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RockerZ 12″ Rump ShakerZ

Seventy-six twelve-inch mixes, extended versions and re-edits. This is the format at its purest: records built to keep a floor moving rather than to fit on the radio.

Why the twelve-inch changed everything

The twelve-inch single was a technical accident that became an art form. Cutting a record at 45rpm across a twelve-inch disc allowed wider grooves, which meant more bass and more volume — essential for club sound systems. It also meant room for longer versions, and DJs and producers in New York in the mid-1970s immediately worked out what to do with that room.

The result was a whole vocabulary: the extended intro built for mixing, the long instrumental breakdown, the dub section where the vocal drops out and the rhythm carries alone. Tom Moulton is generally credited with inventing the disco mix; what followed shaped house, hip-hop and essentially all modern dance music.

This playlist is that tradition in practice, running from 1979 to the present.

What to listen for

Patrice Rushen's "Forget Me Nots" in the twelve-inch version is the ideal opening — one of the most sampled basslines in history, given room to actually breathe.

CHIC's "Good Times" in the original twelve-inch mix is the single most consequential record here. Bernard Edwards' bassline became "Rapper's Delight," then Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," then several hundred other things. Hip-hop's commercial birth runs directly through this groove.

Teena Marie's "Behind The Groove" in the Rick James mix, Odyssey's "Inside Out," Cheryl Lynn's "Shake It Up Tonight" and Tom Browne's "Funkin' for Jamaica" are the deep boogie canon.

The re-edits are their own education. Dimitri From Paris appears twice, including on a Frankie Knuckles reworking of "I'll Take You There" — a modern French editor reworking the godfather of house reworking a Staple Singers gospel record, which is roughly four generations of dance music in one track.

Prince's "Little Red Corvette" dance mix and Jody Watley's "Don't You Want Me" — the latter mixed by François Kevorkian, one of the great remixers — round it out.

Go deeper

Chase the remixers rather than the artists: Tom Moulton, Larry Levan, François Kevorkian, Shep Pettibone, Dimitri From Paris. Their catalogues are the real story.

Patrice Rushen's Straight from the Heart and CHIC's Risqué are the albums.

And for the venue that made it all possible, read about the Paradise Garage and Larry Levan's residency there. Almost every idea in modern club music was tested on that floor.

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