Sacred cows from the dance canon that are now irrelevant

No, me either, but I don't think "Visitors" or "Void Vision" is cheesy either, so I'm probably not representative on that score...

Track listing for secret history is:

Liasons Dangereuses - "Peut-etre pas"
Alexander Robotnick - "Problemes d'amour"
"Hypnotic tango"
Gaz Nevada - "IC love affair"
Visage - "Frequency 7"
Telex - "Brainwash"
Paul McCartney - "Temporary secretary"
Material - "Secret life"
Klein and MBO - "Wonderful"

The Liasons Dangerous LP has been reissued, don't know if that track is on it, and that Material song is on one of Tigersushi's 12"s. Nothing really suprising.

I say forget about what tracks were the MOST influential, how about amazingly awesome cool tracks that nobody heard? I'd name some but that would spoil it. Rephlex would reissue them before I got the chance to!

Anyway, also check out their reissue of the Black Devil Disco Club stuff coming out, that's the most amazing thing, really deep dark soundtracky stuff crossing the bridge of the earlier more disco-y italo-disco to the spaced out electro-y italo-disco.

The thing about this thread is that its really several threads. I have absolutely no thoughts or opinions on Massive Attack and know nothing about the classic drum and bass and uk garage canon other then some stuff I got on CDr from Simon Reynolds, which I haven't digested and can't put in any context anyway.

But as far as good dance music intros, I always say get all 4 volumes of Tommy Boy's Perfect Beats. and these sights:

www.deephousepage.com and
www.deepdisco.com

Did you know some of the Crystal Waters stuff was produced by Maurice Fulton? Now it's hip! Gypsy Woman was the name of that song and it makes one remember a time when House music was in the US top 10!

'Hideaway' is still amazing, 'Music Sounds Better With You' came out round same time as 'You Can't Hide From Your Bud' but is still the turning point... actually, let's get down to the question who here gets down?

Provincial highstreet clubbing is all about the Neptunes sound. Boring seven minute build-ups are boawrin. So radio edits are the shit, always.

Yeah, how fucking weak-minded to get excited about the most obviously exciting musical development of the nineties!

"Bukem and his label must have been the most over-hyped musicians in history"

This statement has a better chance of standing up, but even then by linking the two together you imply that Bukem and dnb were synonymous which is wrong wrong wrong.

This comes across as really thin and watery. I think we expect monster bass with everything now, and dance tunes that don't have it really suffer.

this i find extraordinary. this is a true classic and the trademark Deep Dish swish metallic beats are pretty tough and dirty - and how can you say it's not bassy? get a proper system!

Well, I dunno if it was the most exciting next to what was happening in hip hop, but even then there was no sense, in a lot of publications, of proportion. I suppose most were written for DJs who did get thru 20 new records a week, but not enough writers said 'this is dull', and a hell of a lot of it was and is (i'm talking late jungle/dnb here).

I'm 20 and I love Derrick May. I think lots of 18 year olds could get into it, it's not obtuse or weird, I would say Strings of Life sounds the most dated, whereas Nude Photo or Beyond The Dance still are pretty solid affirmations of house/techno as weird and wonderful music.

Jacob's second list strikes me as a very good one, mind you Don't You Want Me by Felix is an odd blueprint for the filter disco sound of the late 90s I always feel. It does sound pretty iffy now though unless pitched up heavily and even then.

Papua New Guinea really is top of the list, it owns this thread I agree.

On the subject of Kevin Saunderson, I couldn't disagree more! Stuff like Velocity Funk and Pump The Move still sound brilliant to me, just need a bit more pitch perhaps.

I think a Hideaway is an interesting suggestion. It's a track which has almost ceased to seem like a dance classic and become just a classic to me. I could see a similar argument for Music Sounds Better With You except it did become the blueprint for loads of pop and dance songs after it.

I think CHIME is a now irrelevent, take that canon! Smokebelch II also irrelevent now I agree. Both are good, better than Papua New Guinea but dance has moved beyond "I am spaced out of my mind dude play me heavenly weird noises". Not far beyond but beyond nonetheless.

(as an off-topic, how hard to track down is that Klein and MBO album? slsk maybe?)

I agree, I like Chime, but it does fit the thread I think, in the sense that it's no longer relevent to dancefloors. I don't think including something here has to be a diss.

hmmm. the last track i heard that had that good 'ol kym sims vibe was the "maurice's livegig mix" of "bills, bills, bills". i think when r+b gets this storming there's not really any call for that stuff anymore.

Whereas Saunderson continues to be the most underrated Detroit geezer of all.