{
  "slug": "dancing-to-bad-news",
  "theme": {
    "name": "Dancing to Bad News",
    "criterion": "The arrangement has to be one a room moves to, and the subject has to be something that went badly — a death, a raid, a country coming apart. A record that sounds as bleak as its subject does not qualify, and neither does a happy song with one dark line in it.",
    "drawnFrom": [
      {
        "slug": "afrobeat",
        "name": "Afrobeat",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/afrobeat/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "baile-funk",
        "name": "Baile Funk",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/baile-funk/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "britpop",
        "name": "Britpop",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/britpop/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "drum-and-bass",
        "name": "Drum and Bass",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/drum-and-bass/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "golden-age-hip-hop",
        "name": "Golden Age Hip-Hop",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/golden-age-hip-hop/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "italo-disco",
        "name": "Italo Disco",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/italo-disco/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "kwaito",
        "name": "Kwaito",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/kwaito/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "northern-soul",
        "name": "Northern Soul",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/northern-soul/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "reggae",
        "name": "Reggae",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/reggae/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "salsa",
        "name": "Salsa",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/salsa/"
      },
      {
        "slug": "tropicalia",
        "name": "Tropicália",
        "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/tropicalia/"
      }
    ]
  },
  "genre": null,
  "genreUrl": null,
  "brief": "Eleven records, eleven of our rankings, thirty years. Every one of them gets a room moving while telling it something it would rather not hear, and most of the rooms never noticed.",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/dancing-to-bad-news/",
  "updated": "2026-08-29",
  "curator": {
    "slug": "the-desk",
    "name": "The Waxonia Desk",
    "bio": "The people who write the rankings on this site. We keep the lists honest, we argue about the order, and we get asked the same question more than any other: where should someone actually start. These are our answers.",
    "link": "https://waxonia.com/",
    "url": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-desk/"
  },
  "ordered": false,
  "pickCount": 11,
  "years": {
    "first": 1967,
    "last": 1996
  },
  "picks": [
    {
      "trackKey": "gilberto-gil--domingo-no-parque",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/gilberto-gil--domingo-no-parque/",
      "title": "Domingo no Parque",
      "artist": "Gilberto Gil",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/gilberto-gil/",
      "year": 1967,
      "label": "Philips",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A funfair, a berimbau, an orchestra, and a man killing his friend and the woman between them. Gil sets a murder ballad to the most inviting three minutes in Brazilian pop, and Duprat's arrangement never once lets on.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "tropicalia",
          "name": "Tropicália",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/tropicalia/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Gilberto%20Gil%20Domingo%20no%20Parque",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=OztuGomczAo",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "tobi-legend--time-will-pass-you-by",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/tobi-legend--time-will-pass-you-by/",
      "title": "Time Will Pass You By",
      "artist": "Tobi Legend",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/tobi-legend/",
      "year": 1968,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Played at six in the morning to close Wigan Casino, to a floor of people who had spent the entire night doing precisely what it warns against. The strings lift, the message is that the lift does not last, and nobody has ever stopped dancing to it.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "northern-soul",
          "name": "Northern Soul",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/northern-soul/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Tobi%20Legend%20Time%20Will%20Pass%20You%20By",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=F8gejqmgELA",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "fela-kuti-and-africa-70--zombie",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/fela-kuti-and-africa-70--zombie/",
      "title": "Zombie",
      "artist": "Fela Kuti & Africa 70",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/fela-kuti-and-africa-70/",
      "year": 1976,
      "label": "Coconut",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Twelve minutes of the most physically irresistible band on the continent, spent calling the Nigerian army a column of unthinking bodies. The soldiers who burned his compound down had understood it; the dancefloor never had to.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "afrobeat",
          "name": "Afrobeat",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/afrobeat/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "nineteen-seventy-six",
          "name": "1976",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/nineteen-seventy-six/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "laurent-garnier-a-life-in-records",
          "name": "Laurent Garnier — A Life in Twenty-One Records",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/laurent-garnier-a-life-in-records/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Fela%20Kuti%20%26%20Africa%2070%20Zombie",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=RUSg31Ignw4",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "junior-murvin--police-and-thieves",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/junior-murvin--police-and-thieves/",
      "title": "Police and Thieves",
      "artist": "Junior Murvin",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/junior-murvin/",
      "year": 1976,
      "label": "Island",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Lee Perry's lightest production and Murvin's falsetto floating over the top of it, describing armed men on both sides shooting at the crowd. It sounds like relief and it is a casualty report.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "reggae",
          "name": "Reggae",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/reggae/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "nineteen-seventy-six",
          "name": "1976",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/nineteen-seventy-six/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Junior%20Murvin%20Police%20and%20Thieves",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Z2M3VlB8E",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "hector-lavoe--el-cantante",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/hector-lavoe--el-cantante/",
      "title": "El Cantante",
      "artist": "Héctor Lavoe",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/hector-lavoe/",
      "year": 1978,
      "label": "Fania",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Rubén Blades wrote it for Lavoe: the singer everybody comes to hear and nobody asks how he is. Full Fania horns, a floor-filler at every party since, and a man describing his own disappearance in the middle of it.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "salsa",
          "name": "Salsa",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/salsa/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/H%C3%A9ctor%20Lavoe%20El%20Cantante",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=bT-3s4ZQEhs",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "righeira--vamos-a-la-playa",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/righeira--vamos-a-la-playa/",
      "title": "Vamos a la Playa",
      "artist": "Righeira",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/righeira/",
      "year": 1983,
      "label": "CBS",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The purest case on this list. A summer singalong about a beach after the bomb, glowing water and all, and the whole of Europe danced to it for years without hearing a word.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "italo-disco",
          "name": "Italo Disco",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/italo-disco/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Righeira%20Vamos%20a%20la%20Playa",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=x0OMFm8FO90",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "4hero--mr-kirks-nightmare",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/4hero--mr-kirks-nightmare/",
      "title": "Mr Kirk's Nightmare",
      "artist": "4hero",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/4hero/",
      "year": 1990,
      "label": "Reinforced",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A sampled police officer telling a father his son is dead from an overdose, looped over hardcore breaks at a rave. The most brutal use of the manoeuvre anyone has attempted, and the reason jungle inherited dread along with the tempo.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "drum-and-bass",
          "name": "Drum and Bass",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/drum-and-bass/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/4hero%20Mr%20Kirk's%20Nightmare",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=4hero%20Mr%20Kirk's%20Nightmare",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "pete-rock-and-c-l-smooth--they-reminisce-over-you-t-r-o-y",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/pete-rock-and-c-l-smooth--they-reminisce-over-you-t-r-o-y/",
      "title": "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)",
      "artist": "Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/pete-rock-and-c-l-smooth/",
      "year": 1992,
      "label": "Elektra",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A Tom Scott horn loop so warm it became the sound of the era, carrying a eulogy for a friend who fell from a moving train. Head-nod music built entirely out of a funeral.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "golden-age-hip-hop",
          "name": "Golden Age Hip-Hop",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/golden-age-hip-hop/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Pete%20Rock%20%26%20C.L.%20Smooth%20They%20Reminisce%20Over%20You%20(T.R.O.Y.)",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=1ut9spXrkDw",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "bob-rum--rap-do-silva",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/bob-rum--rap-do-silva/",
      "title": "Rap do Silva",
      "artist": "Bob Rum",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/bob-rum/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A boy shot by the police, told over the plainest baile beat there is, and it reached national radio before some stations banned it for the story rather than the noise. The party rhythm is what got it heard at all.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "baile-funk",
          "name": "Baile Funk",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/baile-funk/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Bob%20Rum%20Rap%20do%20Silva",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vlZ9MGgC1NI",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "arthur-mafokate--kaffir",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/arthur-mafokate--kaffir/",
      "title": "Kaffir",
      "artist": "Arthur Mafokate",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/arthur-mafokate/",
      "year": 1995,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A dance record whose hook is a plea not to be called a slur, released a year after the first free election. Half a million copies sold to people moving to it, and the first serious argument the new country had about its own pop music.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "kwaito",
          "name": "Kwaito",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/kwaito/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-gqom-out-of-durban",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — Out of Durban",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-gqom-out-of-durban/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Arthur%20Mafokate%20Kaffir",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sep8mvPZW6s",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "trackKey": "manic-street-preachers--a-design-for-life",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/manic-street-preachers--a-design-for-life/",
      "title": "A Design for Life",
      "artist": "Manic Street Preachers",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/manic-street-preachers/",
      "year": 1996,
      "label": "Epic",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Written after their guitarist vanished, about libraries built by people who were then told they drank too much. Sung back by festival crowds as an anthem, which is either the point being missed or the point being made.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "genre",
          "slug": "britpop",
          "name": "Britpop",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/britpop/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Manic%20Street%20Preachers%20A%20Design%20for%20Life",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=TfEoVxy7VDQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}