Music is primarily about dancing right? The rhythms get us swaying our hips, nodding our heads, throwing some shapes. So here's a playlist of songs devoted to the concept of dance.
1) Pere Ubu - "The Modern Dance"
David Behemoth Thomas is an odd cove isn't he? As judged by his introduction to the live version here in the video. Still P.U. made some highly danceable if vaguely unsettling music.
2) Toyah - "Danced"
Toyah Wilcox, actress, singer, or with the right contacts both simultaneously. She landed a deuteragonist role in a TV detective series, playing a singer in a band, so got to eprform two of her songs in the show as part of the plot, including this catchy number.
3) B52s - "Dance This Mess Around"
If there was ever a dance party band it was the B52s. But there were occasions such as on this song & "Give Me Back My Man" when Cindy Wilson's vocals hinted at a greater despair behind the fun.
4) Killing Joke - "Wardance"
This is a great song but there are no decent versions of them doing it live, which suggests how much of the song was enhanced by the studio production. None of the energy and menace were ever quite there live.
5) Mos Def - "Pretty Dancer"
Seems appropriate as Mos wrote this song as a tribute to Muhammad Ali.
6) David Bowie - "John I'm Only Dancing"
Another superstar who we've just lost recently. David Bowie RIP
7) Sly & The Family Stone - "Dance To The Music"
Is there any song that screams more for you to just get up & dance to the music? I'm not sure there is. You can't have any troubles when this comes on the loudspeakers.
8) Arctic Monkeys "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor"
Weren't the Arctic Monkeys a thing a few years ago? I never believed the hype, but then I was more likely to heed the words of Public Enemy...
9) John Spencer Blues Explosion - "Lap Dance"
The clue's in the band name, a sort of messed up acid blues-rock, with bass on full distortion, love it!
10) Prince - "Sexy Dancer"
I'm going to have to stop doing these charts as one's musical heroes are popping their clogs at an alarming rate. I guess it's a reflection of my age, growing up and being exposed first to music in the 1970s, but Prince really did go far too early.
11) Abba - "Dancing Queen"
I was never an Abba fan, always seeing them as the immovable obstacle to more interesting bands getting to the top of the pop charts. But now in my dotage I hope I have become a bit more gracious and even though their music still brings me out in hives, I can at least acknowledge their significance by conferring them a place in one of my playlists. Just don't expect me to dance along to it that's all.
12) The Skids - "Scared To Dance"
The Skids were one of those bands whose individual parts amounted to more than the total. Fabulous guitarist, aesthetically pleasing lead singer and yet none of their songs were ever quite remarkable enough to my ear.
13) Ramones - "Blitzkrieg Bop"
Sad how classic pop/rock now gets recycled as music for adverts. This song now promotes a delivery system to rival UPS.
14) The Sweet - "Blitzkrieg Bop"
I have no idea how this song stuck in my psyche all these years for me to dredge up from my memory to end up in this chart. When I was pre-teen, this was the music that was around everywhere in daily life. Before ghetto blasters, walkmans and I-Pods, people used to listen to their transistor radios and so day and night this kind of stuff assaulted our earholes. Now you know just why punk rock had to emerge.
14) Martha And The Vandellas - "Dancing In the Street"
Phew, thank goodness for this. Restores one's faith in music, which is kind of Martha's point too
15) Genesis - "I Can't Dance"
Correct, you can't. When I was in the last years of my schooling, I travelled to school with a guy whose sister was being pursued by Phil Collins who was a total lech. See pop pickers, if you didn't make these people famous, they wouldn't get ideas above their true station.
16) Beenie Man - "Dancehall Queen"
Not to be confused with the similar sounding titled Abba song "Dancing Queen". definitely not to be confused musically... Horrible song, worse video
17) House Of Pain - "Jump Around"
Maybe not strictly a 'dance' song, but then it kind of is. Not Riverdance admittedly...
18) Leighton Buzzards - "Saturday Night Under The Plastic Palm Trees"
This was actually my tenderfoot experience on the dance floors of youth clubs
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