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You wanted a hit? LCD Soundsystem’s 20 best songs – ranked!

With Daft Punk Is Playing at My House turning 20 and a new album being worked on, we select the dance-rock musos’ finest tracks

Photograph: Leandro Justen/BFA/ShutterstockAmong the reasons LCD broke up was record company pressure to repeat their past successes, as addressed by You Wanted a Hit: “Leave us on our own … we won’t be your babies any more.” Fittingly, the sound would be commercial were it not disrupted by slashing guitar and jarringly electronic effects; the Soulwax remix, meanwhile, streamlines it perfectly for the dancefloor. His frustration seeped into the lyrics (“I’m getting tired of listening, knowing that this shit’s gotta run”), but the end result was worth it: seething, chaotic punk-funk that gradually shifts its sound from disco to squealing acid house, as if providing a potted history of dance music. Allegedly inspired by a meeting with a young Pharrell Williams and made on a toy synthesiser attached to an ancient beatbox, LCD’s fantastic debut single was satire of and a love letter to hip record-collector snobbery, packed with snarky wit and riven with an affecting insecurity.

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