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Okay, so there are loads of these for me. The first category are songs that I love, and that I've heard people say they've heard them in clubs, but I never have and it ain't fair...
Debbie Deb - "When I hear music" and "Let me be your fantasy"
Genius clanky, robotic, over-emoting and vaguely filthy 80s latin freestyle music. Her voice is halfway between little-girl innocent and Madonna in slutty-mode and the production is just unlike anything else. Doesn't really have the builds that most people in clubs demand from music with this sort of house-y pace, but if you dropped it in at the right moment it'd certainly blow me away. Gets played in US electroclash-type nights, apparently. I wish it got played in the UK in the middle of pervy house sets...
Dynamix II - "Give the DJ a break"
Floorshaking bass in an 80s style. Despite the cheesy vocoders and scratching the bassline still has it. Dynamix II are one of those 'legendary' acts that always get talked about and never get played, which is a shame.
Genaside II - "Narra mine"
So I was the wrong age, and in the wrong bit of the country when this came out, but WHAT A FUCKING TUNE. They went on to do really awful breaks music but this is the absolutely definitive "light and shade" tune. For those that don't know (and I urge an immediate download if you don't) it leads in with this pretty, melancholy female vocal, drops out halfway into a looooong bass tone and then this manic ragga mc drops straight in really unexpectedly. Great bassline, paranoid, edgy synths and basically just perfection. I think even the most 'rock' of music fans could appreciate this... Again, why DJs feel they should drop in shite like "On a ragga tip" for their token "old school" tune I will never know, when you have gems like this that we never get to hear.
Jay-Z - "Snoopy track"
I think this is a function of timing, because I was in Edinburgh when this came out, and we didn't have any hip hop clubs that played modern hip hop at that time. And it's probably too old to actually get played in London any more, but I never got to hear it properly loud. It is such an extraordinary and weird record with that backwards thing. You can do some properly odd dancing to it...
The next category are records that I don't think most DJs would dare to play, or think to play.
Cover Girls - "Hooked on you"
More freestyle. This would never get played for two reasons - firstly it takes quite a while to get going and secondly the drums are so bonkers that I doubt anyone would know what to do with it. It's just a real curiosity - it does that Kid 606 stuttering cd-sticking type thing with the drums, but it's from '87 or so. The whole thing is coupled with the Cover Girls (who sound about 12 years old) singing about sex, but all chopped up and re-ordered. Production is just totally off the hook, drums all over the place and things coming in and out seemingly at random - not much of an 8-bar pattern here. I love it precisely because it's so unpredictable, but you'd need a crowd that really trusted the dj, which is rare.
Renegade and Static - "We'll delete the weak"
Scottish gabber. It's not Acardipane-style 'acceptable' gabber like they play at IDM nights, it's just nasty, loud and aggressive and slightly ill-favoured. A pretty personal choice, I wouldn't advise anyone to try actually playing it...
A black man, a black man and another black man - "I believe"
Hilarious name, which I assume is a piss-take on "Two puerto ricans, a black man and a dominican". This record is pure chicago 1987 - it's really spare and alien-sounding, very little going on and a voice talking over the top. It feels like you can draw a straight line through the underbelly of house from this record through to Boo Williams and Cajmere but the early stuff has that rawness and purity. A friend of mine has this, I've never seen it for sale, never heard it in a club and I would pay a lot of money to own it.
EPMD - "Get off the bandwagon"
So you'll hear "You gots to chill" pretty often. "Strictly business" and "Rampage" get the occasional outing. But you never hear this, and it's the best thing they ever did. Menacing Dre-style analog synth bassline, and loads of classic EPMD lines - "this ain't a blast from the past it's a boomer from the future" and best of all it has this moment when the track just stops and Erick says "Sucker" in just the most dismissive way.
Loads more, but I really ought to do some work now... |
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