#4. Wait until the weekend

Do not adjust your stereo while listening to the #4 song, and whatever you do, do NOT fast-forward. Good things come to those who wait. I first heard this song in the taproom of my beloved Terrace F. Club at Princeton Reunions 2010. After a minute or so, I must admit that I looked skeptically at the alum who had put the song on and was now just bobbing his head with a knowing smile. But then, at the 3:00 mark (3:10 to be precise), the heavens opened, the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal to the infectious beat of the most explosive dance jam this side of the Rapture.

#4. LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean

Like my career path since college, “Dance Yrself Clean” starts slowly. For the first couple minutes, there’s nothing but simple percussion (handclaps and a cowbell feature prominently), alternating high and low synth notes on the first beat of every measure, and the deceptively vanilla voice of 40-year-old James Murphy (AKA LCD Soundsystem). Finally around the 2:00 mark, a higher-pitched but still basic synth riff provides a faint hint of the vibrant soundscape to come.

To my mind, the structure of the song isn’t just a gimmick; it's supposed to mirror life. In the beginning, there's the mundane, tedious, predictable rhythm of the workweek, and Murphy is practically sleepwalking through the routine. But then - “don’t you want me to wake up?” he sings – and the track comes alive. The fabled weekend has arrived, and finally our protagonist can dance himself clean of a week's worth of brown-nosing, boot-licking, and otherwise preparing a face to meet the faces that you meet. The raw energy of this track in its final six minutes reflect the powerful joy of that fleeting emancipation from the quotidian, and it's all the more accentuated by its contrast with the deliberate, almost plodding cadence of the song's opening.

But really, you don’t have to think too hard about "Dance Yrself Clean" to enjoy it. I could just as well have posted this song with the note "listen to the whole thing - loud," and you'd get the picture. I respect a song that takes longer than fits into a ringtone to build up to greatness, and Murphy, who made mediocre music for nearly two decades before debuting as LCD Soundsystem, certainly knows a thing or two about that. Whether as a metaphor for life, an epic dance track, or something in-between, "Dance Yrself Clean" is an absolute banger that's well deserving of a spot on the Top 10 of 2010.