A selection byThe Waxonia Desk
Disco
Five records whose lives were decided in a booth rather than on radio — a closing ritual, a flop rescued by a mix, the first commercial twelve-inch, and a record a London sound system took its name from.
- Picks
- 5
- Genre
- Disco
- Years
- 1973–1980
- Curator
- The Waxonia Desk
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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The picks — selected, not ranked
Chic / Good Times
1979 · Atlantic
The bassline that financed hip-hop's first hit, and the record a Ladbroke Grove sound system named itself after in 1980. Few records have been repurposed this many times and survived all of it.
Also on Disco, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
MFSB / Love Is the Message
1973 · Philadelphia International
The closing ritual of the Paradise Garage, played to the same room often enough to become liturgy. Some records are made by DJs years after they are recorded, and this is the clearest case.
Also on Disco, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Loose Joints / Is It All Over My Face
1980 · West End
Disco at its strangest and least commercial, rescued by a mix. The rare groove tradition was never about obscurity for its own sake; it was about records that were better than their sales.
Also on Disco, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room
Double Exposure / Ten Percent
1976 · Salsoul
The first commercially released twelve-inch, which is a format question as much as a musical one. The extended mix changed what a DJ could build over the course of an hour.
Also on Disco, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Funkadelic / One Nation Under a Groove
1978 · Warner Bros.
The border case, and here as one. Funkadelic on a disco list is arguable, and a list nobody could argue with is a list nobody chose.
Also on Funk
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.