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Based around a couple of simple but utterly hypnotic loops, ‘Chime’ rang out Orbital’s floaty take on house loud and clear. It also soundtracked countless chill-rooms across the land as the perfect example of ambient-leaning dance music which still had enough of a pulse to dance to, should you be able to drag yourself off the bean bag. According to legend, it cost Orbital (a.k.a. Sevenoaks-born brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll) less than £1 to produce.

First recorded by Jamie Principle (hailing from – you've guessed it – Chicago), the ‘Godfather of House’ Frankie Knuckles made the track famous with his slightly punchier version, still featuring Principle. The arpeggiated synth-line that introduces the track signals something special is about to happen, and over seven-and-a-half minutes it certainly does, marrying a heartfelt electronic love song with heady dancefloor bliss – something that so many house tracks strive for but so few achieve. It’s been covered and reworked by many different DJs and producers over the years, but Knuckles and Principle’s version is the one that has rightly gone down in dance music history.

One of Detroit techno don Kevin Saunderson’s housier, poppier moments – under his Inner City project with singer Paris Grey – also became his most well-known. With its unashamedly upbeat vocals and colourful ’80s synths all over the place, ‘Good Life’ showed that dance music wasn’t all about heads-down raving in a dark basement club – it could also be (whisper it) happy, for no damn reason at all. In recent years its joyous hooks have been sampled by modern house stalwarts Hercules and Love Affair and pop superstar Rihanna.

Those springy piano chords, those kaleidoscopic synth stabs, those driving beats… They just always sound great. Detroit’s Derrick May (working under the name Strings of Life here) might be a techno pioneer, but he arrived there by feeding Chicago house through a futuristic, funky shredder, epitomised by this timeless track. Back in 1987, it heralded the era of rave, it accelerated house, it sounded sublime then and still does now.

One of the finest example of how dance music could do more than just borrow hooks and melodies from pop, ‘Where Love Lives’ went one step further. Britsh singer Alison Limerick’s rich vocal lines are layered over upfront house beats, creating the perfect crossover record, aimed right at the mainstream, but still retaining the dance music credentials of all involved. Though it originally dropped in 1990, it wasn’t until 1996 that a remix package finally sent ‘Where Love Lives’ into the dizzy heights of the UK top ten, where it really belonged. The same year, it also climbed into the upper echelons of the US club charts, where it also deserved to live.

This track from a little-known Chicago duo demonstrated that stripped-back, minimal house could still carry a killer groove. The percussive rhythms, wandering bass, occasional synth hits and whispery vocals are all beautifully simple, making for a laid-back, funky gem when mixed together.

Techno master Juan Atkins also made some incredible, spacey proto-house under his electrified Model 500 moniker. ‘No UFO’s’ was decidedly, defiantly different to the abundance of smoother, Chicago-style tracks of the time (1985), making its weird, robotic grooves even more alluring.

There are plenty of early ’90s tracks that mixed house and rave to great effect, but perhaps none more so than this impossibly energetic stomper. The manic piano stabs, rushing rhythm and commanding vocals provide a soundtrack for burning more calories than any exercise video ever did.

When they started mucking about with a Roland TB-303 synthesiser, Chicago trio Phuture (featuring DJ Pierre) probably didn’t realise they had stumbled across the squelchy, jagged sound of acid house – house music’s weirder, cooler, wide-eyed sibling. But they had and it sounded amazing. Released in 1987, ‘Acid Trax’ was the first and fiercest of many early tunes that went on to shape the sound of rave.

Few, if any, UK acts managed to nail the sound of Chicago house like Manchester’s 808 State. Not only did they find the US city’s groove in ‘Pacific State’, they also stamped on their own inventive mark, via a hyperactive bassline and a wailing saxophone hook that shouldn’t work but absolutely does.

Hinged on an explosive loop of stuttering, multi-tracked vocals, this 1986 classic brought the thrill of robotic machine-funk to a wider audience after its release on seminal Chicago label Dance Mania. Those hypnotic vocal surges still send shivers down spines today.

Released in 2006, when house was being drowned out by the sounds of amped-up electro, the totemic figure of Larry Heard quietly dropped this magisterial piece of vocal-acid treasure. It’s been a DJ favourite ever since (for everyone from Ellen Allien to Julio Bashmore) thanks to its pulsing bleeps and plaintive vocal vibes.