When the first disco era fizzled out – that time in the Seventies when dance music and its attendant fashions were right at the centre of mainstream culture – it wasn’t like people suddenly stopped dancing. On the contrary, much of the pioneering work done by artists and producers during the disco years lived on during the Eighties, captivating a new, dance-hungry generation. The fact of the matter is that there’s always been good dance music around, because by its very nature it’s impossible for artists and producers to become too self-indulgent, as has often happened within rock music. If people are not dancing, then you aren’t communicating with your audience, which means that you haven’t created functional dance music – simple as that.

On this disc, you will find some of the best, most popular and most pioneering of tracks that sent the crowds dancing as flares, frilly perms and roller skates gave way to leg warmers, headbands and outrageous gender bender fashions. Perhaps none of the tracks here was more important in a long-term perspective than the 1979 release ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by New York group Sugarhill Gang. With an instrumental groove lifted straight from Chic’s ‘Good Times’, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ was essentially the first use of “sampling” – incorporating a previously released hit recording as the basis of a new recording – which has since become a mainstay of pop and R&B records. Perhaps even more importantly, it was among the very first rap records, certainly the first to become a significant hit, reaching #36 on the pop chart, #4 R&B. Although many initially regarded rap as a flash-in-the-pan novelty, at the time of writing it is the most dominant force within the music industry.

New York was still the scene when Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force pushed rap and dance music even further with one of the most influential records to be released in the Eighties: ‘Planet Rock’ (#48 pop, #4 R&B in 1982). With its computer-based, highly electronic sound, including the first use on an R&B record of the Roland TR-808 drum machine – subsequently featured on innumerable records – and melody lines from German electro-pioneers Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans-Europe Express’, ‘Planet Rock’ provided a blueprint for what most dance music would sound like for the remainder of the decade. This collaboration between Afrika Bambaataa and producer Arthur Baker would send off both men on successful careers, not least Baker who quickly emerged as one of the most sought-after producers in the business, working with everyone from Great Britain’s New Order to Bob Dylan.

A New York-based outfit working within a slightly more traditional funk environment was Tom Tom Club. Initially formed as a side-project by Talking Heads members Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, the band scored an unexpected hit with the funky and infectious ‘Genius Of Love’ (#31 pop, #2 R&B). Although this was to remain their only chart entry, the song left an indelible memory with dance music fans and was sampled for Mariah Carey’s 1995 number one smash, ‘Fantasy’. Likewise, Indeep – the brainchild of songwriter Michael Cleveland – only achieved one significant hit: ‘Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life’, #10 R&B in 1983. Although for some mysterious reason this highly danceable creation never entered the pop chart – perhaps because of the early Eighties resistance at anything that sounded too much like Seventies disco – today it is hailed as one of the all-time dance classics and has been covered by artists such as the aforementioned Ms Carey.

In the early Eighties, the United States music scene was subjected to a second British Invasion, the first one of course occurring two decades earlier when many groups achieved spectacular success in the aftermath of The Beatles’ breakthrough. Among the more successful Eighties “invaders” were the Thompson Twins, who first charted in America with their club hit ‘In The Name Of Love’ in 1982 (#69 R&B). The group numbered seven members at the time of ‘In The Name Of Love’, but it was as the trimmed-down pop trio of Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway that they would go on the achieve their greatest commercial success.

Yaz (or Yazoo as they were known outside America) was a British duo who enjoyed some success in the United States. Their first US chart entry, ‘Situation’ (#73 pop, #31 R&B in 1982) had originally been the B-side of their British début single, ‘Only You’, but became a US club hit in a remix by Francois Kevorkian. Vince Clarke, the male half of the duo, was a founding member of Depeche Mode – also their main songwriter – but left after that group’s first album. Embarking on a series of relatively short-lived collaborations, out of which Yaz was one, he finally settled into a long-term working relationship with Andy Bell in the duo Erasure. Yaz’s female singer, Alison Moyet, enjoyed a successful solo career after the duo split in 1983.

Dead Or Alive, another British export, represent the most colorful gender-bender side of the Eighties on this disc. Their breakthrough hit, ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’, was also their biggest, reaching #11 pop in 1985. Fronted by singer Pete Burns, Dead Or Alive was Eighties pop at its most fun and tongue-in-cheek. Incidentally, the band provided some of the earliest success for a production team that would become the most successful hit factory of the latter half of the Eighties: Stock/Aitken/Waterman. Especially in Europe, their singles by acts such as Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley and Bananarama were constantly in the charts up until the early Nineties.

Besides Stock/Aitken/Waterman, the other British producer mastermind to really typify Eighties production values was Trevor Horn. As lead singer of The Buggles, his first success came with ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’, the very first video to be played on that Eighties phenomenon known as MTV. Installing himself behind the recording console for the remainder of the decade, he lent his production magic to mega-hits such as ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ by Yes; most famously he gave Frankie Goes To Hollywood a big sound to match their controversial image. Here you may enjoy his grandiose soundscape on Grace Jones’ ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ (#20 R&B), which he produced and co-wrote.

Of course, there is no shortage of hits recorded in America on this disc. Olivia Newton-John had already achieved spectacular success during the Seventies with a string of high-charting country songs and ballads, only to top it off with her starring role in the movie Grease and its accompanying hit singles. As if that wasn’t enough, she kicked off the Eighties with her biggest hit of all time, ‘Physical’, which spent a mind-boggling 10 weeks at number one on the pop chart in 1981. It was such a massive hit that Olivia even entered the R&B chart for the first and only time – most music fans would probably not think of her as an R&B artist – reaching the Top 30 with ‘Physical’. The accompanying video, featuring a head-banded Olivia running around among muscular and not-so-muscular men in a gym, was as typical of the Eighties as anything can be!

This disc also contains two R&B number one hits. Legendary soul queen Aretha Franklin, one of few artists to enjoy chart success in every decade since the Sixties, contributes one of her biggest Eighties hits, ‘Jump To It’. The late Gwen Guthrie got her first big break in the business when she provided backing vocals for Franklin’s 1974 #1 R&B hit, ‘I’m In Love’. She soon proved that she was also a talented song writer, penning the R&B number one ‘Supernatural Thing’ for Ben E. King, together with song writing partner Patrick Grant. As a performer her crowning achievement was the super-catchy and ultra dance-friendly ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent’, which topped the R&B chart in 1986; it was certainly one of the best disco tracks to be produced during the Eighties.

Finally, we should also mention Irene Cara’s ‘Flashdance…What a Feeling!’, which hit number two on the R&B chart, but spent six weeks at number one on the pop chart in 1983. Co-written by Cara herself, Keith Forsey and the song’s producer, Giorgio Moroder, ‘Flashdance’ was the typical Eighties hit: not only was it the title track from a movie – in a decade where many of the biggest hits were introduced in films – but it also carried a highly positive message and came with a driving electronic pulse. And, naturally, it worked on the dance floor. Oh yes, they certainly knew how to bring out those catchy dance hits in the Eighties as well!

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