On the other hand, if I was going to put together a list of my favourite songs from 08, which again I'm not, top of the list by some distance would be "Happy House", by The Juan Maclean, which is 13 minutes of non-stop cheerfulness that you can also dance to. The house-music genre is, for me, the one that got away. Stuck in Leongatha, in days of old (before the internet), what could we possibly have known about it, busy as we were hunting down limited-edition seven-inch singles and home-made cassette recordings. (Sigh.) Hence the catch-cry from those days, "What the bleep is acid house?"
Which is to say, there is a lot of history in this record which I just don't understand. But there is also a lot to like regardless. The electric piano motif, which appears and disappears all too soon, is priceless. Likewise the arpeggiating something-or-other that kicks in at some point around the ten-minute mark and leads the song towards the exit door. The song's dynamic is perfect: it builds, it releases, it builds again, and so on. Thirteen minutes is over almost before it has begun. This was not a year in which everything DFA touched turned to gold. Its days as leader of the pack are probably behind it. Which, if anything, makes this instant classic all the more surprising. I thought I was waiting for the sequel to Black Leotard Front's sublime "Casual Friday". In fact, I was waiting for this.
