'80s Dance

Dance music made the '80s a decade of transition, between the disco-dominated '70s to the mega-club and superstar DJ supremacy of the '90s. As a result, the sound of the dance floor was a mash-up of styles, from Frankie Goes to Hollywood's landmark chunk of electro-thunk, "Relax", to the breezy funk of Wham!'s "Club Tropicana".

Landmark hip-hop ("White Lines (Don't Do It)" by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel rubs shoulders with minimal German robot-pop (Kraftwerk's "The Model" was recorded in '78 but released in English translation in '81) and adrenalised synth-rock (Kim Wilde's "Kids in America"), as we continue to stir our melting pot of '80s dance.

The evolution of dance took a huge leap forward in 1982 when Afrika Bambaataa gave us "Planet Rock", the first hip-hop track to feature synthesizers: a sample of Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" provides the bedrock melody. Two years later, Herbie Hancock pioneered scratching and turntablism with his evergreen "Rockit".

From house classic "Pump Up the Volume" (the only track released, on 4AD, by MARRS) to vintage Madonna, we've assembled all the key tracks that made the '80s such a diverse and groundbreaking era in the ongoing story of dance music. The decade saw the emergence of techno in Detroit and its subsequent cameos in the global mainstream, experiments in rap fusion (Tom Tom Club's "Wordy Rappinghood"), and the birth of acid house (spearheaded by the likes of S'Express), which would mutate into that smiley-faced monster we know and love as the rave scene. Sorted.