Check out this epic six-hour playlist of tracks featured in the Street Sounds Electro compilations…

Looking for some sounds to ease your way into the weekend? First issued in 1983, few compilations encapsulated the emerging hip hop and electro scene like Street Sounds Electro, the majority of which were compiled by Herbie Laidley, aka Mastermind Herbie.

With their iconic numbered sleeves, the Street Sounds Electro compilations – which were later renamed Street Sounds Hip Hop Electro, and latterly Street Sounds Hip Hop – helped introduce artists such as Newcleus, Hashim, Davy DMX, Cybotron and The Egyptian Lover to a wide audience, and provided the soundtrack for endless breakdance throw-downs in pedestrianised city centre areas and supermarket car parks.

While the compilations are still fairly widely available – check Discogs – Spotify user Andy Chiselhurst has put together a six hour-plus playlist of some of the most essential cuts from the ten Street Sounds Electro volumes, as well as the Crucial Electro compilations, also released on the Street Sounds label.

As Greg Wilson put it in a blog post about the Street Sounds Electro compilations, “These LP’s (not forgetting the cassettes, regarded as breakdance essentials for crews up and down the country) would become something of an institution, with a run of eighteen consecutive chart entries right up until August ’87.

“It’s a major flaw on the part of UK dance historians that the impact and influence of these albums has been largely underplayed and, more often than not, completely omitted.”

Time to throw down some cardboard and dust off those b-boy moves… 🙂