Various Artists: Boogaloo Pow Wow: Dancefloor Rendez-vous in Young Nuyorica

This compilation wears a t-shirt, and on that t-shirt is a slogan that reads: This is the most exciting album ever in the entire history of humankind. The cool hallway-tiled-bathroom-sunglasses atmosphere of the front cover photograph doesn’t last past the first note. People scream. People attack pianos. People play drums as if they’re slapping cattle dead. People sing mainly in Spanish, rarely in English, but when they do, it’s to tell you about “the heppest daddy” in town who will “knock you out on your rusty-dusty”. This collection of raucous 1960s New York boogaloo has a strong soul component, underlined at the end by “Feelin’ the Pain”, which is sung by a pair of women named Dianne and Carole who seem to have liked the Supremes. The boogaloo intersection of African-American suave and Latin-American audacity is something you need to hear at least once in your life so you might as well start here.