Let's Hear It for the Boy

This opens with one of the most recognizable drum fills of the entire decade — that tumbling, exuberant roll that seems to physically propel you forward before the first note is even sung. The production is clean and bright, built around a synthesizer-driven arrangement that sounds like pure optimism distilled into sound. Every instrument in the mix is functioning as encouragement. Deniece Williams's voice here is an instrument of extraordinary specificity — her upper register is crystalline to the point of translucence, and she deploys it with a kind of joyful athleticism, reaching into those high notes not to show off but because no lower register could hold this much feeling. The song exists in the register of unironic celebration, the kind that contemporary pop often treats as suspect but that this track owns without apology. It was written for the Footloose soundtrack and it understands that assignment completely — this is the sound of release, of a body finally allowed to move after being held still. Lyrically it's about recognizing and celebrating someone who has changed your life simply by loving you, expressed through direct and guileless language. You play this before something good happens, or when something good has already happened and you want to extend the feeling. It belongs at graduation parties, at the moment a plan finally works, at the beginning of a road trip in clear weather.