“Midnight In A Perfect World” by DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow introduced Endtroducing..... to the world with "Midnight in a Perfect World", the lead single, out in September 1996 on 12-inch and CD in England before it crossed to America. He produced, engineered and mixed it himself, with Dan the Automator assisting and Gift of Gab credited on vocals.

It's a slow, rain-streaked crawl: a soulful vocal line and an unhurried drum beat circling a mournful piano lifted from David Axelrod's 1969 "The Human Abstract", with more crate-dug scraps from Meredith Monk's "Dolmen Music", Marlena Shaw's "California Soul", Organized Konfusion, Pekka Pohjola and Baraka stitched into the fabric. It got to 54 in the UK and 52 in Scotland, and by January 1997 it was working American college and modern rock radio. The US sleeve even carries a photo of John Hillyard, whose record store fed Shadow many of the albums he sampled.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.