Tom Ewing’s Top 100 Singles OF The 90s
One of the good things about dance records is that you dance to them. The middle bit of “The Rockefeller Skank” – where the tune slows down like the dancefloor’s being slowly submerged before a great stomping Godzilla of a beat crashes back in – is probably the most fun thing to dance to these past ten years. For that, and for being the 90s record which has most infuriated my mother, it earns its place.
Other than that, there’s not much to say. This is Norman Cook’s moment of triumph, the final glorious victory of feet over brain. The very thought of picking one of his more ‘obscure’ singles seems bufuddling, even faintly horrid – this is an artist whose quality is best measured using a seismograph. Either everyone knows the record, or it is nothing. And besides, the peril of making records by applying a formula is that you need only keep the best result. This is it.