Dance Basslines

The pulse — and by definition the heart — of any great club track is its bass-line: that sternum-shaking air vibration that, together with rhythm and beat, makes up the three fundamental elements of dance. Here we've assembled tracks that owe their very identity to the bass-line, whether it's Peter Hook's belligerent heavy-duty twang on "Blue Monday" or the electrifying rumble underpinning Candi Staton's vocal on the Source's "You Got the Love".

Bass mutates through the many dance-floor textures of our Next Steps.

The bass is an adaptable, shape-shifting beast — in the hands of Deep Blue (aka Sean O'Keeffe) it prowls through our headspace bristling with seismic danger, lending drum 'n' bass anthem "The Helicopter Tune" the footfall of a ravenous T-Rex. Depeche Mode, by contrast, generates a pulpit-smacking immediacy for "Personal Jesus (Holier Than Thou Approach)" while The Future Sound of London sets "Papua New Guinea" adrift on a dark, ominous river.

Serpentine, pole-axing, frenetic . . . the bass-line shows more of its colours in Deep Cuts.

Dubstep superstar Benga rings the changes on "26 Basslines" to show his mastery of the art of tweak, Primal Scream instills a sense of menacing funk with the bass on their cover of the 13th Floor Elevators' "Slip Inside This House", and Innerzone Orchestra takes syncopation to the next level with "Bug in the Bass Bin". And if you've never been nuked into submission by a bass-line, feel the radioactive glow of CJ Bolland's Geiger-counted classic, "Horsepower".

Without their bass-lines, most dance tracks would be little more than nebulous assemblages of rhythms and beats, unable to deliver the satisfying payoff that arises only from the deepest realms of recorded sound. We're talking about a feeling of full-body immersion in the moment, a sonic harpoon of profound noise shot from the bass-bins towards your soul. Every one of these tracks will leave you ecstatically helpless and gasping for air, whether it's the android-army stomp of Daft Punk's "Around the World", the supple hyper-funked bass lasso of the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", or the junglist jazz of Reprazent & Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag".