
Just Say Yes
Written for Gwen Stefani, who passed, then offered to Nicole Scherzinger before Snow Patrol reclaimed it with Jacknife Lee.

Written for Gwen Stefani, who passed, then offered to Nicole Scherzinger before Snow Patrol reclaimed it with Jacknife Lee.
Track three on The Antidote, cut-and-paste funk from the album Theo Keating built alone after his partner left.

A 1966 Ventures instrumental on loop, twice a minor British hit, then a Mitsubishi advert made it inescapable.

A sitar, a slow groove and Pam Bricker's voice, carried to a wide audience by the Garden State soundtrack.

Mishra cut it in his bedroom on an Atari ST, sampling a 1932 muted trumpet, and topped the UK chart.

A darbuka drum, finger cymbals, and almost nothing else; the Neptunes' emptiest beat became Kelis's biggest hit.

Ratatat cut the beat before Cudi arrived, MGMT added vocals, and Steve Aoki's remix made a song about intoxication ubiquitous.

M.I.A.'s second song ever, built on a Roland MC-505 and written for Elastica; dancehall never sounded so homemade.

Trevor Horn spent about three months producing it; Seal built the chorus from a world visibly changing.

Moby nearly left it off Play; a reversed string sample from the Exodus score, cut in his Little Italy apartment.

An arpeggio out of Chicago house, a sample from the Cassini Saturn probe, Lennox wanting only a home.

Mushroom sent the demo to Madonna, got outvoted, and Elizabeth Fraser sang it over harpsichord and a Les McCann loop.
Cleopatra dragged into the present, two halves hinged on a midpoint beat switch, and John Mayer's uncredited closing solo.

Cee-Lo cut the vocal in one take over a 1968 spaghetti western sample. Nine weeks at UK number one.

Gunshots and a cash register over a Clash loop, with Brixton kids singing a hook about immigrant stereotypes.