# Mr. Fingers — Can You Feel It Mr. Fingers’s Can You Feel It (1986) appears on 6 of our lists — Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred, highest at No. 1 in Chicago House. Every verdict, in full. - **Released:** 1986 - **Label:** Trax - **On:** Chicago House, The Eighties, The Waxonia Desk — A Way In, The Waxonia Desk — In the Room, The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred - **Updated:** 2026-08-29 - **Artist:** [Mr. Fingers](https://waxonia.com/artist/mr-fingers/) - **Canonical page:** https://waxonia.com/track/mr-fingers--can-you-feel-it/ ## What 6 lists say ### No. 1 in [Chicago House](https://waxonia.com/genre/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. ### Picked by [The Eighties](https://waxonia.com/theme/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. ### Picked by [The Waxonia Desk — A Way In](https://waxonia.com/selection/the-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. ### Picked by [The Waxonia Desk — In the Room](https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-chicago-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. ### Picked by [The Waxonia Desk — Looped and Filtered](https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-chicago-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. ### Picked by [The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred](https://waxonia.com/selection/the-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. ## Analysis 11 sections, no single moment the energy jumps to. - **Tempo:** 112.3 BPM — holds throughout - **Key:** Ab minor - **Dynamic range:** 3.4 dB — compressed hard — very little between the quiet and the loud - **Phrase:** 8 bars - **Length:** 5:54 - `0:00` A · **intro**, instrumental — opens the record below its own average energy — playing: drums, bass, other - `0:18` B · **peak** (bar 9), instrumental — sits at the top of this record's range — playing: drums, bass, other - `1:26` C · **breakdown** (bar 41), instrumental — energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning — playing: drums, bass, other - `2:00` B · **peak** (bar 57), instrumental — sits at the top of this record's range — playing: drums, bass, other - `2:43` A · **breakdown** (bar 77, off the grid), instrumental — energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning — playing: drums, bass, other - `3:09` B · **peak** (bar 89), instrumental — sits at the top of this record's range — playing: drums, bass, other - `4:00` A · **breakdown** (bar 113), instrumental — energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning — playing: drums, bass, other - `4:34` B · **peak** (bar 129), instrumental — sits at the top of this record's range — playing: drums, bass, other - `4:51` B · **steady** (bar 137), instrumental — holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling — playing: drums, bass, other - `5:18` B · **steady** (bar 149, off the grid), instrumental — holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling — playing: drums, bass, other - `5:34` A · **outro** (bar 157, off the grid), instrumental — the closing fall — playing: drums, bass, other **What is playing.** Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names. - **drums:** the drum kit, separated from the mix - **bass:** the bass part, separated from the mix - **vocals:** the voice, separated from the mix - **other:** everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings Measured from the YouTube master on 2026-08-29. Section labels describe how the energy moves, not musical form. Anything we were not confident enough to state is omitted rather than hedged. ## Listen [Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Mr.%20Fingers%20Can%20You%20Feel%20It) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=p2XxyBViBog) --- Hand-curated by Waxonia. We host no audio; all links point to streaming platforms.