A selection byThe Waxonia Desk
A general selection
Six records split evenly between two rooms that were not supposed to talk to each other. Half guitars, half machines, and the point is that the division was always administrative rather than musical.
- Picks
- 6
- Years
- 1979–1995
- Curator
- The Waxonia Desk
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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The picks — selected, not ranked
New Order / Blue Monday
1983 · Factory
The record that made the argument first and made every later version of it easier. A guitar band bought a sequencer, never explained itself, and sold it in a sleeve that lost money on every copy.
Also on Madchester, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Bauhaus / Bela Lugosi's Dead
1979 · Small Wonder
Nine minutes of dub delay recorded live in one take. The guitar records that survive on a dancefloor tend to be the ones that were secretly dance records all along, and this is the clearest case.
Also on Post-Punk
A Guy Called Gerald / Voodoo Ray
1988 · Rham!
Made in a bedroom on borrowed equipment with a sample truncated by accident. The most beautiful mistake in British dance music, and a standing argument against deliberation.
Also on Acid House, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
The Stone Roses / Fools Gold
1989 · Silvertone
An indie band's biggest single is a groove with some singing over it. The exact point the two rooms merged, and they stayed merged for about three years before the doors went back up.
Also on Madchester, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Primal Scream / Loaded
1990 · Creation
A remix that kept almost none of the original and handed a band a career. The clearest case in British music for a remixer owing the record they were given nothing whatsoever.
Also on Madchester
Daft Punk / Da Funk
1995 · Soma
A deliberately ugly lead sound over a hip-hop tempo. Being wilfully awkward turned out to be a strategy rather than a temperament, and this is where it started paying.
About the curator
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.