Freestyle: Grandes Éxitos

Tease the bangs with Aqua Net and dust off the spandex biker shorts. It's right about time for a freestyle explosion. Call it Hi-NRG if you like — the music's what matters. See, freestyle bridged sweet R&B, New York electro, Latin rhythms, and Miami bass, making for a heady dance-floor concoction that wouldn't be ignored. All the big stars are here: Shannon, Debbie Deb, Lisa Lisa, Exposé, Stevie B, the Cover Girls — even dance-pop powerhouse Information Society with their crossover freestyle smash "Running."

Generally speaking, freestyle tends to address three primary topics: world hunger, the military industrial complex, and the demise of the middle class (er, wrong music — make that love, heartbreak, and non-stop partying). Welcome to the world of feel-goodness, courtesy of Nocera's "Summertime, Summertime" and Debbie Deb's "When I Hear Music." And check out those one-note melodies and punctuating keyboard stabs — quality indicators of genius dance-floor pop in the '80s. OK, people, time to do the Wop, the Smurf, the Elaine, and the Carlton Banks.

The 118-bpm foundation of freestyle can be traced back to Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock," itself a fine salute to Kraftwerk. Naturally, we've got both of those groundbreaking artists right here, and they're the perfect starting point for charting the freestyle trajectory from underground sound to pop sensation, with stops along the way for leftfield favorites by Pretty Tony ("Jam the Box"), Freestyle ("Don't Stop the Rock"), and Tongan pop royal family the Jets ("Crush on You").

With reggaeton and R&B ruling the ultra-lounge playlists, the atmosphere is right for a freestyle comeback. While this club-igniting sound embraces innocent themes of unrequited love, its futuristic core moves dance floors and roller rinks without succumbing to cheap come-ons. Bottom line: it's about fun. No wonder hardcore fans like Gwen Stefani, Diplo, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Janet Jackson profess their love of freestyle in interviews, mixtapes, or (in the case of Ms. Jackson) by covering their favorite cuts. At long last, freestyle is finally getting the respect it deserves . . . though the fashion and hairstyles may take a few more years to catch on.