Get Down Tonight: The Disco Explosion (Shout/My Music/TJL) and DFA Compilation #2 (DFA) are a couple of three- disc box sets that audibly illustrate the impact of dance music over the course of the past 30 years. Get Down Tonight covers the distant past, while the DFA compilation brings us up to date.

In spite of opening with “Hot Stuff,” a song by the allegedly homophobic disco diva Donna Summer, disc one of Get Down Tonight, labeled “West Coast”, has a serious gay-positive vibe represented by “Do Ya Wanna Funk” by the late Sylvester and both “Y.M.C.A.” and “In The Navy” by The Village People. You can also count Cheryl Lynn’s “Got To Be Real,” later featured prominently in the groundbreaking documentary Paris Is Burning, “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls and “Upside Down” by long-reigning disco diva icon Diana Ross, as keeping it as gay as possible. I would be remiss if I also didn’t mention Bonnie Pointer’s “Heaven Must Have Sent You,” Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” Patti Brooks’ “After Dark,” and, of course, The Hues Corporation’s “Don’t Rock The Boat.”

Disc two, labeled “Midwest & East Coast”, opens with “Shame” by Evelyn “Champagne” King, the first song that I ever danced to in a gay bar. Among the 20 tracks are early (“Shame, Shame, Shame” by Shirley and Company, “Doctor’s Orders” by Carol Douglas, “Turn The Beat Around” by Vickie Sue Robinson and “Native New Yorker” by Odyssey) and later (“Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life” by Indeep and Blondie’s “Call Me”) gay dance club standards, as well as the all-time champ, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” Disc three, a.k.a. “South & Across The Atlantic” permits diverse artists such as Abba (“Dancing Queen”), Bananarama (“Venus”) and Giorgio Moroder (“The Chase”), to share space with Candi Staton (“Young Hearts Run Free”), France Joli (“Come To Me”), Alicia Bridges (“I Love The Nightlife”), Silver Convention (“Fly Robin Fly”) and Patrick Hernandez (“Born To Be Alive”), among others.

Consisting of vinyl only and CD exclusive material, DFA Compilation #2 is a thrilling representation of what contemporary music has evolved into and what its future looks like. The compilation features the vintage disco beats of the LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture, as well as more experimental outfits such as Pixeltan and The Juan MacLean.

The releases of their debut discs may have bracketed the 1990s, but the newly available hits compilations by Saint Etienne and Groove Armada speak volumes about the evolution of British dance pop. Regardless, both collections would make swell holiday gifts if you are still in shopping mode.

Travel Edition 1990-2005 (Sub Pop) by prolific trio Saint Etienne opens with a late-career acoustic instrumental before spilling over into the smart and creative dance-floor-aimed exercises that made them so special and popular. Beginning with the haunting, but slinky and sexually-charged cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (with vocals by Moira Lambert – before Sarah Cracknell joined the group), it’s not hard to see why they made such a memorable impression. “Nothing Can Stop Us” has a retro flavor and is followed by the trippy “Avenue” and “Mario’s Café” (both from the exceptional “So Tough” album). Saint Etienne truly embraced their dance direction with “Hug My Soul” and “Like A Motorway” (from “Tiger Bay”) and then proceeded to explore it with enthusiasm on such inspiring and pumping numbers such as “He’s On The Phone,” “Burnt Out Car,” “Sylvie” “Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi),” and the appropriately titled “Action.”

Andy Cato and Tom Findlay, of the duo Groove Armada, might have relied a little more heavily on samples than Saint Etienne, but that doesn’t mean that the results were any less heavenly. The first three songs on Groove Armada: The Best Of (Jive Electro/Zomba) alone, “Superstylin’,” “If Everybody Looked The Same” and “I See You Baby,” are guaranteed dance floor fillers, certain to raise the roof on any dance party. Even when they aren’t throwing down big beats, as on the seductive “At The River” (with its “Old Cape Cod” sample), “Think Twice…” (with vocals by co-writer Neneh Cherry) and “Inside My Mind (Blue Skies),” Groove Armada has a grip on the beats. Nevertheless, it is groove-driven tracks such as “Chicago,” “Easy” and “But I Feel Good,” that allows the pair to live up to their name.