Electro
The 9 Best Electro
Tracks of All Time
Funk played by a Roland TR-808 instead of a band, invented in New York in 1982 when Kraftwerk records reached Bronx block parties. Robotic, hard-panned and built for cardboard on pavement.
- Origin
- New York City, 1982
- Tempo
- 110–130 BPM
- Also known as
- electro-funk, electro funk, breakdance music, 808 music
- Tracks
- 9
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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Number 1: Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force / Planet Rock
1982 · Tommy Boy
Two Kraftwerk records, an 808 and a Bronx sound system. The single most generative record in this entire corpus: techno, electro, Miami bass and most of what followed all point back at it.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 3: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five / The Message
1982 · Sugar Hill
Not electro exactly, but made on the same machines in the same year and it changed what a rap record was permitted to be about. The synth bassline is the sound of the format arriving.
Number 4: Hashim / Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)
1983 · Cutting
Four sounds, no vocal, and an unshakeable riff. The most efficient record on this list, and the one every subsequent electro producer has quietly measured themselves against.
Number 5: Planet Patrol / Play at Your Own Risk
1982 · Tommy Boy
Vocoded doo-wop harmony over Arthur Baker's drum programming. The human and the machine in open negotiation, which is the genre's central subject whether it admits it or not.
Number 6: Herbie Hancock / Rockit
1983 · Columbia
A jazz pianist wins a Grammy for a record whose lead instrument is Grand Mixer DXT's hands on a turntable. Scratching entered the mainstream through this door.
Also on Twice Over
Number 7: The Egyptian Lover / Egypt, Egypt
1984 · Egyptian Empire
Los Angeles takes the template and makes it sleazier and more spacious. The 808 handclap on this record is the one every West Coast producer spent the next decade chasing.
Number 9: Strafe / Set It Off
1984 · Jus Born
The bridge to Chicago: a New York electro record that Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles played as though it were house, because functionally it already was.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — In the Room