'00s School Disco

Whether your high school days are behind you (and you just fancy a bit of a teen-themed boogie) or if you're still rockin' that uniform, our '00s School Disco selections will take you straight to seething, move-bustin' heart of the dancehall. Your Masters of Ceremony are the Jonas Brothers, who kick things off with "Tonight," before the Pussycat Dolls strut onto the floor with a song for all ambitious, future-celebrity schoolies: "When I grow up, I wanna be famous, I wanna be a star, I wanna be in movies." Lady Gaga cuts straight to the chase with "Just Dance," and Gabriella Cilmi makes it clear she wants to stay up all night with "Don't Wanna Go to Bed Now." School's out forever . . . except for the disco . . . so keep on dancing right through to Next Steps.

Everyone's got their core list of favourite school disco tunes — you know, the ones that send you hurtling onto the dancefloor as soon as you hear the first couple of notes. These are the songs that flood your senses with a golden euphoria and unstoppable energy so that, one day, you will look back and think that school wasn't really so bad, after all. Maybe you'd include Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold," with it's bangin' back-beat, on that list? Or perhaps Outkast's evergreen "Hey Ya" with its addictive mix of acoustic strum and poppin' electronica? Or how about Rihanna's "Umbrella," one of the greatest friendship tunes ever penned . . . like her, you're gonna stick it out to the end. You've done your homework, now it's time to bump 'n' grind, in Deep Cuts.

The deeper we go with our '00s School Disco, the more those hormones start to fly: they're so thick in the air, you can practically see them. And all that natural energy requires a suitable soundtrack — an outlet — which is why we've lined up Cobra Starship's ode to an accident that's about to happen, "Good Girls Go Bad," David Guetta's homage to the prettiest half of the room, "Sexy Chick" (with Akon on vocals), and Ben Lee's tongue-in-cheek salute to viral communication "Catch My Disease." And all you blokes out there, if the chemistry's just not fizzin', go and have a good old headbang to Wolfmother's "Joker and the Thief."

Just ask any old person over the age of 35 — those School Disco nights will turn out to be some of the best times of your life. Music never matters more than when you're a teenager, rock 'n' roll never sounds as vital, and the pure thrill of dancing till your fringe is sweat-plastered onto your forehead never feels so good. These are the tunes that bid farewell to childhood while tapping into all that latent youthful energy: the songs you will remember forever. Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once said that "golden moments pass and leave no trace," but here you can hold onto them for the rest of your life, from the Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling" to Silverchair's "Straight Lines," and from MGMT's "Kids" to the Veronicas' "Take Me on the Floor." Whether it's for retro kicks or for real, your '00s School Disco is about to kick off, big time.