Thanks for stepping up to the challenge of presenting some seminal dance tracks, Kyle. I've listened to all of those that you cited, and I don't recall hearing any of them before. However, I have heard some Eminem because my son has a couple of his discs, and I've seen "Eight Mile". What struck me when I was listening to "Buffalo Gals" was the "round the outside" hook that Eminem later applied to trailer park girls. It's interesting to me how these hooks work - I haven't paid great attention to Eminem, but I've heard a fair bit playing in the background as my son listens to it, and that phrase has somehow stood out and registered with me. When I heard Buffalo Gals, it jumped right out again, and I was able to make the connection. I guess identifying hooks from other songs and re-integrating them in new ways is a central part of the dance music culture, but I wonder what it is that makes some lyrical or musical phrase work as a hook. I suppose if I understood that better, I'd be a better songwriter!

Another example I recently came across was "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve - the whole thing is built around a very catchy phrase on the strings which was apparently lifted from some obscure orchestrial version of "The Last Time" by the Rolling Stones. Despite the fact that the two songs don't sound at all alike, because the string bit was from a licensed rendition of the Stones song, the publishing company that owns the Rolling Stones catalog (ABKCO Music) was able to successfully sue for 100% of the publishing rights to the song. Apparently the Verve reached out to Jagger and Richards personally, but those two refused to get involved, and so they lost what was by far the biggest revenue-generating hit that the band ever released.