Looking for the Perfect Beat

Remixing and Reshaping Hip-Hop, Rock and Rhythms

Arthur Baker

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571387441
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

'These insider stories are written with genuine love and passion' Irvine Welsh

'Every chapter of Looking For The Perfect Beat is absolutely mesmerising.' Buzz Magazine

For fifty years as DJ, producer and remixer, Arthur Baker has been at the pioneering forefront of hip-hop, rock, and electronic music. His unique and genre-defying sound can be heard on tracks by legendary artists like New Order, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, the Rolling Stones, Al Green, Pet Shop Boys, Quincy Jones, New Edition, Hall & Oates, Neneh Cherry, Mogwai and Fleetwood Mac.

Starting as a club DJ and disco producer at the start of the seventies in his native Boston, Baker moved to New York City in 1981. Through his early disco and hip-hop productions, he came to the attention of the most influential names in a music industry at the height of its powers. This would begin a career that would take him from the sweaty dancefloors of NYC to late-night studio sessions with Bob Dylan and to his celebrated anti-apartheid album Sun City, created with Little Steven Van Zandt.

From the underground to the mainstream, Looking for the Perfect Beat is the unique story of an artist with a need to discover new sounds and new ways to move an audience -- and who has influenced the sound of popular music for half a century.

Table of contents

• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Intro: Fifty Years of Looking for the Perfect Beat
• 1: School Dazed • 1955–69
• 2: Change the Tracks • 1969–71
• 3: Streets of Laredo • 1972–3
• 4: ‘Boom Boom’ Baker • 1973–5
• 5: The Combat Zone • 1975–7
• 6: Make Me Dance • 1977–8
• 7: Going Uptown • 1978–81
• 8: Just Hit Me • 1982
• 9: P.L.A.Y. • 1982
• 10: Takin’ It to the Streets • 1982
• 11: Beat This • 1983
• 12: Pop Frenzy • 1983
• 13: Out of Order • 1983
• 14: It’s Party Time • 1984
• 15: Just Wanna Have Fun • 1984
• 16: Me and Mr B. • 1984
• 17: Shakedown Sound • 1984
• 18: Twelve Bars of Beck • 1984
• 19: Too Much Drugs • 1984
• 20: We Are the Champions • 1984
• 21: Married to the Mob • 1985
• 22: Rum and Coke • 1985
• 23: ‘(Ain’t Gonna Play) Sun City’ • 1985
• 24: ‘Turn Me Loose’ • 1986
• 25: My European Adventure • 1987
• 26: Looking Out for Love • 1987
• 27: Something Goin’ Round Inside My Head • 1988
• 28: Rev It Up – Me and Al Green • 1989
• 29: Living the Life of Quincy Jones • 1989–90
• 30: ‘Bueller? Bueller?’ • 1991
• 31: ‘Whatever You Want’ • 1993–6
• 32: Go West • 1991–5
• 33: Twisted Tenderness • 1998–9
• 34: ‘It’s Only Rock’n’Roll’ • 1999
• 35: Sunday Jamming • 2000–1
• 36: ‘My Father, My King’ • 2000–1
• 37: On the Road Again with New Order • 2001
• 38: Return to New York • 2002–18
• 39: Munchie Dreams of a ‘Hip Rap Mogul’ • 2001–8
• 40: Felder Felder • 2008–18
• 41: Lime Life • 2007–14
• 42: 808 the Movie • 2012–14
• 43: ‘On a Mission’ • 2016–Present
• 44: Beat Street the Musical • 2016–Present
• Outro
• Acknowledgements
• Picture Credits
• Photo section
• About the Author
• Copyright