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music to dance to (cont.)
That having been said, here are a few of my current favorite dance albums…

Basement Jaxx Rooty & Kish Kash |  Here in my new home in the UK, Basement Jaxx have pretty much become top 40, and it's not terribly surprising -- their funky eclectic brand of dance music is insanely infectious, with hooks that wedge in your brain for days. But the music's also clever and ambitious, and unlike so many popular dance albums out there, Basement Jaxx never seem to repeat the same idea from one track to the next. Rooty's the easiest crowd-pleaser; the newer Kish Kash is also good for more adventurous types.
DJ Kicks: Tiga | DJ Tiga's remixes for the DJ Kicks series are of the genre known as electro-clash; imagine your favorite 80s electronica retooled for this century, and you get a pretty good inkling of what to expect. It's sexy cool with a generous dose of New Wave nostalgic kitsch, and eminently danceable.
The Go! Team Thunder Lightning Strike |  High-energy, throw your arms up into the air and shake-it-all-out dance music. Drawing heavily upon 70s and 80s TV theme songs and action movie soundtracks as inspiration -- in a good way! -- this album is 100% pure joyous fun.
Rjd2 Deadringer | I'm not sure words can express how much I adore this album; I actually have a hard time listening to it when I'm trying to do work, because I'll start dancing in my seat and getting all distracted. Throwing together elements of funk, soul, jazz, hip-hop, trip-hop -- name any cool musical genre, and you'll probably find traces of it here -- into one brilliant, catchy whole, Deadringer just makes you want to groove.

music to chill by
It's the end of the evening and things are starting to wind down. Everyone's danced out and camped out on a sofa, deciding whether to sober up and drive home, or give in and sleep over. Don't let the music die now; what you need is something a little quieter, a little more laidback, music that'll soothe the soul without putting folks straight to sleep. Throw on any of these CDs to feed the mellow mood.

Air Talkie Walkie & Moon Safari | Air is often classified as dance music, but it's always struck me as way too slow to warrant real dance floor action. But its lush sexy moodiness is perfect for late-evening chilling, especially if you want to feel like a hipster in a Sofia Coppola movie (both The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation feature Air in their soundtracks).
Cibo Matto Viva! La Woman | Combine breathy female vocals, quirky samples, oddball lyrics all centered around food and sung in an adorably distinct Japanese accent to boot, and you get this weird and wonderful album.
Morcheeba Who Can You Trust? | Blissfully languid -- enjoy one last drink for the evening and crash out with the smoky vocals and swirly-sultry hypnotic sounds of Morcheeba's 1996 debut album.
Nick Drake Pink Moon | When Volkswagen used "Pink Moon" to help sell their Cabrio a few years back, they simultaneously gave Drake's 1972 album a new life, introducing it to a whole generation of us youngsters who weren't even in existence yet when the album first came out. Never mind that it's near impossible to listen to the title track without picturing that little VW rolling along through the countryside on a quiet moonlit night (damn the ad industry!) - this album really does make the perfect soundtrack for the end of a long night.

o 

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get into the groove: party music to get folks dancing

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