Bop Till You Drop

Bop Till You Drop is Cooder's eighth studio album. It is almost entirely covers of earlier rhythm and blues and rock and roll songs, including Elvis Presley's Little Sister and the 1965 Fontella Bass and Bobby McClure hit Don't Mess Up a Good Thing, a duet with Chaka Khan. Khan also sang on the one original, Down in Hollywood.

It was recorded at Amigo Studios in North Hollywood on a 32-track digital machine built by 3M, which then cost $115,000, and it was the first digitally recorded major-label album in popular music. Cooder said that for the first time the band was hearing back exactly what it played. Tim Drummond and Jim Keltner formed the rhythm section, with David Lindley on guitar. The album reached number 62 on the Billboard 200 and the top ten in New Zealand and Norway.

Reviews at the time were warm. Music Week called it arguably his best to date, and DownBeat gave it five stars. In a later review AllMusic's Brett Hartenbach found the tracks thin, which Cooder blamed on the digital recording.