Bass/Electro playlist

As I've been training for the 2023 NYRR Brooklyn Half Marathon some of my favorite workout music while I'm running is straight classic 80s bass and electro.

The Origins of Electro

Electro emerged in the early 1980s at the intersection of hip hop, funk, and the nascent world of electronic music. The genre's defining moment is widely considered to be Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force's "Planet Rock" (1982), which fused New York hip hop with the robotic synthesizer textures of Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" and "Numbers". It was a collision of worlds — the Bronx block party and the German art-electronic underground — and it changed music permanently.

Central to the sound was the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, a drum machine that was discontinued by Roland in 1983 due to poor sales, yet went on to become one of the most influential instruments in popular music history. Its deep, booming kick drum, snappy snare, and long-decay cowbell were not realistic — they were something entirely new. Producers gravitated toward the 808 precisely because it was synthetic, creating rhythmic foundations that felt futuristic and almost alien.

West Coast Bass and The Egyptian Lover

While Bambaataa defined the New York sound, Los Angeles developed its own electro lineage. The Egyptian Lover — Greg Broussard — became one of the most important figures in West Coast electro, releasing records on his own Egyptian Empire label starting in 1983. Tracks like "Egypt, Egypt" and "On the Nile" leaned heavily into the TR-808's capabilities, layering hypnotic basslines under his smooth, vocoder-treated vocals. His approach was more minimalist than his East Coast contemporaries, letting the drum machine breathe and the bass do the heavy lifting.

The Egyptian Lover's influence is immense — he's a direct ancestor of Miami bass, Los Angeles hip hop, and West Coast rap production throughout the 80s and 90s.

The Playlist: 1983 to Now

This playlist spans over four decades of bass and electro, opening with the genre's earliest moments — Jonzun Crew's "Pack Jam" from 1983 is a perfect entry point, a bubbly, robotic funk record that sounds like it was beamed in from another planet — and running through to the present day.

From the classic era you'll find artists like Dynamix II, one of the defining acts of Miami bass, and Maggotron, who helped push electro into darker, more aggressive territory. Tricky D brings the West Coast bass tradition, while Bass Junkie represents the UK's deep obsession with the form — a scene that never stopped taking American electro seriously even when US audiences had moved on.

The playlist also reaches into more contemporary territory. Daft Punk's inclusion is no accident — the duo spent their entire career in open dialogue with electro and disco, and tracks like "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" are built on the same principles as the 808-driven records that preceded them by 20 years. Skrillex represents a more recent lineage, where bass music fractured into dubstep, trap, and beyond — but the DNA of the TR-808 and the electro kick drum is still audible underneath.