Artist
Mr. Fingers
Mr. Fingers appears 8 times in our Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, The Waxonia Desk — On a Machine, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred lists, placing as high as No. 1. Hand-curated, with a reason for every pick.
- Ranked entries
- 8
- Appears on
- Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, The Waxonia Desk — On a Machine, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
- Years
- 1985–1986
- Highest placing
- No. 1 in Chicago House
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
Appears on
Can You Feel It
1986 · Trax
Ranked No. 1 in Chicago House
Larry Heard played chords where everyone else played drums, and house acquired a soul in the same instant. Four minutes that the next forty years of dance music are still unpacking.
Also on The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Mystery of Love
1985 · Alleviated
Ranked No. 8 in Chicago House
Deep house before the phrase existed. Heard's chord voicings are jazz musician's choices played on pawn-shop equipment, and the melancholy is entirely deliberate.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — On a Machine
Can You Feel It
1986 · Trax
Picked by The Eighties
Trax pressed on recycled vinyl and paid almost nobody, which is a real part of the story and not a footnote. It also put out the record that defines house, made by one man in an apartment on borrowed equipment.
Also on Chicago House, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Can You Feel It
1986 · Trax
Picked by The Waxonia Desk — A Way In
House music at its most elemental: a bassline, a hi-hat and an enormous amount of patience. Every four-to-the-floor record made since is arguing with this one, whether or not it knows it.
Also on Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Can You Feel It
1986 · Trax
Picked by The Waxonia Desk — In the Room
The record most often used to explain house to people who were not there. What it did in a room and what it does in a documentary are two different things, and the room came first.
Also on Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Can You Feel It
1986 · Trax
Picked by The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered
House at its most elemental — a bassline, a hi-hat and an enormous amount of patience. The patience is the part that carried: almost nothing happens here, and it happens for a very long time.
Also on Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Mystery of Love
1985 · Alleviated
Picked by The Waxonia Desk — On a Machine
The warm end of Chicago rather than the raw end. The city produced both in the same eighteen months, and the story that it was ever only one of them is a later invention.
Also on Chicago House
Can You Feel It
1986 · Trax
Picked by The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
A bassline, a hi-hat and an enormous amount of patience. House music explained in one record, and never bettered by the ten thousand that copied it.
Also on Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered