The Best House Tracks of the '90s
House spent the '90s splitting into dialects, and these are the tracks that came through, so vote them into a defensible order. Membership is settled before any ordering. Each entry was a single issued 1990 to 1999; an album track from those years is not enough. Genre comes off the record's Wikipedia page, or the artist's where the record has no page or no genre field, and nowhere else: with neither, it is out. The token has to be house, acid house, deep house, French house, progressive house, tribal house, garage or speed garage. First listed only, which keeps 'Higher State of Consciousness' out on acid techno. Remixes of records by outside acts are out. The link has to resolve to one identifiable recording; 'Flash' cleared genre and died there. Years here are the single's, not the release page's. Mixmag, Rolling Stone and Magnetic are the mastheads, Mixmag's three lists counted once; a record two or more of them name is in the upper tier, one or none the lower. Sorting inside a tier is the vote's job.
Cajmere — Percolator (1992) is #1 on “The Best House Tracks of the '90s”.
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Cajmere — Percolator (1992)
Curtis Jones cut this as Cajmere for his own Cajual label in 1992, and the Wikipedia page he shares with his Green Velvet alias lists house ahead of techno. Mixmag has it on both its Chicago list and its US rave list, and Rolling Stone prints the full title as 'Coffee Pot (It's Time For the Percolator)', so the masthead count is two. Spotify files that 1992 single under Original Mix.
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Hardrive — Deep Inside (1993)
Hardrive is one of the names Masters at Work worked under, so the genre test runs on their page, which opens with house. Magnetic credits Deep Inside to Little Louie Vega. An organ stab, and a sung line repeated until it stops meaning anything. Mixmag lists it as well, putting the count at two. This points at the five track EP, not the Vega mix compilation carrying an identical cut.
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Robin S — Show Me Love (1990)
Champion put it out in October 1990 and almost nobody noticed. StoneBridge remixed it in 1992, and the organ hook he built the new version on is what made it a hit in 1993, the year Magnetic prints. Wikipedia opens the genre line on house. Mixmag has it too, so that is two mastheads. What resolves is the album cut of Show Me Love from her 1993 record, not the StoneBridge twelve inch.
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Barbara Tucker — Beautiful People (1994)
Barbara Tucker sings Beautiful People like a woman running a room rather than performing to one, and her Wikipedia entry lists house before soul. Mixmag put it on its diva house list and Magnetic on its '90s house list, a count of two. Magnetic names the Underground Network Mix; this goes to the nine minute Original Club Mix on the 1994 single, not the remix release issued alongside it.
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Ultra Naté — Free (1997)
Strictly Rhythm released Free on 31 March 1997, and its Wikipedia entry opens on house, then disco, then soul. The chorus is a self help slogan delivered without a trace of irony, over a piano figure that never lets up. Mixmag and Magnetic both carry it, which makes two. Situation:Critical holds this cut, one of two Spotify masters of that album, both dated 1998.
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Jomanda — Got a Love for You (1991)
Jomanda were three singers from New Jersey, and their Wikipedia entry gives exactly one genre, house. Mixmag's diva house list names Got a Love for You in the Hurley club mix, a piano vamp with three voices trading one line over it. Magnetic runs it as well, so the count reaches two. Someone to Love Me, the 1990 debut the single came off, holds the five minute album version.
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Masters At Work — The Ha Dance (1991)
Magnetic calls The Ha Dance a track inspired by a scene in the film Trading Places, and ballroom culture has been voguing to that horn stab since 1991. Masters at Work put house first on their own Wikipedia page. Magnetic alone has it, so one. The id runs three minutes twenty three and sits on The House of Cutting, a Cutting Records compilation from 1997, six years behind the record.
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Stardust — Music Sounds Better with You (1998)
Thomas Bangalter, Alan Braxe and Benjamin Diamond built Music Sounds Better With You on a looped sample of Chaka Khan's 1981 song 'Fate', and Roule released it in July 1998. Wikipedia gives it one genre, French house. Magnetic has it and neither Mixmag nor Rolling Stone does, so one. The 1998 single holds the six minute forty three version, with a radio edit beside it.
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Daft Punk — Da Funk (1995)
Soma put Da Funk out in May 1995, two years before Homework collected it, and the Wikipedia genre field reads acid house, then big beat, then dance. First listed decides, so a record plenty of people file under big beat qualifies on its acid house token. No masthead here carries it, so its count is zero. Homework has the cut, on the sixteen track original rather than the anniversary edition.
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Faithless — Insomnia (1995)
Rollo and Sister Bliss made Insomnia in 1995 and Cheeky released it that November; the entry on Wikipedia gives progressive house and nothing else. Maxi Jazz spends three minutes talking himself out of sleep before the synth line arrives and takes the record away from him. Magnetic runs it; Mixmag and Rolling Stone do not, so its count is one. The twelve track Reverence, dated 1996 on Spotify, has the album version.
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Danny Tenaglia — Music Is the Answer (1998)
Danny Tenaglia's Wikipedia entry lists tribal house first, so he clears the genre clause, while Celeda's vocal on Music Is The Answer (Dancin' & Prancin') is closer to a sermon than a hook. Mixmag has it on its US rave anthems list; no other masthead does, so a count of one. Tourism, his 1998 album, holds the nine minute version.
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Daft Punk — Around the World (1997)
Virgin issued Around the World in April 1997 with a Michel Gondry video built on the same repeating figure as the record, and the first genre token on its Wikipedia entry is French house. The bassline repeats one phrase for seven minutes while the vocoder offers the title and nothing else. Magnetic lists it alone among the three mastheads, so one. Homework supplies the cut.
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CeCe Peniston — Finally (1991)
A&M released Finally on 30 September 1991, and Wikipedia's genre line starts with house and reaches R&B fourth, so the first token settles it. Not one masthead picked the record, which is a count of zero. The piano figure and the sung hook arrive inside the first eight bars, and the rest declines to add anything to either. That 1992 debut album is the source, not one of the later reissues.
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Crystal Waters — Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless) (1991)
Mercury issued this in April 1991, and Wikipedia prints no genre field for the song at all, so the rule falls back to her artist page, which lists house first. Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless) puts a woman living on the street over a whistle hook, and the two halves have never sat comfortably together. Zero mastheads name it. Surprise carries what Spotify labels a radio edit.
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