnenMayKantereit and Parcels join forces on a stripped-back cover of Kylie Minogue's 'Can't Get You Out of My Head', trading the original's cool electronic pulse for Henning May's rough voice and close band harmonies.
Asian Dub Foundation
The synth-heavy opener of Asian Dub Foundation's Tank: churning drum and bass, a dub-friendly chorus and the band's political urgency, at the start of an album written in the shadow of the Iraq War.
Funky Fat & Digitaria
Two Brazilian acts, the Belo Horizonte trio Funky Fat and the duo Digitaria, meet on Jamie Jones and Lee Foss's label Hot Creations in 2012: a slower, electro-slanted house track of soaring synths, grumbling stabs and breathy vocals.
Roseaux
The French collective Roseaux and the American soul singer Aloe Blacc turn the Police's 1979 reggae hit into an unhurried soul song, the most famous track of their 2012 album of covers.
Fatboy Slim
'Sunset (Bird of Prey)' is Fatboy Slim's 2000 single built around Jim Morrison's voice, sampled from the Doors' 'Bird of Prey': a slow-rising, sun-bleached dance track whose video sends a 1960s fighter pilot on a hallucination.
Nina Simone
'Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)' sets Nina Simone's ten-minute 1965 recording of a traditional spiritual about a sinner with nowhere to hide inside a four-and-a-half-minute house groove, for Verve Remixed 2 in 2003.
Fernanda Porto
Fernanda Porto's own Sambassim: the São Paulo composer's song that fused samba and bossa nova melody with electronic beats and helped name a style, drum 'n' bossa.
Róisín Murphy
The slow, string-laced turn on Róisín Murphy's 2007 electro-disco album Overpowered, co-written with Ill Factor and arranged by Philadelphia soul veteran Larry Gold, heard here in a live performance from the album's era.
Pilocka Krach
The Canadian producer Hrdvsion (Nathan Jonson) remixes Berlin experimental artist Pilocka Krach's 'Discolight' into a five-and-a-half-minute club track, the lead side of a 2012 remix 12-inch on Greatest Hits International.
Michelle Gurevich
'Party Girl' is the home-recorded title song of Michelle Gurevich's 2007 debut, made under the name Chinawoman: a slow, deadpan contralto ballad about nightlife that became her best-known song and gave its title to a Cannes-winning film.
The Horrorist
'One Night In New York City' is The Horrorist's dark techno story of a naive suburban girl's night in the city, first released in 1996 on his own Things To Come label and a German dance number one in 2001, told in a cold spoken voice over a driving machine beat.
Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sinatra's 1966 version of Sonny Bono's song, built on Billy Strange's haunting tremolo guitar, is a hushed ballad of childhood love and betrayal that Quentin Tarantino revived over the opening credits of Kill Bill.
Feist
The first single from Feist's The Reminder (2007), co-written and produced with Chilly Gonzales: a sly, piano-led indie pop song about love and longing, danced through an empty airport at night in Patrick Daughters' video.
Waldeck
'Midsummer Night Blues' is a song from Viennese producer Waldeck's 2007 album Ballroom Stories, written and sung by Zeebee: late-1920s ballroom swing seen through modern production, with the crackle of shellac and a summer night's melancholy.
Luca Malina
'FCKRZ' is a 2021 single by the Viennese singer Luca Malina, R&B-inspired pop about the darker side of relationships, produced by Luca Pivetz with guitar by Lukas Koffler and a self-made video.
Caravan Palace
Caravan Palace's 2015 single fuses 1930s-style swing with club beats and Zoé Colotis's voice, and its animated video of a brawl in a bar full of animals made it one of the most-watched electro-swing tracks ever.
Pomplamoose
Pomplamoose's 2019 cover of Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger': a robot anthem built from a sample and a vocoder, replayed by a live band with real keys, bass, drums and human voices, and filmed so that everything you hear, you see.
Portugal. The Man
Portugal. The Man's Grammy-winning sleeper hit: a quick, swinging slice of psychedelic funk-pop that borrows its melody from Motown's Please Mr. Postman and rides one of the decade's most recognisable basslines.
Cardi B
'WAP' is a bold and provocative hip-hop track by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion: a minimal beat, a looped Baltimore club chant and two rappers trading explicit, joyfully unapologetic verses about desire.
alt-J
A lullaby with teeth: alt-J's 2012 breakthrough wraps an obsessive love song, borrowed in part from Where the Wild Things Are, in plucked guitar, close harmonies and a refrain that piles up until it will not let go.
Clawfinger
'Biggest & The Best' is the lead single from Clawfinger's 1997 self-titled album: Swedish-Norwegian rap metal with industrial programming, aimed squarely at people who think they are almighty.
Whilk & Misky
'Darklands' is one of the first two songs the London duo Whilk & Misky ever wrote: a slow-burning blend of blues guitar, electronic production and a voice that starts quietly and ends up belting, from their 2014 debut EP The First Sip.
Vitalic
A pulsating electro track from Vitalic's 2001 Poney EP on International DeeJay Gigolo: driving machine beats and a snarling synth riff that capture the raw energy of the early-2000s dance floor.
Tubbe
The queer electropunk duo Tubbe, who moved from Munich to Berlin in 2013, set the small-town dream of the big city against its confetti, noise and 1-euro-shop reality, a 2015 synth-pop single from their Audiolith album Keine Arbeit lieber Tanzen.
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Orlando Higginbottom's breakthrough as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs: lush synths, a dance-floor pulse and Luisa Gerstein's voice, first on a 2010 Greco-Roman EP and then a 2011 Polydor single that soundtracked Nokia's Lumia adverts.
Timo Maas
Timo Maas's 'Shifter', featuring MC Chickaboo, is a driving 2002 single from his debut album Loud: German club production at the meeting point of house and breakbeat, with an MC riding the groove; a UK top 40 hit.
The Chemical Brothers
The Chemical Brothers hand the microphone to Fatlip of The Pharcyde for a deadpan rap about a fish-inspired dance: a bubbling, funky detour on their Grammy-winning 2007 album We Are the Night.
The Chemical Brothers
'Star Guitar' is The Chemical Brothers' slowly blooming 2002 single, built on four bars of acoustic guitar sampled from David Bowie's 'Starman', and the song behind Michel Gondry's famous one-shot train-window video.
Sleaford Mods
'Tweet Tweet Tweet' by Sleaford Mods is a gritty post-punk rant born on a dismal bus ride, aimed at people lost in their phones and at the politics of 2014 England, filmed here live for KEXP in 2023: one man pressing play, one man spitting fire.
Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague turn the Dead Kennedys' punk satire into a hushed bossa nova sung by Camille, a 2004 cover whose softness makes the lyric more absurd and more unsettling than the original's noise.
Mirwais
Mirwais, the former Taxi Girl guitarist who would soon produce Madonna's Music, sets a vocoded voice against stop-start acoustic guitar and retro synths: a 2000 French electro single that reached number two on the US club chart.
Miike Snow
Miike Snow's 2012 lead single sets sing-along melancholy over glitchy piano chords and a four-on-the-floor house beat, recorded in a Stockholm studio once used by ABBA.
Kutiman
'Inner Galactic Lovers' is Kutiman's 2015 song assembled from parts recorded by 24 freelance musicians in a dozen countries: an ethereal, funky collage in which every player was hired online and never met the others.
Klangkarussell
A warm deep house song from Klangkarussell's 2014 debut album Netzwerk, sung by Will Heard, the English voice of the Austrian duo's UK hit Sonnentanz (Sun Don't Shine).
K.Flay
K.Flay's breakthrough answers a decade of songs about getting high with a question, what if I'm already high enough: breezy rhythm, bubbly guitar lines and a sing-song flow produced by Mike Elizondo.
Joris Delacroix
Joris Delacroix closes his 2018 album Night Visions with Epoque, seven minutes of melodic deep house in which soft, piano-trained melodies ride a steady, driving pulse.
Jan Blomqvist
Jan Blomqvist's 2014 summer hit sets his soft, echoing voice, Felix Lehmann's Rhodes piano and two guitars over a minimal deep house pulse, the sound of the Berlin 'concert techno' he helped bring to big stages.
Her
'Five Minutes' is the second single by Her, the French duo of Simon Carpentier and Victor Solf: clean-cut, R&B-tinged pop of finger clicks, rippling guitars and layered vocals, from their debut Tape #1.
Gregory Porter
Gregory Porter's up-tempo lead single from Take Me to the Alley: a warm, gospel-rooted jazz-soul song of encouragement, carried by his rich baritone and a small acoustic band.
Felix Da Housecat
Felix Da Housecat's 2001 electroclash single: a melody sampled from The Flirts' 'Passion', Miss Kittin's cool, spoken-sung vocal and a lyric of starlets and cameras, the record that opened Kittenz and Thee Glitz.
Deluxe
'Tum Rakak' is a song by Deluxe, the moustachioed band from Aix-en-Provence: a funky live-band groove in B-flat minor with Liliboy singing a gleefully absurd lyric about curiosity, party crumbs and a truck that reeks in the heat.
Dead Kennedys
Dead Kennedys' 1981 single sets Jello Biafra's satire of a moronic party over East Bay Ray's breakneck surf-punk riff, and became the first UK top-40 hit with the word in its title, despite a BBC ban.
Björk
Before her solo career, Björk sang Icelandic popular songs and jazz standards with a veteran piano trio: Kata rokkar, from the 1990 album Gling-Gló, is a short, playful glimpse of that side of her voice.
Basement Freaks
Los Angeles producer Lonely Boy strips a funk track by the Greek producer Basement Freaks down to a hypnotic house dub, issued on Jalapeno Records in 2013 and later picked up by French lounge compilations.
Alif Tree
'Forgotten Places' is a hushed downtempo piece by the Marseille producer Alif Tree, built around a sampled voice of the jazz singer Shirley Horn and released on Compost Records in 2006: nu-jazz that sounds like a memory being replayed.
Zwicker
'Oddity' is a discofied highlight of Zurich producer Zwicker's 2009 album Songs of Lucid Dreamers on Compost Records: propulsive beats, a funky bass line and xylophone under the voice of guest singer Olivera Stanimirov.
Ryan Blyth
'Once Twice' is a short, uplifting house track by Ryan Blyth with the Swansea singer and producer Rachel K Collier on vocals, premiered in 2016 on the Love & Other channel: bright beats, a sung topline and a hook built for the dance floor.
Pilocka Krach
A track from Pilocka Krach's 2017 double album Sugar Cane & The Lost Amigos, a tour diary pinned between Mexico, Detroit and Berlin: raw sampled cuts and growling synths in the Bar25 veteran's electro post-rave style.
Paul Oakenfold feat. Pharrell Williams
Paul Oakenfold's breakbeat and hip-house collision with Pharrell Williams: a pulsing, provocative 2006 single about the pull of desire and money, with an animated video that ends in a warning.
Mount Sims
A dark, pulsing piece of electroclash from Mount Sims's 2002 debut UltraSex, released on Gigolo in Europe and Emperor Norton in the US: gritty machine beats, minor-key synth melodies and a cool, defiant vocal.
Miss Kittin
'Frank Sinatra' is one of the founding anthems of electroclash: Miss Kittin's deadpan spoken vocal over The Hacker's raw electro, a cool, satirical portrait of fame and excess that still fills dancefloors.
Louie Austen
'One Night In Rio' by Louie Austen is a tongue-in-cheek electro-lounge story from 2001: a Viennese hotel-bar crooner, then in his fifties, counting off a tour from Rio to LA to Moscow and complaining about a taxi, with backing singers echoing every line.
Lekota
Lekota's I Used To combines nostalgic melodies with a modern electronic sound, creating an emotive and introspective listening experience.
Kollektiv Turmstrasse
Hamburg duo Kollektiv Turmstrasse's 2009 'Let Freedom' remix of Federleicht's On the Streets: melancholic, melodic house of deep beats and slowly unfolding synths, from the label that later released their album.
Justice vs. Simian
Justice's remix of Simian's 'Never Be Alone', first pressed on Ed Banger's second release in 2003 and reissued as 'We Are Your Friends' in 2006: a UK top 20 hit whose video won Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards.
Jorge Ben Jor
Jorge Ben's 'Take It Easy My Brother Charles' is a two-and-a-half-minute samba-soul classic from his 1969 album: a swinging guitar, Trio Mocotó's percussion and a warm word of caution to a 'brother of color', half in Portuguese, half in English.
Gabriel Vitel
'Burn It Down' by Gabriel Vitel is a dark, six-minute minimal track from the German songwriter and indie dance live act's 2014 debut EP on Ipoly Music, built for the dance floor rather than the radio.
Controller 7
A 2007 mashup by the San Jose producer Controller 7 that lays the Temptations' 1966 'Get Ready' a cappella over the rhythm section of Peter Bjorn and John's 'Young Folks', two songs forty years apart that line up uncannily well.
Bronski Beat
Bronski Beat's 1984 debut single turns a gay teenager's escape from home into a falsetto-led synth-pop anthem, built on a sequenced octave pattern and remembered for Bernard Rose's stark video.
Amanda Blank
'DJ' by Amanda Blank is a heartbreak song dressed as a club track: over a Diplo and Switch beat, the Philadelphia rapper asks the DJ to turn it up so she can dance a bad relationship away.
Marcu Rares
An eighteen-minute minimal track by the Romanian producer Marcu Rareș, the title piece of his 2018 EP for the Romanian minimal techno label Welter Records.
Lipka
A Geneva duo stops the party to break the worst possible news: a wry, shout-along electro-indie track in which the DJ is told to cut the music because the beer is running out.
Ladytron
Ladytron's 2002 single: whirring synthesizers, two cool, interlocking voices and a minimal lyric that takes a swipe at an industry obsessed with youth, shiny and throwaway on the surface and dark underneath.
Chris Lorenzo & The Streets
Birmingham bass producer Chris Lorenzo and The Streets' Mike Skinner meet on a fast, ferocious slice of drum and bass: tight drums, tearing bass synths and Skinner's dry, conversational vocal.
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