Ever since they were credited with inventing progressive house with their first single "Not Forgotten" in 1991, Leftfield have been earmarked as pioneers. Their debut album was a glorious fruition of their talents, delivering on all fronts and sealing their place in dance music history. Effortlessly weaving intoxicating rhythms and sublime melodies around the diverse vocals of former Sex Pistol John Lydon, reggae toaster Earl Sixteen and indie ice maiden Toni Halliday, Leftism is a scintillating journey through all the planes of club culture. From the interstellar dancehall vibes of "Release The Pressure" to the languid splendour of "Melt" and the peerless dancefloor dynamics of "Song Of Life", Paul Daley and Neil Barnes prove themselves jacks of all trades and masters of them all. "Make room for me," screamed Lydon on "Open Up"; the rest of the dance music world duly stepped aside to let the Leftfield juggernaut through. -Ed Potton.

The joke of Licensed to Ill's cover-that the Beasties could crash their jet into the side of a mountain and keep on tickin'-serves as a good metaphor for a career that even some of their 1986 admirers thought might be over after the one-time-only shock of this full-length debut. That thousands of funk-junkie wannabes have since failed at re-creating its groove, breaking-the-law vibe, and ear-splitting mix of rock and rap is an even better joke. And funniest of all is the record itself, which packs aural puns and lots and lots of yelling into an album that can still be listened to with as much pleasure as it gave in 1986. -Rickey Wright.

The new millennium saw a change in Madonna as, ever at the forefront of popular music trends, she took the earth mother vibes of Ray Of Light and transposed them to the heart of the dancefloor. The end product, Music, is a wondrous mixture of the familiar and the audaciously new-tracks like "Amazing" and "Runaway Lover" would have slotted nicely into the more uptempo sections of Ray Of Light, whereas tracks like "Impressive Instant" and the title track "Music" take Madonna closer to the sound of the dancefloor underground. William Orbit, the man responsible for producing the Ray Of Light album, has a hand in proceedings again, but the majority of tracks are produced by French whizzkid Mirwais, who brings a distinctive Gallic House feel to the proceedings, taking Madonna's voice and putting it through a vocoder until it sounds more like an instrument rather than a vocal line. Whereas Ray Of Light was her album of the joys of motherhood, Music is clearly the sound of a woman in love, for hard evidence look no further than the ballad "I Deserve It", with its opening line "This guy was meant for me", clearly dedicated to the father of her second child, Guy Ritchie. With a well-balanced mix of downtempo and uptempo numbers, all stamped with her innovative style, Music is further proof that Madonna is still way ahead of the pack. -Helen Marquis.

The success of her first international hit, Watermark, confirmed Enya as less a singer or songwriter than a sonic architect: working with producer Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan, the classically trained pianist built vaulting cathedrals of sound, framed by luminous piano, shimmering synthesizer orchestrations, and, above all, the seemingly infinite layers of vocal harmonies she applied to every song. The deeply romantic Celtic pop on its 1991 successor, Shepherd Moons, sustains the same spectrum of hushed reverie and surging, rhapsodic releases, as well as its mix of ballads, floating midtempo pieces, and forays into Celtic and Latin- and it's every bit as seductive. The terminally hip will sneer, but it's no accident that "Caribbean Blue", the best known song here, managed to sneak onto modern rock, top 40, and adult-oriented radio playlists. -Sam Sutherland.

Before her rise to fame alongside Vince Clark in Yazoo, Alison "Alf" Moyet had little reason to believe she'd make a living as a pop star. Prior to her sudden baptism as electropop diva, she'd whipped her voice into shape on the tiny blues circuit of Essex; but if Yazoo classics such as "Only You" and "Don't Go" (featured here) worked, it was precisely because of the cold, digital backdrop that Clark had created for Moyet's expressive warmth. In Yazoo this was fine, but a major label solo deal saw Moyet attempting to locate her niche in pop with limited success. By the mid-1990s, she'd even tried her hand at indie-but it's Yazoo and those early solo singles such as "All Cried Out" and "Love Resurrection" that at least, leave room for her to soar. Indeed, as early as Moyet's 1986 set Raindancing (featuring a blonde, airbrushed Moyet gazing uncomfortably into the mid-distance) the plot duly evaporated. Compare such slight material to her biggest solo hit-a faithful rendering of "That Ole Devil Called Love"-and there's the problem in a nutshell: a gifted vocal talent sold short by the quality of her songs. -Peter Paphides.

Solely responsible for the current interest in all things funky and French, the Daft Punk boys, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, can do no wrong. Breaking into the club scene with their own blend of techno-disco in 1995, their debut album is the 80's electro-funk record of your dreams. Influenced by old school Chicago house and Detroit minimalist techno (all name checked on "Teachers"), Homework ranges from the warped electro that has become their trademark on "Around the World" and "Da Funk", to banging acid techno on "Rollin'and Scratchin'" and "Alive". An album so funky it could make James Brown cry, and with so much bite you can feel it at the back of your throat. -Ed Potton.

Out Of The Woods is the first solo album from Tracey Thorn for over two decades. The Great British public probably know Thorn best as the voice of Everything But The Girl's 'Missing', the Todd Terry mix of which hit No. 3 in 1994 and hung around in the Billboard Top 100 for over a year. That huge hit, however, is somewhat deceptive in the context of Thorne and her partner, Ben Watt's 25-year career. Out Of The Woods, like much Everything But The Girl before it, is a set of torch-songs versed in the production techniques of clubland, but shot through with a melancholy soul more familiar to jazz or folk-rock - or, indeed, cosmic disco pioneer Arthur Russell, whose 'Get Around To It' Thorne covers here, and all but makes it her own. Lyrically, events hint at a certain domesticity: 'Nowhere Near' is a delicate song about motherhood sung over shimmering synths, piano, and pipes, while 'Hands Up To The Ceiling' seems to be about finding sanctuary in a record collection, Thorne sneaking to an attic to spin "Siouxsie Sioux, and Edwin too/ Bobby D, in '63". Those eager for Thorn to reprise 'Missing', however, maybe be satisfied by 'Grand Canyon' and the closing 'Raise The Roof', two potential club hits in the waiting. -Louis Pattison.

Before music journalists were throwing around terms like "drum & bass" or jungle, the Prodigy's Liam Howlett was creating high-energy dance music by marrying sampled, pitch-shifted beats to all manner of electronic timbres. This album has it all: complicated break beats, housey piano riffs, lush analog pads, frenetic and computeresque melodies, and subsonic bass. In fact, the mélange is so dense that the material demands full attention and repeated listenings to gain a complete understanding of the rhythmic interplay. -Michael A. Massa.

After the sprawling ambient opus that was their debut LP, Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, The Orb voyaged into new interstellar realms for the follow-up. The languid rippling soundscapes and far-out samples persisted, but Dr Alex Patterson and Thrash introduced uptempo beats to the brew, lending the album a chunkier, less meandering feel which was reflected in its commercial success. "Blue Room" was the longest single in history at a touch under 40 minutes long, while the centrepiece was the staggering "Towers Of Dub", which married abstract electronica with some of the mightiest bass this side of Kingston. An LP which sees The Orb at the peak of their tripped-out talents, before their later slide into a self-indulgent, sonic miasma. -Ed Potton An ambient-techno classic, UFOrb captures Alex Patterson and his sonic henchman at their early peak. While the Orb had already created a dance-floor and chill-out-room sensation in 1991 with Little Fluffy Clouds, this follow-up disc displays Patterson's talent for fusing ambient music with dub science and a club culture mindset. Incorporating psychedelicized samples over the era's reigning techno beats and deep reggae bass lines, heady compositions such as "Towers of Dub" and "Close Encounters" are excessive in length but consistently entertaining. The album's highlight is an 18-minute version of "Blue Room" (there's a 40-minute version out there, too), which features the sensual bass playing of Jah Wobble and the oscillating guitar of coproducer Steve Hillage. A most serious contribution to the legacy of the modern DJ. -Mitch Myers.