Shut Up & Dance - 5.6.7.8.

Despised by most of the artists of the Hip Hop scene, the composers & singers PJ & Smiley, together with their DJ Kevin Ford (aka DJ Hype) were suddenly transformed into a influential band to all the english rave & hardcore scene of the beginning of the nineties.
The first official single by Shut Up & Dance represented a kind of turning point on their career: according to Smiley's words, about 1989 they thought that they wouldn't get a deal at all with their work - so they decided to compose "5,6,7,8", an expression that certainly gave an idea about their situation.
Even though, their first tune became a hit. They pressed up about five hundred issues and put them in the boot of their car in order to sell all of them to the record shops in London. Just some hours later, they were all sold. The distributors, excited about the results, called them, telling that they've heard that Shut Up & Dance through their tune and that they wanted to sign with them. The answer of the british band was immediate: they told every single major label to fuck off - This kind of rebel spirit surely represented one of Shut Up & Dance’s marks.
Deeply influenced by the Hip Hop scene from the eighties, the Shut Up & Dance duo of P.J. and Smiley sampled a fragment of ‘Man Parrish – Hip Hop Bee Bop’ s on "5,6,7,8", whose synths melted perfectly with their MC work.
A single that changed their career - and a whole scene - forever.

Pivotal moment in dance history......not really hip-house but a really fast hip-hop record, with rappers who didn't pretend to be yanks.
still play it all the time and still blows me away.