Data 80 S/t

• Words: Matt Eberhart
• Label: Force Tracks
• XLR8R Rating: /10

While producers like The Neptunes and Timbaland were raking in accolades with their syncopated stencils of late-'90s electronic beats, Håkan Lidbo was busy restructuring pop sensibility to meet with the tenets of digital disco. His results are a catchy and soulful tech-house that adds sincerity to the bromidic four-minute verse-chorus-verse song structure. With hooks that stick in your head like the name of your high school sweetheart and basslines that bubble and shine, what it comes down to it is that when everyone was raving about Schneider TM's melancholic haze, Data 80 opened the backdoor and let in some light.