Top Ten: Andrew Mabbott

Click here for actual playing order on CD
1. Madonna - Frozen (Ray Of Light, 1998) Madonna's awesome vocal abilities meet with William Orbit's spooky electronica on this piece of pure and perfect pop. As if that wasn't enough, the video is fantastic too. Number One
2. Lamb - Gorecki (Lamb, 1996) An outstanding piece of music that shines with sheer brilliance. The vocals are awesome from the subdued and dreamy intro to the intense and passionate ending. The arrangement is flawless, building with the vocals and becomming more percussive until semi-climaxing with the first beat kicking in. Sublime.
3. Jam & Spoon - So Called Techno Track (Kaleidoscope, 1997) German techno meisters Jam el Mar and Mark Spoon's Kaleidoscope is an extremely diverse affair, from the breakbeats of You Got To Get In To Get Out to the spanish guitar of El Baile. I chose this track though above literally thousands of other Trance and Techno records as it perfectly sums up everything I love about the genre. The melody is incredibly simple and the rhythm hypnotic. There is no overdosing on snare rolls or overblown breakdowns. The sound is cold, mechanical and emotionless yet at the same time beautiful.
4. Garbage - Milk (Tricky's Wicked Mix) (Milk Remixes, 1996) Shirley Manson's haunting vocals lead to an impressive original version and are only enhanced by Tricky's subtle additons on this excellent remix. I accidentally stumbled upon this track when looking for the Massive Attack mix!
5. Leftfield - Original (Leftism, 1995) Original. And Leftfield are just that. Heralded by many as the greatest dance album of all time, Leftism has many delights to offer. Listening to the entire album takes quite a journey from the classic and oh so chilled Release The Pressure, Melt and Song Of Life through some slightly harder sounds to the awesome, John Lydon (Sex Pistols) featured, Open Up. The real standout track though is Original. The combination of Leftfield's deep and trippy beats and Toni Halliday's Moody vocals proves almost unsurpassable.
6. Monaco - What Do You Want From Me? (Music For The Masses, 96) In The aftermath of Punk, Manchester's Joy Division invented an electronic sound combining new drum patterns and styles with fresh lyrics and raw vocals. With the death of lead singer Ian Curtis the band became New Order and were instrumental in shaping dance music with such classics as Blue Monday and True Faith. What Do You Want from Me? is from New Order bassist Peter Hook and guitarist David Potts's side project of Monaco. It's a little more catchy and up to date sounding though still retains that synth-pop sound.
7. Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent) (Various albums, 2000) Ambient pioneer Brian Eno is a renowned composer of film scores, and I first heard this track when it played over the end credits of the movie Traffic. It's definately his finest work and made a reapperance last year on the film 28 Days Later. Only just beat Vangelis' Rachel's Song and Dead Can Dance's Sanvean as the "ambient" record in my top 10!
8. Madonna - Justify My Love (The Immaculate Collection, 1989) Cowritten by Madonna and Lenny Kravitz, Justify My Love is One of the sexiest songs ever and the controversy surrounding the explicit, MTV banned, video helped push the track to number one in the UK Singles chart.
9. Jesus Jones - Idiot Stare (Perverse, 1993) I found this industrial masterpiece on a minidisc recorded off the radio. With a bit of effort it was tracked down as being the work Jesus Jones, a band I had heard of but knew nothing about. It turns out to be not dissimilar from their other work, although at the time it sounded like nothing else I had heard and the fusion of a vocal style reminiscent of Metal with a heavily sythesised sound more akin to Dance music seemd nothing short of revolutionary.
10. Kosheen - Empty Skies (Resist, 2001) Kosheen burst onto the scene in 2001 with their debut album "Resist", proving thanks to San Evans' vocals, that breakbeat tracks could still be "songs". Empty Skies is the newest record in my chart and probably the one I found hardest to justify including as there's nothing in particular that I can identify as outstanding about it. Having said that, I do really like the track along with much of the act's other work, and it is without doubt the best on the album.