It was an absurd instant classic that delivered the sound of the dance scene’s origins to new audiences.
#WHACK THE CREEPS ALL FAILD DRIVER#
I have to get my hair and nails did, so please tell the limo driver to wait for me” - played over repetitive techno beats.
#WHACK THE CREEPS ALL FAILD SERIES#
Paired with British DJ/producer Patrick Topping, “Voicemail” samples a series of, well, voicemails, with these deadpan monologues - “I’m not calling to have you put me on the guest list for tonight, but I was wondering if I could ride with you. Green Velvet, an underground legend cured to perfection by the 90s rave scene, brings his unflappable brand of pulsating techno to this 2014 dance hit. Green Velvet & Patrick Topping, “Voicemail” (2014) “These will be the years,” Koma promises. The “Clocks” for the EDM age, with Swedish progressive house producer Alesso oscillating between a cascading piano twinkle and a chest-punching synth overload, while jack-of-all-toplines Matthew Koma waxes rhapsodic with future nostalgia. The “Summertime Sadness” remix became Del Rey’s first (and to date, stilly only) single to reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, simultaneously raising her profile, and earning Gervais a Grammy win for best remixed recording, non-classical. With Gervais’ touch, it became the unavoidable anthem of the year. It might be hard to remember a time when Lana Del Rey wasn’t considered one of the generation’s most beloved singer-songwriters, but her first taste of international pop success was largely credited not to her own work. That came thanks to the high-octane 2013 remix of Born to Die ballad “Summertime Sadness” - from Cedric Gervais, the French DJ and producer who had just experienced relative success with his rave anthem “Molly.” In a 2013 interview, Gervais explained that while bigger name artists began had thus begun seeking remixes from him, it was Del Rey’s voice that interested him most, and captivated by the track’s romantic vocals, he produced the remix in a single day. Lana Del Rey, “ Summertime Sadness” (Cedric Gervais Remix) (2013)
Five years later, its build-up, undulating low end tones and face-slapping drop - punctuated by a chorus consisting solely of “okay” - is still heard at least once at any given American music festival. Five years later and it’s not unusual to hear those on the dancefloor attempting to sing along to the melody or ask, “What’s that one song that goes ‘ dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga dugga doom…doom-doom?’” Those in the know always knows the answer. One of the most unforgettable basslines of the decade, Shiba San’s “Okay” rumbled through the dance world upon its 2014, helping establish the signature quirky, bouncy, bass-y Dirtybird sound. The drops might not have been able to compete with Skrillex bass bombs at EDC, but the tension that builds up with each revving of the bass makes the title hook a surprisingly satisfying shout-along. ANDREW UNTERBERGERįools Gold DJ duo Oliver’s 2014 electro-house banger sounds like how you might’ve imagined Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy score if it had been pitched a half-decade earlier ’80s nostalgia with a gleefully cyber-dystopic edge. With mainstream dance music sounding as thick and aggro as it had been in decades, Brooklyn DJ Chris Malinchak owned the summer of 2013 - overseas, anyway - with the subtle and impossibly sweet floor-filler “So Good to Me.” Built around a warm synth blanket and brilliantly deployed vocal samples from the classic Marvin Gaye and Tami Terrell duet “If This World Were Mine,” the song is as sublime as any originally composed love song of the ’10s, with a pulsing beat you can actually feel the blood pumping through. Read our list below, and find a Spotify playlist of all 60 at the bottom.Ħ0.
Here, Billboard Dance presents the 60 dance tracks that most defined the decade. With the spectrum of the genre thus continuously widening, the scene’s countless artists, parties, festivals, labels, songs and genres could sometimes seem disparate, but altogether these pieces added up to nothing less than a dance dance revolution that generated excitement, money, power struggles, controversy, joy and which ultimately - and most importantly - made millions of us dance our asses off. Billboard's 100 Songs That Defined the Decade