Instrument
drums
66 tracks.
Gin Wigmore
Dirty Mercy
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.
Foster The People
Pumped Up Kicks
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.
filous, LissA
Feel Good Inc.
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.
DJ Fitchie, Joe Dukie
Midnight Marauders
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.
Depeche Mode
Wrong (Live in Barcelona)
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
Pinky's Dream (Trentemøller Remix Instrumental)
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
Get Lucky (Radio Edit)
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
Give Life Back to Music
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 by Moroder
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.
Bodyrockers
I Like The Way (Radio Edit)
A crunching dance-rock riff, a strutting beat and a hook about the way you move: Bodyrockers' 2005 floor-filler is pure, unashamed swagger.
Basement Jaxx
Galactical
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
Down On My Knees
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.
Arctic Monkeys
Snap Out Of It
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
R U Mine?
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
Do I Wanna Know?
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.
Angus & Julia Stone
Big Jet Plane
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
You Know I'm No Good
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.
Adam Freeland
Do You
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.
Brazilian Girls
Karaköy
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.
Electric Guest
This Head I Hold
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.
Aloe Blacc
I Need a Dollar (Live)
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
The Wheel
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.
Ultraísta
Smalltalk
'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.