"Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (Eurythmics)

If you were living and breathing in 1983, the image of a close-cropped Annie Lennox strolling through a field with her partner-in-crime Dave Stewart (along with random cattle) is burned into your brain.  As surreal as the video was/is for "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," there was no denying the song was an instantly accessible hit—essentially it's one extended hook, built upon a Baroque synth line and the heartbeat-like thump of Stewart's rare Movement MCS Percussion Computer (which is the Commodore 64-looking thing he's typing away on in the video).
As Lennox told the New York Times in 2007, the song came about after she and ex-boyfriend Stewart had an epic argument.  (Yeah, amazingly, they wrote and made music together for more than a decade after calling their relationship quits.)  Lennox felt that their creative partnership was about to dissolve, and she was extremely depressed.  Nevertheless, they began work on the song in earnest, and as the pieces fell together—Stewart creating the rhythm track, and Lennox crafting the synth line and the lyrics—they realized they had turned a corner and were creating something quite good.
That's not to say everything was sunshine and roses.  Lennox's words still have the sting of bitterness and sarcasm of a woman scorned.  The gist is that everyone is searching for something in life, and, along the way, you're going to encounter people who aren't necessarily acting in your best interest.  Even on the more upbeat Hold your head up! / Movin' on / Keep your head up! / Movin' on bridge section of the song, her breathless delivery defies that the wounds are still fresh.
No doubt it's Lennox's sense of pain, wry wit, and resolve in her smoky, soulful delivery that makes this bit of electro-pop remain evergreen.

"Rainforest" (Paul Hardcastle)

In the age of satellite radio and apps like Shazam, where you can find out a song's title and who's performing it almost instantly, the phenomenon of what I call "Holy Grail songs" doesn't really exist anymore.  What I mean is, years ago, if you heard a song on the radio that you really liked, but the DJ didn't bother to announce the title of the record, you were kind of screwed if you wanted to go buy a copy of it.  Apart from swallowing your pride and humming its tune to a disinterested record store clerk, there just was no way to find out what something was called; you were forever left to search for that song.
Back in early 1985, my mom was driving me to a doctor's appointment, and this thumping, yet surprisingly melodic, freestyle instrumental came on the radio just as we were pulling into the parking lot of the office.  I wanted to keep listening, but we were running late, so I heard maybe four bars of the song before we had to turn it off.
I only heard it again once or twice after that.  But there was just something about its groove, which felt like an amalgam of Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" and Herbie Hancock's "Rockit," that stuck in my brain.  In fact, I searched for it for years on 80s music compilations and then online to no avail.  I even wrote and recorded a song inspired by it in 2006 for a music-savvy client's commercial, thinking that she might say, "Oh, Mike, that sounds like _____ by _____."  But, no.
It wasn't until 2013, when I was scrolling through the "Genius Recommendations" on iTunes, that I saw a track called "Rainforest" by Paul Hardcastle in my queue—suggested to me because I'd recently downloaded a number of old breakdancing songs from the early 80s.  And there it was: those synth bells and dreamy chords over that insistent electro-funk groove.  It whisked me right back to 1985 (for better or worse).
Reading a bit about British musician/producer Paul Hardcastle, it makes sense why I couldn't find the song all those years.  Although he's had a number of hits internationally (his biggest hit being a song called "19," which used a collage of documentary-style audio clips about the Vietnam War over a dance track), he seems to enjoy being out of the limelight, preferring to write, produce, and remix music under various pseudonyms (Jazzmasters, Beeps International, Def Boys).
He originally composed "Rainforest" as the theme to a 1984 BBC documentary about the British hip-hop/breakdancing scene (hence its freestyle/pop-and-lock kind of vibe).  Released as a single in the U.K. that same year, the song fared pretty well, but it really took off as a dance hit when it was released here in the U.S. in 1985.

"I Feel for You" (Chaka Khan)

I remember when Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You" came out in 1984.  It was the weirdest sounding thing I'd ever heard: there was Melle Mel from Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five rapping/chanting Khan's name, a sample of "Fingertips, Pt. 2" by Little Stevie Wonder thrown in for good measure—not to mention a live Stevie Wonder, playing harmonica on the track, and then odd tape noises and random effects that kind of left you wondering if someone had leaned on the wrong button during the final mixing.  I listen to this song now and marvel that anyone had the guts to even attempt anything so bizarre (much less that mainstream radio programmers had the stones to play it).
Because Khan owns her performance so completely, a lot of people don't realize the song actually is a Prince composition.  It originally appeared on his 1979 self-titled album, albeit in a much leaner format.  In fact, compared to the late mega-producer Arif Mardin's everything-and-the-kitchen-sink production for Khan, Prince's original sounds almost like a demo.
In truth, Khan's cover of "I Feel for You" came about because her record company had expressed "concern" that she'd released several albums in a row without a definitive hit single.  (In record company speak, that means, "We're dropping you soon if you don't get a hit.")  So Mardin specifically set out to create something attention-grabbing that felt very futuristic, combining the Uptown vibe of hip-hop with the Downtown vibe of electro-pop and adding the element of soulful R&B.
Mardin recounted to NPR's Michele Norris in 2005 that the idea of using Khan's name as a rhythmic element came out of a conversation with Khan's brother, musician Mark Stevens.
"I said, 'You know, you have two sisters—one of them is called Taka Boom, and the other sister is Chaka Khan. Why can’t we use these two names like percussion? Taka Boom-Chaka Khan-Taka Boom-Chaka Khan'.”
Even though the initial experiment didn't quite work, it did establish the groove for the song, and the vocal percussion idea morphed into Melle Mel's rap.
Mardin also revealed that the famous Chaka-Chaka-Chaka-Chaka Khan "stutter" at the beginning of the song (a technique that hip-hop producers jumped on and ran into the ground in the years that followed) was a serendipitous error.
"As we were mounting the recording onto the main master, my hand slipped on the repeat machine.  And we said, 'let's keep that; that's very interesting'."

"Into the Groove" (Madonna)

I don't care if you love Madonna or loathe her.  "Into the Groove" (1985) is the kind of song that gets any party, wedding, bar mitzvah, wake, etc. on its feet and dancing.  
The track has the curious distinction of being one of her most popular songs, even though it was never released as a single in its own right.  Apart from being featured in her film debut, Desperately Seeking Susan, the song was released only as the B-side of the "Angel" 12" single here in the U.S.  And as radio-ready as "Angel" was, it's not even in the same galaxy as the immediate, bass-heavy electro-pop of "Into the Groove"—a song that always felt like a (not so distant) cousin to Shannon's "Let the Music Play."  Main difference between the two songs: whereas the timid Shannon passively waits for her man to come back to her on the dance floor, Madonna goes and gets what she wants because she's tired of "dancing by herself."  (Make of that what you will.)
She wrote "Into the Groove" with producer Stephen Bray, an ex-boyfriend from her days at the University of Michigan.  Bray created the song's signature bassline, hook, and rhythm track, while Madonna penned the lyrics.  Supposedly, she wrote the bulk of the words, sitting on the fire escape of her walk-up on the Lower East Side.  She did kind of a rush job because she was more interested in getting a date with a guy who was flirting with her from his own balcony across the street than finishing the song.  As she admitted to Rolling Stone in 2009, she feels a little silly singing "In the Groove" today because she considers it one of her weaker compositions.
"I've never been a good judge of what [songs] are going to be huge or not."

"Let the Music Play" (Shannon)

I'm not even going to pretend that I'm an expert on "freestyle" dance music.  The Interwebs say it came out of the New York club scene in the early 80s when DJs and producers started combining Latin rhythms with electronic music (think: Kraftwerk) as a sort of successor to disco.  And no one really seems to know/agree upon how it got its name; it might be because vocalists would freestyle rap/sing over the songs' intricate beats, or it might be because b-boys and b-girls were doing freestyle dance routines to the songs.  Who knows.
I do know, the moment I heard Shannon's freestyle anthem "Let the Music Play" (1983) testing the resiliency of the factory-installed subwoofers in my mom's 1971 Oldsmobile sedan, I instantly liked this song.
Lyrically, it's not the deepest.  Actually, the words are slightly dumb in a teenagery kind of way: guy dances with girl, girl is warm for his form, guy goes to dance with someone else, girl feels confused, but then guy dances his way back to her, and "true love" prevails.  Finis.  
It's not Shakespeare, and it doesn't need to be.  Shannon effectively telegraphs its message over one of the tightest grooves of the 80s.  Still today, I can't help but want to pop and lock every time I hear the track's reverb-drenched Roland TR-808 thumping against that perfectly synchronized TB-303 bassline.

"In My House" (Mary Jane Girls)

"In My House" from the album Only Four You (1985) was the biggest hit for the Mary Jane Girls and also the beginning of the end for their mentor Rick James, whose infamous taste for cocaine and bad behavior derailed him creatively and financially soon thereafter.
In reality, the Mary Jane Girls didn't exist.  Not as they appeared on their album covers, anyway.
In the early 80s, James had tried to put together a girl group trio, fronted by his former backing singer/protégé Joanne "JoJo" McDuffie, whom he'd molded in his own image, right down to the braids and freaky leather.  After recording a few demos, the other two singers dropped out of the project, leaving only McDuffie.  Not to be defeated, though, James convinced McDuffie that he could get her a contract as a solo artist.
After shopping around the demos, James was able to land a contract with Motown Records.  Only problem was, the label wanted a group.  So James lied and told Motown execs that his "group" consisted of McDuffie and three other singers.
He quickly found three attractive stand-ins, who looked the glammy/streetwise part but had limited to no singing ability, to create the illusion of a group.  McDuffie along with several session backing singers did all of the vocals on all of the Mary Jane Girls records—which created another problem: the group couldn't book high-profile T.V. gigs like The Tonight Show because programs like that weren't interested in broadcasting four girls, lip syncing.  Consequently, the group's ability to reach fans had a ceiling, pretty much sealing their fate from the get-go.
At age 7, I didn't really know or care about any of that stuff.  (Rick James scared the bejesus out of me anyway; he seemed like the kind of dude that D.A.R.E. and Nancy Reagan had warned us kids about.)  I just knew I liked the catchy electro-funk of "In My House," which in typical Rick James fashion combines danceable R&B with a hint of rock flavor, courtesy of that persistent guitar riff (which still reminds me a bit of the riff from the 1970 single "Venus" by Dutch band Shocking Blue).  
My favorite moment of the song comes after the second chorus: there's that funky synth breakdown, and then McDuffie starts singing her own little multi-tracked call-and-response: In my house / ooo-ooo-oooh.  Actually, that was the section I sang to my grandma in the Summer of '85 when I was trying to describe which single I wanted to buy with my allowance.  (As I've mentioned before, she was in charge of stocking the records and tapes at our local department store.)  I remember her standing there, leafing through the sleeves of 45 singles, and landing on "In My House," which had a somewhat provocative photo of the group on the cover.
"That's it!  That's the song," I told her.
She took one look at it, raised her eyebrow, and grunted at me.  
"Floozies."
Pretty sure I ended up with a copy of "Sussudio" that day instead.

  

"What Have You Done for Me Lately?" (Janet Jackson)

Even if Janet Jackson hadn't been the little sister of one of the most famous performers on the planet, I still think she would've found a way to be a star.  There's too much talent and girl-next-door charm there for her not to have been.  In fact, I have to remind myself sometimes that she is part of that Jackson family.  She always seemed too well adjusted and independent to be part of that brood.  (At least, I never heard anything about her trying to buy the bones of the deceased, or caught her selling psychic readings on late night T.V.)

Although she'd recorded two teen-pop albums before her breakthrough Control (1986), I first became aware of her with the track "What Have You Done for Me Lately?"  The moment I heard it, I couldn't get enough of that thumping bassline and those metallic, jazz-inflected cluster chords that punctuate the song's hook.  It's such a deep groove with that electric funk feel of mid-80s Prince, that I initially assumed it was a Prince song, featuring one of his "protégés" like Apollonia or Vanity on vocals.  I actually wasn't too far off, considering it was written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis—former members of The Time, a funk outfit fronted by longtime Prince collaborator, Morris Day.

Story goes, Control was essentially complete, when Jackson's label requested one more upbeat song for the album.  Jam & Lewis had a funk groove that they were working on for their own project but gave it to Jackson, who used it as a springboard for exploring her feelings about her failed marriage to R&B artist James DeBarge.  In a nutshell, it's "Where Did Our Love Go?" by The Supremes flipped on its head; instead of beating herself up, wondering where things went wrong, she lays the blame squarely at her ex-husband's feet: you stopped treating me right.

It was a pretty gutsy statement from a 19 year old who, up to that point, had been recording bubblegum pop records under the stern watch of her father.

"Billie Jean" (Michael Jackson)

I was never a huge fan of Michael Jackson.
I had the Thriller album, just like every other living human being on earth in 1983.  But, even at the time, I didn't buy the hype.
Don't get me wrong; the guy was one hell of an entertainer and, by all accounts, a perfectionist who made sure every note, move, etc. was the best it could be before presenting it to his fans.  But calling him "The King of Pop" always made me bristle, especially as his life got weirder and the space between new albums grew ever longer.  Had someone bestowed that title upon Stevie Wonder or Paul McCartney, I would have been more apt to agree—both are prolific songwriters and multi-instrumentalists who somehow found extra time to write massive hits for other people, too.  
But peruse the credits of Thriller sometime if you still have a copy: half of it was written by someone other than Jackson (particularly, Rod Temperton from the band Heatwave).  And it's Quincy Jones's fingerprints that are all over the record (and Off the Wall, too, for that matter).
I mean, if his royal moniker was earned because of record sales alone, would that make The Eagles "The Kings of Rock"?  (If it does, smother me with a pillow in my sleep.)
Anyway, from the get-go, I gravitated to the more R&B-flavored tracks on Thriller (think: "P.Y.T." and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'") than to the slick, poppy stuff.  (I still think "Beat It" is one of the most asinine songs ever recorded.)
And even though it was the big, mainstream hit from the album, I especially liked "Billie Jean," one of the few tracks on the album credited solely to Jackson.  Whereas the rest of the record felt big for the sake of being BIG, with its endless cameos and cinematic flourishes, "Billie Jean" was lean and mean.  I still prefer it to every other song in Jackson's catalog because of its rawness.
Beneath that pulsing heartbeat rhythm and insistent bassline lies a seedy, semi-autobiographical tale of a delusional fan who had convinced herself that Jackson was the father of her child and kept sending him one disturbing letter after another.  You hear the fear, fire, and anger in his voice as he sings about this woman.  There's no posturing.  There are no delusional pretenses of being a smooth criminal, a horror flick star, or some kind of healer of mankind.  It's just real emotion over a spare groove, and it jams.
Incidentally, even as a little kid, I always associated the song with the Hall & Oates track "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)."  I could never put my finger on why exactly.  
But, apparently, Jackson told Daryl Hall during the recording of the charity single "We Are the World" (1985) that he used to practice his dance moves to "I Can't Go for That" and admitted to borrowing the bassline for "Billie Jean."
As Hall told Mix Magazine in 2006, "Michael Jackson once said directly to me that he hoped I didn't mind that he copped that groove. That's okay; it's something we all do."

"I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" (Hall & Oates)

In the early 80s, Daryl Hall & John Oates somehow figured out a way to combine the leanness of New Wave with the spirit of smooth soul.  And make all the jokes you want about Hall and/or Oates, but just try not singing along to "Maneater," "One on One," or "Private Eyes."  Those singles have the infectious melodicism of Thom Bell/Philadelphia International songs with the skinny tie and sneakers sensibility of The Cars.

Same is true of my favorite Hall & Oates track, "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)."  

Everything about this song—the funky keyboard bass, the subtle synths, the muted guitar, and the chugging funk box with just a hint of New Wave-y gate reverb—made me like it from the moment I heard it on the car radio in late 1981.

Maybe it's because I first heard it at night, but it always evoked an after-hours/pre-dawn feel to me.  It's appropriate, considering that the duo came up with the song late at night at New York's Electric Ladyland Studios after wrapping up a recording session for their 1981 album, Private Eyes.  All of the other musicians had gone home, when Hall began tinkering in the empty studio with a Roland CompuRhythm drum machine and an organ.  As Hall's strutting bassline on the keyboard began to take shape, their recording engineer, Neil Kernon, quickly started rolling tape.

As Hall told Mix Magazine in 2006, "The chords came together in about 10 minutes, and then I heard a guitar riff, which I asked John, who was sitting in the booth, to play."

"Stayin' Alive" (The Bee Gees)

I'd venture that no track is more associated with disco than "Stayin' Alive."  I hear that genuinely funky guitar riff, and I can't help but picture John Travolta strutting down the sidewalk with his paint can like the Prince of Bensonhurst.
A little history: British music journalist Nik Cohn wrote an article for New York Magazine in June 1976 called "Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night."  It was a snapshot of working-class kids in New York's outer boroughs and the "disco culture" they had coopted from black kids and reshaped in their own polyester/fuhgeddaboudit image.  Turned out, the article was a work of fiction.  But that didn't stop film producer Alan Carr and Robert Stigwood, owner of RSO Records (home of The Bee Gees), from snapping up the film rights and turning it into Saturday Night Fever (1977).  
So when it came time to record a soundtrack for the film, Stigwood naturally tapped the Brothers Gibb.  They already were riding high on a newfound wave of popularity, having shed their image as 60s balladeers and reinvented themselves as pop-R&B stars, tapping into their love of Philly soul (think: The Stylistics, The Spinners, The O'Jays) and brother Barry's distinctive/semi-creepy falsetto.
Long story short, the band recorded the track "Night Fever" first, thinking it would be the soundtrack's centerpiece.  The film execs at Paramount didn't agree, so the group immediately went to work on a song that Barry had written about a working class guy who escapes the gloom of 70s New York by going dancing (in other words, the entire plot of the movie).
Right at the start of the sessions, their drummer's father died.  When he flew home to be with his family in England, they were without a rhythm section.  So record producers Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson took a two-second clip of the drums from "Night Fever" and created a loop (this is 1977, remember; we're talking literal loop of tape that was 22 feet long and stretched around the recording studio) to serve as the rhythm track for the song.  (A little in-joke between the band and producers, the liner notes of the soundtrack credit "Bernard Lupé" as the drummer on the track.)
Anyway, I'll never forget hearing the song on my parents' record player as a little kid, feeling the heartbeat thud of those drums and soaking in that chant-like chorus while watching my mom and dad trying to remember the steps to "The Hustle"—a small (and rare) glimpse into their dating life, pre-marriage and pre-me.
For better or worse, it's a time capsule of its era for anyone who was around to remember it.

"Peg" (Steely Dan)

By the time Steely Dan recorded its 1977 album Aja, the "band" consisted only of guitarist/bassist Walter Becker, vocalist/keyboardist Donald Fagen, and a revolving array of session players who were picked for what they could bring to an individual song.  Not a bad approach, actually.  If one player has blues chops, you plug him into a song that needs a bluesier feel.  Or if something calls for a jazzier approach, you use the guy who's a Wes Montgomery disciple for the guitar solo instead of the guy who was reared on Chuck Berry.  It was a smart way for Becker and Fagen to broaden Steely Dan's sonic palette and create music the way they heard it in their heads.
Anyway, the track "Peg" from Aja is what you get when Becker and Fagen create a "pop" song.  Its augmented blues structure makes it instantly accessible and familiar.  But then they throw in some quirky melodic twists (like the jazz-steeped chord changes on the chorus) and arranging innovations (like having Michael McDonald's backing vocal doubled by reed player Tom Scott on his Lyricon—an electronic sax-like instrument—to make the word "Peg!" sound strangely electronic and robotic) that catch you off guard and make you want to listen to it again, just so you can figure out what the hell is going on.
And then there's the lyrics.  In true Steely Dan fashion, they're smart but vague in their thrift.  The song is ostensibly about a young starlet who's about to get her big break in the movies.  However, Fagen drops subtle clues as to what kind of actress she might be; the fact that her headshot/pinup photo is blue suggests that her films might be equally blue.  (This no doubt eluded radio programmers, censors, and my 3-year-old brain when I first heard the song.)
But the song is really about the sum of its perfect parts.  It's the way Fagen's voice sounds against the galloping funk of Rick Marotta's drums and Chuck Rainey's bass; it's Jay Graydon's searing guitar solo, which defies any kind of categorization and comes completely out of left field.  Those elements are the reason why the song holds up to repeated plays instead of being stuck in the boneyard of late 70s R&B.

"Dancing Queen" (ABBA)

"Dancing Queen" (1976) fits squarely in my "guilty pleasures" file.  It's cheesy.  It's fluffy.  And it's wickedly addictive.
It's the pop music equivalent of that bag of cheese doodles that taunts you from the vending machine at work: you know they're made of soylent green and pencil shavings, but you buy them anyway because you don't have time to run out and buy a real lunch between your noon and 1 pm meetings.  And then, a few days later, you inexplicably find yourself craving them.  Next thing you know, you're involuntarily shoving a dollar bill into the slot every day at noon like clockwork because your brain is convinced that MSG and Yellow #9 are what your body needs to survive.  Or something like that.
It's just that everything is so perfectly rendered on "Dancing Queen."
There's that simultaneous ecstasy and agony vibe in the twin lead vocals of Swedish bombshells Agentha Fältskog and Frida Lyngstad, made even more dramatic by the tear-jerker strings and Rachmaninoff-like piano fills.  (I'm convinced that only Scandinavians could create a song about a teenager going clubbing that makes you want to sob.)
What keeps me coming back to this track, though, is the drumming of Roger Palm.  Influenced by the deep New Orleans funk on Dr. John's 1972 album Dr. John's Gumbo and George McRae's 1974 proto-disco song "Rock Your Baby," Palm lays down a rhythm track that's just a little behind the beat to give the song a bit of swagger and funk.  It singlehandedly keeps the beat from being your typical tiss-tah-tiss-tah-tiss-tah-tiss-tah disco banality.  In fact, if I could isolate just the drum track on this song, I'd probably listen to it ten times a day instead of twice a day like I do now...
I've said too much.
(Damn you, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and your pop tunesmithery.)

"Never Never Gonna Give You Up" (Barry White)

Barry White had always been something of a joke to me: a disco relic whose deep-voiced, love-man persona was too much of a caricature to be anything but a punchline.  
But I changed my opinion (a bit) when I first heard "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" in all 8 minutes of its glory on the 70s soul-filled soundtrack to the crime drama Dead Presidents (1995).  From the moment the lengthy, atmospheric "A Day in the Life"-esque intro kicked in with its climactic strings and funky hi-hat, it proved to me that White wasn't the lounge act I'd always pegged him for.
First included on White's second album Stone Gon' (1973), "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" is more rooted in funk than it is disco (which, technically, didn't even exist as a genre until 1975).  Yes, the track is decorated with White's borderline-sappy strings and mumbled bedroom come-ons, but it's driven by the relentless punch of session drummer Ed Greene's rhythms and punctuated by the syncopated, melodic thump of Wilton Felder's bass—both of which keep White's cotton candy romanticism from getting too sweet.  Also, White really does turn in one helluva vocal that's the right blend of smokiness and grit.  (Hearing him repeatedly mispronounce the word shtick on the choruses is kind of worth the price of admission alone.)

"What You Need" (INXS)

INXS at the peak of its powers had a lot going for it: a knack for crafting memorable tunes with memorable hooks; a sense of groove that was equally distilled from Stones-ian grit, New Wave quirkiness, and the spirit of Memphis soul; and, last but not least, a frontman who sounded like Mick Jagger (only better) and eerily resembled Jim Morrison (with some of the same demons to match, unfortunately).

"What You Need" from the album Listen Like Thieves (1985) is the perfect example of the band firing on all cylinders.  The chunky riff that drives the verses feels like something that might have been written by Steve Cropper 20 years earlier with Otis Redding in mind, whereas the blasts of distorted guitar on each chorus sound like something Keith Richards and Mick Taylor might have concocted, circa Sticky Fingers.  Yet there's the keyboard bass and dancehall drums with lots of gate reverb underlying it all, reminding you (albeit subtly) that it was recorded in the era of big hair and shoulder pads.

And I can't neglect to mention Michael Hutchence's vocal, which is one of the most spirited, soulful performances in pop/rock of that entire decade.

In short, the song is just catchy and danceable as hell.

Apparently, "What You Need" hadn't even been slated for the album, though.  INXS had cut 10 tracks for Listen Like Thieves and felt it was complete when producer Chris Thomas (also known for his work with The Sex Pistols, Roxy Music, and The Pretenders) told the band the album was lacking a hit single.  He gave them 24 hours to come up with one, otherwise the record wasn't going to ship on time.

Hard-pressed for another song, INXS turned in a demo called "Funk Song No. 13" by its keyboardist Andrew Farriss.  Thomas heard it, liked its Stax-inspired riff, and encouraged the band to develop it.  Within a day, the group transformed "Funk Song No. 13" into "What You Need," and within 48 hours, the song was recorded, mastered, and added as the opening track of the album.

Good move, considering "What You Need" landed INXS its first Top 5 hit.

"The Wanton Song" (Led Zeppelin)

At first blush, there doesn't seem to be a lot going on in "The Wanton Song," a track from Physical Graffiti (1975) that came about as the result of an impromptu jam during a soundcheck on the band's 1973 tour.  Jimmy Page just plays the same two notes, an octave apart, over and over.  And Robert Plant delivers one of his less subtle and more reptilian sets of lyrics.  There's no mysticism or references to Tolkien lore, only slightly poetic references to shagging groupies.  (Like the song "Sick Again" from the same album, it's an illustrative snapshot of 70s hard rock excess on the road.)
But there's just something about the simplicity and raunch of Page's riff over the dripping funk of John Bonham's drums and John Paul Jones's bass.  It creates a hypnotic effect that somehow never grows stale, even after repeated plays.  (I know, because I listened to the song on repeat for a solid 3 hours once when I was working on a web design project in college.)
There's also something electrifying about when the band moves in unison through the series of complex (almost jazz-like) chord changes from the grimy verses to the sparkling instrumental choruses.  Page's guitar fed through a rotating Leslie speaker almost sounds like chirping birds greeting a brand new day, which I think fits the theme of the song pretty well: whatever hormone-fueled mistakes took place the night before get erased with the light of each new day/each new face/each new city.
And the wheel rolls on...

"Gimme Shelter" (The Rolling Stones)

"Gimme Shelter" opens The Rolling Stones' 1969 album Let It Bleed and essentially slams the book closed on the hippie utopian dream.  Mick Jagger and the boys take a look at the world around them, and what they see is pretty bleak: war, rape, and murder—all just a shot away.
As Jagger told NPR's Melissa Block back in 2012, "It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit. When it was recorded, early '69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that's reflected in this tune."
What's also reflected in the tune is their "back to basics" approach to crafting raunchy R&B, a reboot that began with their 1968 album, Beggar's Banquet.  From the moment Jagger coos his eerie falsetto oooh's atop that undulating Latin-flavored intro to the final seconds of his smoldering blues harmonica in the fadeout, it's clear that they were no longer interested in aping The Beatles.
The most memorable moment of the song, though, doesn't even come from any of the Stones; it comes from backup singer Merry Clayton.
The band was putting the finishing touches on the song in Los Angeles in the middle of the night, when Jagger and partner in crime Keith Richards decided it needed a female vocal.  Story goes, they'd tried to contact a number of vocalists and finally ended up reaching (a very pregnant) Clayton as she was on her way to bed.  They convinced her to come to the studio—still in her silk pajamas with a scarf covering the rollers in her hair—to cut some vocals.
Thing is, she had no clue who they were!  All she knew was that they were some little rock outfit from England.  So, understandably, she was taken aback when she got there and found out they wanted her to belt out the unsavory lyrics: Rape, murder / It's just a shot away.  Nevertheless, she did a solid take, vamping and singing along with Jagger's lead.
Impressed with her confidence and swagger, Jagger asked if she was up for another take.
As Clayton reminisces in the fantastic 2013 documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, "I said to myself, 'I'm gonna do another one, and I'm gonna blow them out of this room'."
That's when she unleashed the now-famous gospel-tinged shout that sounds like someone crying out in the wilderness.  It's not just sung; it's wailed, complete with cracks and breaks—particularly when she hits the word murder.  It's one of the most frightening, exhilarating things ever captured on tape.
Clayton's singular performance takes a good track that would have been a decent snapshot of its time and crystallizes it into the definitive chronicle of its era.

"Sledgehammer" (Peter Gabriel)

My taste in music had pretty much solidified by age 8.  The kind of stuff that I really liked back then (bucolic classical, bone-crushing rock, brass-driven jazz, and greasy, bass-heavy soul) is the same stuff I enjoy today, only the circle is wider now.
Despite being a kid, I was aware that music had gotten "slick" in the mid 80s.  Real soul and grit largely had been traded for cheesy synths, sequencers, and cold, lifeless compression.  With only a few exceptions (see below), I hated mainstream pop music from about 1984-1989.  Which is why I gravitated to stuff like Stax and Atlantic soul in my parents' record collection.  I loved that real, heartfelt sound I heard on records by Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, etc.
So when Peter Gabriel released "Sledgehammer" from the album So in 1986 with its smoking brass section and deep, in-the-pocket groove that was heavily indebted to the Memphis soul sound, I about lost my mind.  Never mind the fact that the song was just one, big euphemism for sex (my 8-year-old brain couldn't—or didn't really want to—comprehend what a "fruit cage" was); I just liked the groove.
In fact, I didn't even see the song's iconic video until maybe 2 months after hearing the track on the radio.  By that point, I was already a fan.  The stop-motion/claymation masterpiece (produced by Aardman Animations, which went on to create Wallace and Gromit) was just double-fudge icing on the already delicious cake to me.
Being that "Sledgehammer" was/is Gabriel's biggest hit, it's often assumed that he consciously set out to write something that would appeal to the masses instead of continuing in his left-of-center, prog-rock vein of the 70s/early 80s.  As he recounted to Rolling Stone interviewer Andy Greene in 2012, although he had grown bored with writing esoteric art rock and quirky instrumentals, the song actually came about quite organically.  In short, he had an idea for something that had an Otis Redding feel, and he simply showed his bassist, Tony Levin, the groove he'd been noodling on just as Levin was getting ready to go home for the day.
"It was late in the day, and we just fell into the groove, landed a beautiful drum track on it, a great bassline, and it all came together."

"Moanin'" (Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers)

I really didn't know all that much about jazz when I bought my first jazz album.  It was a compilation by Blue Note Records called The Best of Blue Note (1991).  Although in time I'd come to recognize that the album consisted strictly of "hard bop" tunes from the late 50s/early 60s, I had no idea how to categorize it when I first heard it, sitting at a listening station in our local mall's Camelot Music store.  I only knew I liked the funky, bluesy feel of the songs.  And one track stood out in particular: "Moanin'" by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, taken from the 1959 album of the same name.

"Moanin'" was composed by Bobby Timmons, the pianist for The Jazz Messengers, circa 1958/9.  The song originated from a bluesy little 8-bar improvisation that Timmons would play between numbers at shows.  Although Timmons regarded the riff as a throwaway, the band's saxophonist, Benny Golson, heard something more and encouraged Timmons to add a bridge section and develop it into a full-fledged song.  Still somewhat doubtful about the composition, Timmons and his bandmates debuted "Moanin'" in late 1958 at the 502 Club in Columbus, OH.  To his surprise and Golson's satisfaction, it was a huge hit with the crowd and instantly became a hard bop classic.

So what exactly makes the song "hard bop"?

Primarily, it's the rhythmic approach.  Unlike cool jazz of that same era, which tended to be lushly orchestrated/arranged and supported by soft, subtle rhythms often played with brushes on snares, hard bop was brassier, bolder, and punchier.  It took its cues directly from gospel and blues.  In fact, the gospel influence—particularly in the call-and-response interchange between Timmons and the unison playing of trumpeter Lee Morgan and Golson on the choruses—is undeniable.

Every solo on this song is executed perfectly, and the level of ESP is amazing.  Case in point: my favorite moment comes around the 3:00 mark as Morgan wraps up his funky turn.  He plays this short line of notes, kind of as an afterthought, and Golson intuitively picks up on the same theme, using it as a segue into his own inventive solo.  It makes me smile every time I hear it.

"Give Me Your Love" (Curtis Mayfield)

When Curtis Mayfield created the soundtrack for Super Fly (1972), he didn't just pull 9 songs from his back catalog or write some random stuff that was barely related to the film.  He took the time to read the entire script and wrote music and lyrics that commented specifically on the plot and inner workings of the characters' minds, exploring their hopes, doubts, and desires.
"Give Me Your Love" is written from the point of view of "Georgia," the steadfast girlfriend (played by Sheila Frazier) of the film's protagonist, "Priest" (played by Ron O'Neal).  In the film, "Priest" is looking to make one last, big drug deal and then plans to leave the business for good.  Whereas everyone else around him—from his cohorts to crooked cops—is trying to convince him to stay in the drug game, "Georgia" is the only one who really sees the toll it has taken on him and encourages him to leave it all behind.  The lyrics of the song express her unconditional love and her sole desire for "Priest" to succeed so they can be together.
"Give Me Your Love" underscores the (in)famous slow-motion scene where "Priest" and "Georgia" get freaky in a bubble bath, right after she implores him to stop shutting her out emotionally.  The track's undulating congas and insistent bassline provide a funky, Latin-tinged foundation for the lush strings, delicate piano, and Mayfield's falsetto vocals.  It's gritty and beautiful at the same time, which I think perfectly captures the relationship between the two characters.

"Down Here in Hell (With You)" (Van Hunt)

I was beginning to think no one gave a damn about carrying the torch of Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Prince...
Until I heard "Down Here in Hell with You" from multi-instrumentalist Van Hunt's 2004 self-titled album.  
What impressed me most about the track is that it's homage without imitation.  It's as if Hunt distilled each of those influences into some brand new intoxicating spirit.
It's also an incredibly smart song that examines the inner workings of a dysfunctional relationship, where neither the protagonist nor his girlfriend are satisfied unless they're making each other a little bit miserable.  (Yeah, it's psychologically deeper than 99% of your run-of-the-mill, modern R&B fare.)
Hunt also handles all of the vocals and plays most of the instruments himself, too, including the track's distinctive bassline, which grinds and gulps its way around the song's strategically placed flashes of Mellotron flute and funky electric guitar.

It amazes me with that kind of depth and talent that the guy got unceremoniously dropped from his label, Blue Note, in 2007.  Story goes, he and Blue Note had a mutual breakup.  But, in reality, they shafted him by refusing to release his critically-praised, funk-rock tinged third album, Popular, and then set the price so high on the master tapes that he couldn't afford to buy them back.  (Shady.)
Although, being dropped from their roster has freed him up to explore whole new dimensions of music as an independent artist without being pigeonholed as "an R&B act."  In fact, his newest stuff completely defies categorization: it's still rooted in soul and funk, but there are textures of everything from punk to New Wave in the mix.  His melodies also twist and turn in ways now that might take your ear two or three listens before it really locks into the groove.  But it's rewarding music if given a chance.
Definitely check Hunt out if you're unfamiliar with his work.  You'll be a fan for life.

"If You Want Me to Stay" (Sly & The Family Stone)

"If You Want Me to Stay" off Sly & The Family Stone's 1973 album Fresh purportedly was written by Sylvester Stewart (a.k.a. "Sly Stone") after a fight with his girlfriend.  In the song, he's issuing an ultimatum: let me be me, or I'm outta here.
However, I've always interpreted the song as an address to the music press and his various critics.  Stone had gotten a reputation in the early 70s for missing concerts, being perpetually late for interviews, as well as not being "all there" when he did bother to show up.  Likewise, in an era when pop artists typically released new albums every few months, Stone was spending years between discs, infamously recording, erasing, and then re-recording tracks—not so much because he was a perfectionist but because of impaired judgment.  And, naturally, the music press openly griped about these things.
Then, there were the threats from the Black Panther party, demanding that he ditch the white members of The Family Stone and make his music more militant.  Stone/the band even got death threats—a big reason why original band members, pioneering bassist Larry Graham and drummer Greg Errico, left the band before Fresh was released.
Putting the lyrics in that context, it was Stone telling the world to leave him alone and let him do his thing, or else he was going away for good.
Even with that sort of heavy subject matter underlying it, the song's tossed off charm never ceases to amaze me.  It kind of sounds like Stone rolled over from a nap, yawned, pressed "record," and did a take.  That's not to say his performance is bad; he sounds exceptionally confident and in control, slipping from his distinctive tenor into high falsetto and/or a deep baritone growl with ease.  Just goes to show how brilliant and talented he could be when he made even minimal effort.
It's Rustee Allen's bassline, though, that makes the track a perennial favorite of mine.  It's not ostentatious or showy, but it makes its presence felt, thumping like the proverbial heart of the song.  It's what made me a steadfast fan of Sly & The Family Stone.

"Woman's Gotta Have It" (Bobby Womack)

"Woman's Gotta Have It" from Bobby Womack's 1972 album Understanding is about as deep as soul music gets.
It's not just any old song about relationships; it's the late, great Womack making an ardent plea to certain married men who take their wives for granted.  He's basically saying, unless you make sure her needs are taken care of, you're going to find yourself very alone.
From a musical standpoint, the track is steeped in sweet Memphis soul.  It's built upon the in-the-pocket percussion of American Sound Studios session drummer Hayward Bishop and punctuated by Mike Leech's silky bassline, which is indebted to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" in both spirit and melody.  For that matter, the call-and-response/echo vocals where Womack sings both lead and backup seem like a direct homage to Gaye's song, too.
Even so, this track has its own singular groove that seems as ready for the dance floor as it is for l'amour.  And that's why it's so easy to put it on "repeat," four or five times.

"U.N.I.T.Y." (Queen Latifah)

I'll admit, I listened to my fair share of gangsta rap in the early 90s.  (Who didn't own The Chronic and Doggystyle?)  But every time I heard Dr. Dre, Snoop, 2Pac, Ice T, or their cohorts being derogatory towards women, it turned my stomach.
Yeah, I heard the argument over and over that they were simply chronicling the hard knocks culture of gang life.  But I never really bought that argument.  It seemed pretty clear to me that they were denigrating women and making lots of money off it.  And that didn't sit well.
When Queen Latifah's "U.N.I.T.Y." from the album Black Reign came along in 1993, it was like an antidote to that poisonous way of thinking and a respite from West Coast g-funk.  Not only did it have a feel that was indebted to jazz and soul, courtesy of a smartly sampled clip from The Crusaders' "A Message from the Inner City", the track showcased Queen Latifah's ability to flow.  She delivers her socially conscious message with a wit and fluidity that proves she wasn't just one of the best female rappers but one of the best emcees of the 90s, period.  (Side note: as much as I enjoy hearing her sing jazz and pop standards, I really do miss hearing her rap.)

"Watermelon Man" (Herbie Hancock)

Nothing really prepares you for the first time you hear "Watermelon Man" off Herbie Hancock's 1973 album Head Hunters.  That's particularly true if you're already familiar with Hancock's 1962 original from the album Takin' Off, which is basically a blues set to a swinging, hard bop beat—his attempt to capture the sounds and rhythms of his youth, hearing watermelon vendors maneuvering their carts through the cobblestone alleyways of his native Chicago.
But the Head Hunters track has a different vibe altogether.  It trades a bit of the playful nostalgia of the original for 1970s urban grit, recasting the tune as a laid back slice of electronic funk.  Along with the radically reimagined arrangement, the 1973 track features this otherworldly whistling/howling called hindewhu, a mouth percussion technique that comes from the Ba-Benzélé pygmies of Central Africa.  (It's that sound you hear at the beginning of the track.)
As I learned in a jazz music appreciation class in college (and had to research again because that was a few years ago), Hancock and his percussionist Bill Summers had first heard hindewhu on a field recording of the Ba-Benzélé and were floored by it.  Although the pygmies produce the sound by blowing into whistles made of hollowed-out papaya branches, Summers figured out a way to imitate it by blowing/vocalizing across the mouth of an empty beer bottle, directly into a microphone.

"Can't Hide Love" (Earth, Wind & Fire)

"Can't Hide Love" from the album Gratitude (1975) may not be Earth, Wind & Fire's best known hit.  It wasn't even written by a member of the band; it actually was composed by songwriter Skip Scarborough (who also wrote the R&B hit "Lovely Day" for Bill Withers).  But it has all of the elements that showcase EWF at the peak of its powers: the tight rhythm section, the unified Phenix Horns, and bandleader Maurice White's tenor growl set against the group's soaring falsetto harmonies.  The result is one of the sultriest, funkiest love songs ever recorded.
Word of caution, though: articles of clothing may spontaneously fly off your body when White "takes it to church" on his final verse and the group starts singing its ahhhhh harmonies toward the end of the track.  So you might want to light some candles and be close to someone you love in the presence of this song.

"If I Was Your Girlfriend" (Prince)

Sitting in the middle of Prince's sprawling double album Sign O' The Times (1987) is the curious track "If I Was Your Girlfriend."  The Purple One wrote the song to explore his feelings of jealousy regarding his then-fiancée Susannah Melvoin's close relationship with her twin sister, Wendy Melvoin—the guitarist in Prince's backing band, The Revolution.  In short, he realized Susannah would never share the same degree of intimacy with him as she did with Wendy, and that bothered him deeply.
But instead of writing the song from a guy's point of view, he wrote it from a woman's point of view, expressing the wish that she could share the same kind of lasting bond with her boyfriend that she shared with her best girlfriend.  (It's a pretty daring exercise in psychology for a pop song.)
To take the concept even further, Prince recorded the song with sped-up vocals to sound like a woman.  He even credited his alter-ego, "Camille," for the performance instead of himself.  In fact, the song had been slated for inclusion on a full Camille album, which he ended up shelving in favor of Sign O' The Times.
I don't mean to imply that the song is just some odd curio or throwaway, though; its slinky beat, slapped bass, and soulful hook make it one of the best tracks in his entire catalog.  It's a shame it was so misinterpreted and ignored at the time of its release.

"Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" (Soul II Soul)

"Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" (1989) by British group Soul II Soul is the song that marked the death of the 80s for me.  Sometime between 1985 and 1989, popular music had gotten glossy—especially dance music.  But even rock suffered from a glut of processed, electronic-sounding drums and cheesy synths.

And then came this song with its mix of R&B, hip-hop, and reggae.

For the first time in a long time, the drums sounded like live drums, and they weren't heavily processed or echoey; they were funky and punchy.  There was live piano, guitar, and exotic-sounding strings instead of synthesized imitations.  Plus, there was a robust, soulful vocal from a real singer, Caron Wheeler. 

It all felt organic, and it stood out from practically everything else on the radio.

As Soul II Soul's creative driving force, producer Trevor "Jazzie B" Romeo, told The Guardian newspaper in 2012, "We weren't trying to follow any trend or fit into any category–we were just doing our own thing." 

I think the song holds up remarkably well decades later.  That drum groove (sampled from Graham Central Station's "The Jam") is still undeniably infectious, as is the song's hook.  Just try not singing along with Wheeler as she intones how-however do you want me / however do you need me.

"Killing Me Softly" (The Fugees)

"Killing Me Softly" evokes memories of a specific time and place unlike any other song for me.  More on that in a second.

But first, I want to express my unconditional love of Ms. Lauryn Hill.  I can look past all of the tax evasion drama and paranoia/reclusive weirdness of recent years for a single reason: that voice.  No one in all of pop music had/has the clarity and control of Hill.  She was one of the few vocalists of that era who could be soulful and riveting without having to resort to gimmicky vocal acrobatics.  She also proved that she could interpret any song and make it completely hers.

Incidentally, "Killing Me Softly" was not supposed to have been an all-out cover of the tune that singer Roberta Flack first made famous.  The Fugees' intent was to record a track for 1996's The Score called "Killing Them Softly," which sampled/replayed elements of the original.  Problem was, the song's composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel (also famous for writing themes to T.V. shows, including Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days) refused to give The Fugees permission to sample the song.  They did, however, encourage the group to cover it.

And it's a gutsy cover.  The majority of the song is just Hill, singing a cappella, over a hypnotic beat.  It's so spare and pure that it feels as if you're hearing her inner monologue.  Seems like an unlikely formula for a hit, but I think the emotionally bare, intensely personal feel to the track resonated with people around the world.

Even months before it became a massive hit for the group, my friends and I were playing the hell out of the song in our cars, on school trips, at each other's houses...  

It was playing on my Discman the first time my friends and I ever saw the skyline of New York from a plane.  

It was playing on the way to our senior prom.  

It was playing at my graduation party, when it hit us that we probably wouldn't be able to hang out like that again.

"Brown Sugar" (D'Angelo)

It was summer 1995, and I'd come home late from hanging out with friends.  We'd been drinking cappuccinos at the local coffeehouse all evening, because that's what you did in the 90s, and I was too wired to go to bed.  So I turned on MTV (because that's what you did in the 90s) and sat there mindlessly watching music videos, trying to let the caffeine wear off.
Anyway, in the middle of a lineup of hedonistic gangsta rap and gloom-tastic grunge clips, here comes this video set in a smoky jazz club with this young cat crooning something about brown sugar.  And damned if he didn't sound like the reincarnation of Marvin Gaye.
There were elements of 70s acid jazz and vintage soul—throwback, but not in a ham-fisted way.  There also was this swagger and flow that felt a little hip-hop without resorting to money-cash-hoes clichés.  It was like he'd figured out the perfect mix of components that groups like The Brand New Heavies and Tony! Toni! Toné! had been toying with for years.
And then to find out the dude had written, arranged, and performed the track and 95% of the entire Brown Sugar album himself?  Well, that took the cake.  I was an instant fan.
I can't overstate how much this one song affected my taste in music at the time and thereafter.  After hearing "Brown Sugar," I pretty much stopped listening to any mainstream pop music and sought out anything that felt soulful, organic, and slightly off-the-radar.  I also started playing keyboards differently, adding in jazzier cluster chords and more blue notes when I'd solo.  (Hell, I even convinced the members of my alt-rock band to do a jam built around "Brown Sugar" for a small live show that we played at a friend's music store!)
It's one of the few tracks from the 90s that I can still play without a tinge of irony.

"Didn't Cha Know" (Erykah Badu)

Back in 2000, there were three albums that I absolutely wore out: D'Angelo's Voodoo, Common's Like Water for Chocolate, and Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun.  It wasn't until I really scrutinized the liner notes of each disc that I realized all three were recorded simultaneously by the same collective of musicians, the "Soulaquarians": Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, James Poyser, Roy Hargrove, the late James "J Dilla" Yancey...  Those names kept showing up in the credits, track after track—not unlike how, if you look at the credits of any great track put out by Stax or Motown in the 60s, you'll find the same players and composers, over and over.  Only, instead of the Soulaquarians having a particular "sound" (like, you can instantly recognize a vintage Motown record just by the way the drums and rhythm section sound), they were more about an approach to making music.  If you listen to any of the aforementioned albums, there's this aura of creativity that surrounds each one.  It's as if nothing was off limits, all ideas and inspirations were valid, and everyone shared the same vast musical vocabulary, which ranged from the Baroque to the Boogie Down Bronx.  The result was daring, yet accessible, music with richness and depth.  
It's timeless stuff.
One of my favorite Soulaquarians collaborations of that period is "Didn't Cha Know" off Badu's Mama's Gun.  The track came about after Common (a.k.a. Lonnie Lynn, Jr.) introduced Badu to DJ/producer J Dilla.  She and Dilla were hanging out at his basement studio in Detroit, talking music and getting to know each other, when he told her to go pick any album out of his enormous library of vinyl records.
As Badu reminisced to Fader magazine in 2006, "I’m looking through these organized, tightly packed crates, and I just pulled out one record, and the artist was Tarika Blue.  I liked that name."
The moment she heard the opening track on the album, a laid-back jazz fusion piece called "Dreamflower," she knew it was the perfect foundation for a new track with Dilla.
In true Dilla fashion, the sample on "Didn't Cha Know" is subtle and tasteful.  In fact, it doesn't smack you in the face that it's a sample at all; it feels completely organic.  Which is why Badu's lyrics and vocals mesh so well with it.  It's almost as if that melody was always destined to dovetail with her introspective poetry about being human and making mistakes but never doubting her direction in life.
Incidentally, it's a song that spoke to me when I decided to change career paths after college.  I kept getting doors slammed in my face by an industry that I quickly grew to despise.  When I finally walked away from it and took an unpaid internship at a small magazine in late 2000, I was kind of beating myself up about the choices I'd made up to that point.  But then this song came along at the right time and convinced me that being regretful about the past wasn't doing anything for me in the present.  I didn't know exactly where my path was going to lead, but I knew I was on the right track.
I still go to this song any time I need to shake off self doubt.