Tango

With its roots in Spain and Morocco, and its evolution through the sweaty gaucho bars of Argentina (early male dancers were usually “perfumed” by days in the saddle, hence the woman’s flung-back head), the tango is arguably the world’s sexiest dance. Here, we give you tango’s finest players and singers, like ’20s pioneer Carlos Gardel.

During the golden age of tango (a period of roughly two decades beginning in the mid-’30s, contemporaneous with the big band heyday in the U.S.), the orchestras of Anibal Troilo (“Chuzas”) and Osvaldo Pugliese (“Anda que te cure Lola”) flourished. Tango had spruced itself up, left its brothels, and swaggered into the mainstream.

Inevitably, there was going to be a time when tango broke away from its pure origins, and made greater claims as a form of popular music: During the ’50s, Astor Piazzolla (here performing “Calambre” with film-score legend Lalo Schiffrin) became a key figure in the broadening of tango’s appeal, despite protests from traditionalists.

The history of recorded tango has come a long way since the early part of the 20th century, and we’ve condensed its essence into this playlist of cuts, from the crackling tracks of Carlos Gardel and Juan D’Arienzo during the gramophone era, to the sophisticated Nuevo Tango experiments and fusions of artists like Rodolpho Mederos (“Catamarca”) and the Kronos Quartet (“Five Tango Sensations: Asleep - Dreaming”) further on down the line. You don’t need a rose in your chops to enjoy our playlist (but it couldn’t hurt).