Dance USA

One of the U.S.A.'s greatest musical exports is its enormous, world-spanning, beat-loving, groove-riding express train of classic dance music. Uncle Sam, we salute you for delivering Madonna's "Vogue," that supremely clever mash-up of style and rhythm that raised the dance-pop bar at the start of the '90s, Missy Elliott's incredibly infectious "Get Ur Freak On," a sublime marriage of hip-hop and bhangra beats, Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk's Chicago house landmark "Love Can't Turn Around," and Kanye West's so-so-soulful "Gold Digger," with its on-the-money Brother Ray cameo by Jamie Foxx. Let's hear it for the red, white, and groove. Explore the 50 states of superlative dance, in Next Steps.

From sea to shinin', bangin', ultra-funkin', hard-ravin' sea, we've collected the best dance tunes the U.S.A. has to offer . . . from the big-beat Left Coast techno of the Crystal Method ("Weapons of Mass Destruction") — members Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland are both from Vegas, but the outfit was formed in Los Angeles in 1993 — to legends of the East Coast, like Kenny "Dope" Gonzales and Little Louie Vega, here working as Nuyorican Soul on "The Nervous Track." Kenny adopts his Bucketheads persona for 1995's "The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)," featuring a catchy-as-hell brass sample from Chicago's "Street Player." Pledge your allegiance to the United States of Dance, in Deep Cuts.

You'd better be in great shape, because these cult club cuts from America's capacious DJ crates will impel towards the dance floor and keep you there — so you have no option but to shake that thing. We make a bee-line for the streets of Detroit, in the company of hybrid stylist supreme Kenny Dixon Jr. — a.k.a. Moodymann — who ploughs a smooth, funky furrow with "Black Mahogani"; head out west with Egyptian Lover, who delivers a nugget of crisp '80s electro with "Freak-a-Holic"; then "move it, move it" to the Big Apple with a pair of belters from Erick Morillo — "Dancin (A Little More Vocal Mix)" and, as Reel 2 Real, the Club mix of "I Like to Move It."

Detroit techno, Chicago house, the West Coast Underground, and the many splendid beats and sounds of New York. You'll find all these styles and many more in the melting pot of groove we've labelled Dance USA. Here, the stars are the producers and remixers, and the stripes are made by lashes of pleasure as the kings and queens of American clubland whip you into a hot funk. There's even a guest appearance from Montreal-based, '80s-skewed electro-funkateers Chromeo, not to mention seminal tracks from the likes of Deee-Lite, Moby, Afrika Bambaataa, the Black Eyed Peas, Usher, and the Jackson 5. Now's the time to dance your way to the dawn's early light with your brothers and sisters in Stateside rhythm.