The Circle Of Musical Life

It's funny how certain things and people, regular as clockwork, just keep coming back.

Take me and ABC radio presenter Francis Leach, for example. Back in the dim, dark, only just post-black and white days of 1992, Francis was the host of Triple J's Three Hours Of Power heavy metal program. I was a 14-year-old kid living on a ridge just outside Toowoomba, somehow in a small pocket where the broadcast made its way up the valley from Brisbane and onto my radio every Monday night.

Francis seemed like a good bloke, and among the many bands he introduced to me during that 10pm to 1am timeslot was Kyuss – the love of my musical life who the Underworlds, Orbitals, Flaming Lips and Godspeeds of this world have never been able to steal me away from.

Twenty years later, Francis is back in my life hosting Grandstand Breakfast four days a week on ABC Digital Radio, and the man still knows his way around a decent tune as well. (Though I've heard no Kyuss yet – c'mon Frank, what gives?) Among the many glorious tunes he's dropped over the past year, a week or so back he got his Cross Colors on and threw down Black Box – Ride On Time for the morning sports massive to mull over.

And you know what? That tune, released in 1989 and now well and truly come of age, is a text book lesson in not just dance music, but pop music perfection.

Listen to it now, as if you've never listened to it before, and really pay attention to what's going on there.

Rhythm? Check. Melody? Check. Pianos? Check. Bassline? Bassline!

Oh, and let's not forget the hook, which is perhaps the seminal 'screaming diva' vocal. Sampled from the late Loleatta Holloway, it's got enough heart to transcend the dancefloor, but not so much that people on the dancefloor might start questioning the intricacies of love mid-mantis move.

But what it's got most of all is the naïveté, the innocence, the sheer joie de vivre that has been slowly chipped away from the surface of dance music as it's evolved through jungle, progressive, nu-skool breaks, minimal, tech house, et al. Essentially, every permutation of dance music that I've loved over the years has flown in the face of the sound that first entered my ears as an impressionable teen.

You could mount a strong argument for LMFAO and their cronies bringing that joie de vivre back, though the fact that their music is utterly contemptible ear-raping garbage would immediately undermine your argument and have me ROFLMAOing all over that shit. (To be honest, I don't hate their music outright, just what they represent – 'EDM' as a brand, and the collective dumbing down of the scene I love.)

But do you want naïveté? Innocence? Sheer joie de effing vivre? All delivered in a track that ticks the Ride On Time boxes (pun intended, deal with it) and transports them into a time where the dancefloor is sorely in need of some heart?

Enter Tensnake. The German producer soundtracked Spring/Summer 2010 with Coma Cat; he conjured the spirit of Clivillés & Cole with his remix of Azari & III's Reckless (With Your Love); and his journey to house revivalism nirvana is now complete with Mainline featuring Syron.

Just watch that clip and try not to crack a smile – go on, I dare you! If the two widescreen choreographed dance collages at the 0:35 mark aren't the coolest thing to happen in 2012, I clearly need to get out more.

Ermmm… poor choice of words perhaps.

But the sentiment remains – this, my friends, is a cheese bomb of the best possible vintage, and slapping a fresh coat of paint on dance music's most recognisable tropes has never sounded so much fun.

That Tensnake isn't reinventing the wheel here is inescapable. It's a trend that noted music historian Simon Reynolds captured quite succinctly in the title of his latest book Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past, and perhaps it's the only thing holding the music world back from its first quantum shift of a jazz/blues/rock'n'roll/hip hop magnitude since the Acid House era turned everything on its head around the time of Black Box and co.

Still, I'm comfortable with the fact that Burial's Untrue is just two-step minus the naff, brostep is just nu metal minus the Durst, and Muse are just Queen with MIDI and better haircuts.

The circle of musical life rolls on. And tiiiiime wooooon't taaaaake myyyyy looooooooo-ooove… Awayyyyyyyyyyyy!