Jungle came out of hardcore rave in the early ’90s with one job: bend the breakbeat until it screamed. Everything since is a 30-year argument about what to do with that engine. This is my ranking of the 25 best drum and bass tracks of all time. Yes, your favorite is too low.
The ranking, at a glance:
- The Winstons — “Amen, Brother”
- The Prodigy — “No Good (Start the Dance)”
- Rufige Kru — “Terminator”
- Origin Unknown — “Valley of the Shadows”
- Shy FX & UK Apache — “Original Nuttah”
- LTJ Bukem — “Music”
- Photek — “Ni Ten Ichi Ryu”
- Omni Trio — “Renegade Snares”
- Chase & Status — “Pieces”
- DJ Marky & XRS — “LK”
- Congo Natty — “UK Allstars”
- Pendulum — “Tarantula”
- Adam F — “Circles”
- Roni Size — “Watching Windows”
- Sub Focus — “Timewarp”
- Netsky — “Rio”
- Andy C & Shimon — “Bodyrock”
- Bad Company — “The Nine”
- Calibre — “Mr Maverick”
- Roni Size / Reprazent — “Brown Paper Bag”
- Aphrodite — “Style From the Darkside”
- Ed Rush & Optical — “Bacteria”
- High Contrast — “If We Ever”
- Dillinja — “The Angels Fell”
- Goldie — “Inner City Life”
Now the long way, from the bottom.
25. Goldie — “Inner City Life” The track that convinced everyone DnB could be art-gallery serious without losing the dancefloor. Diane Charlemagne’s vocal floats over those skittering breaks and still sounds like nothing else on earth.
24. Dillinja — “The Angels Fell” Dillinja made subwoofers afraid. The bassline here is less a sound than a physical event. Those Blade Runner-borrowed pads give it a menace most producers couldn’t fake if they tried.
23. High Contrast — “If We Ever” Liquid funk’s prettiest cry. Lincoln Barrett chops a vocal sample into something that aches, and it taught a generation that DnB could break your heart instead of your neck.
22. Ed Rush & Optical — “Bacteria” The blueprint for techstep’s mechanical paranoia. It sounds like a factory turning on you, and neuro spent the next two decades chasing that exact dread.
21. Aphrodite — “Style From the Darkside” Ignorant, bouncy, devastating on a big rig. Tell me this isn’t real DnB and I’ll watch you eat those words at a rave.
20. Roni Size / Reprazent — “Brown Paper Bag” The double bass riff off New Forms, the album that won the 1997 Mercury Prize and dragged DnB into the broadsheets. It’s the most jazz-literate the genre ever got, and it grooves harder than its reputation suggests.
19. Calibre — “Mr Maverick” Calibre is the producer’s producer, and this is the one that explains why. Warm, rolling, impossibly smooth. Proof that restraint hits harder than any drop.
18. Bad Company — “The Nine” Four men decided DnB needed more menace and built a track out of pure rolling tension. This is the sound of the early-2000s techstep takeover in one file — and Knowledge Magazine readers once voted it the number one DnB track of all time.
17. Andy C & Shimon — “Bodyrock” That switch-up is engineered to detonate a tent. It’s the clearest evidence on this list of why an Andy C set feels like a held breath you’re waiting to exhale.
16. Netsky — “Rio” The peak of euphoric, festival-sized liquid. “Rio” is Netsky’s 2015 single with Digital Farm Animals, and it pulled thousands of people into DnB who’d never have found Goldie. It slaps.
15. Sub Focus — “Timewarp” The moment dancefloor DnB figured out how to be enormous without going dumb. That bass wobble was everywhere in 2009 and it has not aged a day.
14. Roni Size — “Watching Windows” Yeah, his second appearance, and no, I’m not sorry. Onallee’s vocal, those clipped breaks, the restraint. DnB as grown-up songwriting, and almost nobody else pulled it off.
13. Adam F — “Circles” Jazzy, cinematic, ahead of its time by years. The 1995 cut’s drum programming alone is a masterclass and the whole thing swings like a live band that happens to run at 170.
12. Pendulum — “Tarantula” Say what you want about where they went. In 2005 this was a grenade. The energy is absurd, the build is merciless, and it converted half the rock kids in the country.
11. Congo Natty — “UK Allstars” Ragga jungle’s chest-beating anthem. This is the genre remembering its roots: soundsystem culture, MC chat, basslines built for a Notting Hill street party.
10. DJ Marky & XRS — “LK” The Brazilian bossa-into-breaks crossover that became a global rinse-out. That Toquinho & Jorge Ben sample, those rolling drums, Stamina MC on top. Pure joy that never once outstays its welcome.
9. Chase & Status — “Pieces” The track that made DnB a UK chart force without sanding off the bass. Plan B’s vocal and that drop walk a line nobody else managed, and the whole thing still goes off in a club.
8. Omni Trio — “Renegade Snares” Before techstep, before liquid, this is jungle learning to be beautiful. The breaks tumble and reload like they’re alive, the pads ache, and the Foul Play VIP turned it into a genre cornerstone. If you came up looking for the missing link between rave euphoria and proper jungle, here it is.
7. Photek — “Ni Ten Ichi Ryu” Nobody programmed breaks tighter. Photek built them like a swordsmith, and this is his sharpest blade: minimalist, deadly, decades ahead of everything around it.
6. LTJ Bukem — “Music” The atmospheric blueprint. Every liquid roller, every “intelligent” DnB tune, every deep cut owes this 1993 track a debt it can never repay. Weightless drift over breaks that never stop moving.
5. Shy FX & UK Apache — “Original Nuttah” The most quintessentially British record ever made. Three decades on, the second that 1994 intro drops, everyone in the room loses their mind at exactly the same time. Untouchable as a cultural artifact, untouchable as a tune.
4. Origin Unknown — “Valley of the Shadows” “Long dark tunnel” — you already heard it in your head. Andy C and Ant Miles cut the most recognizable few seconds in DnB history, and the rest of the track is flawless. The Ram Records origin story, basically.
3. Rufige Kru — “Terminator” Goldie warped time itself into a weapon here — the 1992 track that first brought time-stretching to jungle — and you can draw a straight line from this record to every dark, neuro, and techstep tune that followed. Year zero.
2. The Prodigy — “No Good (Start the Dance)” Fight me. It’s technically breakbeat hardcore — but those breaks are already being chopped toward jungle, and the darkness rave hadn’t dared touch yet is all over it. The energy has never been topped, and an entire genre walked through the door it kicked open.
1. The Winstons — “Amen, Brother” The six-second drum break that built the entire genre, so the genre’s best track is the one every other track is secretly made of. Gregory Coleman played those four bars in 1969 and died broke while a billion-pound scene grew out of his snare. Every record on this list is a footnote to that break. Argue with the rest of the order. This one’s not up for debate.
There. The comments are yours. You’re going to tell me I forgot Klute, or Spor, or that putting Netsky above Calibre is a crime against the headz. You’re right about Calibre. The rest of you can fight in the car park.
Internal links: link “Andy C” (#17/#4) to the Andy C — “Train Track” post, “Netsky” (#16) to Netsky — “Come Alive (Grafix Remix)”, “Sub Focus” (#15) to Sub Focus — “Elevate (SOTA remix)”, and “Chase & Status” (#9) to Chase & Status — “Baddadan (Stax O’Cash Remix)”; if a DnB genre hub exists, link it from the intro and have it link back here.