stormsewer | dance mix

I actually like dancing, and I'm not too shabby at it. I don't go to clubs too often here, but compared to the frequency of NEVER before I came to Japan, I go a lot. I don't necessarily dance when I go to clubs and stuff, though. Why? I can only dance if the music inspires me to do so. I can't fake it; I have to feel it. I hate most of the music at most of the clubs I've been to. Upon learning this, people ask me, "Well, what kind of dance music do you like, then?" This is my response.

This was perhaps the hardest, or at least most time consuming, playlist I've made yet. At first I was thinking that it wouldn't be so hard, that there's not that much dance music in my collection, anyway. So the first thing I did was go through and make a huge playlist of everything I have that I would label as at least "moderately jiggy." If any one of those songs were to be played in a club, I would be ecstatic. That playlist contains 191 tracks. Who knew? That's like thirteen straight hours of jigginess. I could DJ an all-night rave no problem.

So then came the task of paring it back to a single CD. My personal conviction is that the best dance music in the history of the world came out of the 80s New Wave scene. In the beginning, looking at my list of nearly two hundred great dance tunes, I balked at the idea of having to adulterate my 80s tunes with other songs. So I decided to make two CD-sized lists: one 80s and one not 80s. The 80s one turned out to be relatively easy to make, since my New Wave collection really isn't THAT extensive. But the other one was harder. I got it down to forty. From there I put those in order from favorite to least favorite and cut the bottom twenty. But somehow the list as it was didn't sit right with me. What to do? The Jiggy Factor ended up being the only option. The Jiggy Factor is a subjective rating of how much a given song inspires me to move my cute little bum. Normally it'd be from 1 to 10, 1 being "not jiggy" (the "General Jiggy Factor"), but as all these songs already had clearly demonstrated jiggitude, I ranked them from 1 to 5, 1 being "fairly jiggy, actually" (the "Specific Jiggy Factor"). Anyway, I listened to all of the top twenty favorites, as well as a few from below that it just seemed couldn't possibly not make the list, and assigned them each a Jiggy Factor. Combining the Jiggy Factor with the general ranking, the path was clear.

But then, listening to those two playlists, I realized that both of them were quite jiggtastic on their own, but were I to take the jiggiest from each and then combine them I could reach heretofore undreamed of heights of jiggitopia. I ended up taking nine 80s tracks (which, surprisingly, were easy to choose) and eleven other tracks (having already done the hard part, choosing that group wasn't THAT hard, either; everything with a Specific Jiggy Factor of 4 or 5 was automatically accepted, and then a Jiggy Off was held between those that got a 3 in order to determine the remaining slots in the final eleven). Thus I attained Ultimate Jiggy Satori. Check it out.

1. "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" Dead Or Alive watch out here i come (This song is so awesome. It doesn't get jiggier than this. The lyrics crack me up. And yet, I don't think I've ever heard another song by this group.)

2. "Du Hast" Rammstein du hast mich (Yeah. Just to let you know, I plan to mix it up. This particular genre of music is not my specialty, but Rammstein does it as well or better than anyone. Singing (if you can call it that) in German was a genius choice. Everything I need to know about German I learned from Rammstein.)

3. "Rock This Town" Stray Cats we're looking as cool as can be (Again, mixing, mixing. Somehow when you listen to Stray Cats you know that they are an anachronism, and yet I'm not sure I've ever heard a recording of music like this that was actually made in the fifties. Weird.)

4. "Take Me Out" Franz Ferdinand i'm just a crosshair (This song rocks my world. Anytime I hear it I must immediately stop what I'm doing and get frighteningly jiggy. The lyrics are just superb, as well. Interesting to compare and contrast the lyrical content of this song with that of "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)." I identify more with this one.)

5. "Twiggy Twiggy [Twiggy Vs. James Bond]" Pizzicato Five twiggy mitai na yaseppochi no watashi (This is one of those songs that you hear in some random place and just cannot get out of your mind until you figure out who sings it and get your hands on a copy. In this case, I noticed this song in the film Charlie's Angels. Just real quick, there and gone, but it reached out and grabbed me and immediately I knew I had to own it. Of course it wasn't on the soundtrack, but scouring the credits later somehow I just knew that was it when I saw the name of this song. And that was, I believe, my first J-Pop purchase. The lyrics come off like an advertisement for anorexia, but the song itself is a real kick in the pants.)

6. "My Favorite Game" The Cardigans my heart is black and my body is blue (Sigh. This song makes me think of Junko. Great song, though.)

7. "She Blinded Me With Science" Thomas Dolby i can smell the chemicals (I actually have two different mixes of this song, one of which I find totally uninspiring. But this one is great. It has personal significance as well, obviously.)

8. "Soul Bossa Nova" Quincy Jones (The opening credits theme to Austin Powers. Yes.)

9. "Heart Of Glass" Blondie (Another song that evaded my grasp all throughout high school, despite my quasi-obsession with it. I love this song.)

10. "Date With The Night" Yeah Yeah Yeahs gonna walk on water (Opinions seem divided on this band, but I am definitely FOR. This song makes me into a one man mosh pit.)

11. "Samya's Sol" Hossam Ramzy (Egyptian drumming. It's the world music that's popular this month, you know. I think it's actually belly dancing music (which my Persian music professor absolutely despised). Trust me, its Jiggy Factor is high.)

12. "Private Idaho" B-52s on the ground like a wild potato (Great song, great band. This song also has personal significance.)

13. "Volare" Gipsy Kings [the lyrics are all in Madrid talk, man. i don't do that. yet.] (This is a song that was originally slated to be cut until I realized it has a surprisingly high Jiggy Factor. It's a great song, though, and these guys are supercool.)

14. "Why Can't I Be You?" The Cure you make me hungry again (It's weird how many Cure songs there are that don't fit their reputation at all. This song is cool.)

15. "Another View Point" Cornelius view (Cornelius is a Japanese guy, though most Japanese people haven't heard of him. Though when I saw him at Fuji Rock his performance was VERY well attended. It's kind of like how most Americans haven't heard of, say, The Flaming Lips, I guess. Anyway, he was originally recommended to me by Junko, with the comment "Ben Folds likes him." And a lot of his stuff (though maybe not this particular track) sounds kinda like the stuff on Fear of Pop. Incidentally, this is about the closest thing to modern techno on the list.)

16. "Dancing With Myself" Billy Idol she done passed me by ("[Dancing isn't something you do with other people.] Dancing is something you do alone in your room at three in the morning." Wise words, though only related to this song in spirit. Billy Idol is cool.)

17. "The Authority Song" Jimmy Eat World honesty or mystery (This song just makes me really happy. Bouncy. And its appearance in The Hot Chick (which I will defend to my dying day as comedy genius) was hilarious. Some of the lyrics remind me of current issues with a certain Kansai woman.)

18. "Come On Eileen" Dexy's Midnight Runners we are far too young and clever (This is arguably my favorite 80s song. It's also another that took me forever to get my hands on, back in the day. And again, I believe this is the only song by this band I've heard. I'm a little scared to buy the album; I don't want to be disappointed.)

19. "Doubt" Stereolab is it enough to show how the nightmare works (I'm not sure what to say about this track, except that it's a strong contender for my favorite dance song, period. It seems pretty different from everything else on here, though, oddly enough.)

20. "Shake It Up" The Cars dance all night, play all day (Sweet.)

Quite a cosmopolitan list, don't you think? We've got stuff by people from the U.S., the U.K., Spain, France, Germany, Egypt, and Japan. Songs in English, Spanish, German, and Japanese.

Alright, then. Top five dance songs (as determined by the Jiggy Factor):

5. Date With The Night
4. Come On Eileen
3. Take Me Out
2. Doubt

It was a tough call, but for historical reasons the most jiggalicious song must be:

You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)

Incidentally, here's some great songs that didn't quite make the final cut: "The Object" by MC Honky (you know it's a jiggtastic list if MC Honky doesn't make the cut), "Gyoza" by Shonen Knife (I love gyoza and I love this song), "Sleep Now In The Fire" by Rage Against The Machine (awesome song, but it almost seems insulting to put it on a dance compilation), "Soul to Love" by Moby (probably the most technoey thing that was considered), "Brand New Cadillac" by The Clash (I can't decide if this counts as New Wave or not), "Our House" by Madness (what a shame this didn't make the list), "The Politics of Dancing" by Re-flex (the all purpose dance track), "Same Man I Was Before" by Oingo Boingo ("Weird Science" seems to be the default Oingo Boingo dance track, but I like this one better)

There's no shortage of good dance music out there, but sometimes it seems like there must be. It seems so RARE when you go out to clubs and stuff. So, as a public service, as part of my lofty aim of propagating dance music that doesn't suck, I will make a copy of this CD for anyone who wants one. It is the result of weeks of scientific studies (not to mention ten years of collecting music). As all these songs have a General Jiggy Factor of at least 8, this CD is guaranteed to get bums shaking at extraordinarily high frequencies. (Well, I can only GUARANTEE it if the bum in question happens to be MINE, but you know.)

And if you like that, there's more where that came from. You should hire me as a DJ! I'm cheap, I swear! Though you will have to cover any travel expenses I incur.

Actually, Kelly and I did DJ a dance once, our freshman year of college. It didn't go well. I can still remember the shouts: "Play Jock Jams! Just play Jock Jams!" Pearls before swine, man.

So. Next up on the docket is Desire.