Back to School Days

If you left school sometime during the '80s or the '90s and you ever went to a school disco — and we think that's pretty much all of you — then we guarantee that these Essentials will deliver a head-rush of nostalgia so powerful, you'll feel like you just necked a litre-bottle of Tizer in one. Watch those memories fizz up to the surface as you cue up Wham! (oldies) or Britney (youngies).

Head to the back of the bike shed for our Back to School Days Next Steps.

Some of these tracks earned their status as School Days classics by coupling a timeless pop hook with something unique . . . like the alien-on-helium vocal delivered by Babylon Zoo's Jas Mann on "Space Man"; or the fraternal harmonies (and girlish hair) of Hanson on "MMMBop"; or the shaky English of Sweden's Ace of Base on "All That She Wants" — "It's a day for catching tan"? Course it is.

Back then, as Deep Cuts will remind you, the only important question was: Who got off with who?

All you former schoolboys will remember the weirdness of those weeks when your voice started to break — one minute you're up there with Matt Goss on "I Owe You Nothing", the next you're growling like Shaggy on "Boombastic". And all you former 1980s schoolgirls — can you still remember doing that dance to "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles? Thought so — it's like riding a bike . . .

Nostalgia is memory's automatic sugar-coating — everyone's experience of teenage nightlife involved its fair share of heartbreak, fashion catastrophe, livid acne, and snakebite vomit, but seen through the rose-tinted spectacles of our mind's eye, those long, sweaty nights are invariably reimagined as a much-cherished party paradise. We'd like to return you to that pop-rockin' nirvana — to the days when a love-bite was the ultimate mark of achievement, and when forming a circle to sing "Come On Eileen" was not just acceptable, but also normal — with these scout-hut scorchers, youth club anthems, and school disco classics.