Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1Top Billin’Top Billin’Milk Dee sampled the opening drums of the Honey Drippers’ “Impeach the President,” then reprogrammed the hits. Listen to the kick and snare catch and start over under his voice. The original break rolls by smoothly, so hearing it first makes the gaps in the new beat easier to pick out.0
  2. 2Eye KnowEye KnowSteely Dan’s recording of “Peg” supplies the answering voice on the hook. The sample gets room at the end of the line, giving the impression of someone answering the rappers. There’s a lighter answer in the whistle lifted from Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.”0
  3. 3C.R.E.A.M.C.R.E.A.M.The piano figure comes from the opening of the Charmels’ “As Long as I’ve Got You,” a Volt single. The figure passes quickly in the soul recording. RZA loops it so it hangs over the verses, giving their accounts of growing up a sound that keeps coming back.0
  4. 4Electric RelaxationElectric RelaxationRonnie Foster’s “Mystic Brew,” from Two Headed Freap, supplies the repeating bass and keyboard figure. The notes hang in the air as Q-Tip and Phife Dawg trade verses. Hear Foster’s track first and you can pick out part of its groove still intact in the middle of the rap record.0
  5. 5Glory BoxGlory BoxPortishead builds the track on a passage from Isaac Hayes’s “Ike’s Rap II,” from Black Moses. The bass and strings keep circling underneath Beth Gibbons. That steadiness lets her stretch the vocal phrasing and makes the guitar stand out sharply when it arrives.0
  6. 6Building Steam With a Grain of SaltBuilding Steam With a Grain of SaltDJ Shadow starts with the piano from Jeremy Storch’s “I Feel a New Shadow,” off From a Naked Window. The phrase keeps repeating as drums, voices, and other sounds alter what surrounds it. Listen to how much the beat changes your sense of where the notes fall.0
  7. 7Got ’Til It’s GoneGot ’Til It’s GoneJimmy Jam lifted a line from Joni Mitchell’s 1970 studio recording of “Big Yellow Taxi.” Mitchell’s bright voice keeps cutting through the soft beat, with Jackson and Q-Tip leaving it space to answer them. A line about realizing what you’ve lost becomes the refrain of a different story.0
  8. 8Natural BluesNatural BluesMoby takes Vera Hall’s unaccompanied “Trouble So Hard” from the Sounds of the South collection and puts it at the center of a new arrangement. Listen to the way Hall sustains the ends of her phrases as the piano and steady beat move underneath. The record gives the old vocal a pulse without taking…0
  9. 9StanStan“Stan” takes its sung refrain from the opening verse of Dido’s “Thank You,” heard on No Angel. The melody plays before the character’s first letter, then returns between verses as his tone changes. Hear the same words in Dido’s song and you can catch how much of their new unease comes from the…0
  10. 10Harder, Better, Faster, StrongerHarder, Better, Faster, StrongerThe choppy keyboard figure comes from Edwin Birdsong’s 1979 “Cola Bottle Baby.” Its bounce keeps the beat legible while the vocoder first lays out the words and then breaks them into progressively smaller bits. Try following the Birdsong fragment when those voices start moving much faster.0