I’ve listened to way too much music this year, probably around 12,000 new tracks (I tried calculating it). Most of the music was.. unfinished, to say the least, but we found a lot more songs worth keeping than any year before it.
A lot of new music emerged or reemerged over the year. Deep house was the big thing, but many discredit it because of the hype. It had its bad with its good. Our favorite new style goes to what doesn’t seem to have an official name yet. I’ve heard many call it kawaii, but I prefer vapor – this naming shit is more important than you’d think.
We’ve got 30 songs to show off, 11 artists and 20 playlists for you, but if that’s not enough… wait ’til next year.
I’ve gone to a handful of EDM shows & festivals over the last year and I just don’t get how people can dance to most of the popular shit these days (says the hipster music blogger). At least not when you’ve got such better music to dance to (also hipster). So obviously we had to put a list together (very hipster).
Our Dance Party mix for 2014 is geared more towards the club or house party rather than the rave. I guess that’s where we differ from the higher BPM, bombastic music dominating EDM right now.
We get into various forms of house music on here, but there’s plenty of other influences as well — I’m being vague because I just spent way too much of my time putting together this list and I don’t have time to articulate it (like always).
The same styles of EDM from last year seemed to dominate Beyond Wonderland this year. Mainly progressive house and various forms of bass music. I like a lot of both, but this mainstream shit sounds so manufactured. It’s like old people buying into infomercials, but at least they have an excuse (they’re old).
I know I sound like the typical music blogger bitchin about the mainstream, but I bring it up so someone will help me understand why people settle for this shit. There are just so many better alternatives. And a few were actually on side stages at Beyond. I guess the lack of awareness is the biggest problem.
So every year, since last year, we’ve put together a list of our favorite EDM tracks for Beyond. Since we’ve already covered house this year with our tropical house & deep house playlists, we decided to go for bass.
It does include deep house & electro funk, but we tried to highlight as much glitch & lazers & shit as possible. Just remember, bass is more for the feeling & dance than for the sound.
This list is best for the late hours at the club and seems to be replacing glitch & bass music for the darker side of dance – as apposed to its more feel-good Disco House counterpart.
It really should have a two words tops title because Deep House & UK Garage is too much. I thought deep dance fit well, but I don’t think I like it enough. Help me out, word people.
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Remixes are more subjective than their original. What I mean is not only is the sound important, but the sound relative to the original as well. How good, how different.
So not everyone is going to like every one of these. Sometimes we’re all just too wrapped up in the original to enjoy it at a new angle and sometimes they’re just not perfectly mastered. Most of these producers haven’t hit big enough to have the resources for that, but it doesn’t mean they don’t know how to put sounds together.
In only two months we’re on our second best of remixes for 2014 (vol 1) and there are too many good ones to count (21). It’s mostly on the electro-house | disco-soul spectrums, but when is it not on here (we love our disco-soul). We also threw in some Ghetto Funk to bring it back.
One thing we’re finding with these 2014 remix lists are the mashups are lacking. I don’t know if my ear is getting uptight or what, but I still can’t find a single damn good mashup in 2014. Well, one of these are technically a mashup, but I bet you can’t spot it.
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This is the first legitimate hip hop track I’ve posted in over a year. I think that says it all. Of course it took the best in electronic to get me there, but more MCs need to realize the production makes the rap. We may not all connect to the story, but we can with the sound & flow.
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Looking back over this last list for 2013, I’ve realized one major flaw to it. There are no women on here. We’ve had our love for women this year, but this list contains our most obsessed about music with musicians consistently present throughout the year.
Doja Cat was our closest girl, but we only fell for one of hers. She did have a lot of other potentials that fell short because the production wasn’t to the level of that voice. Producers, this girls got talents!
London Grammar probably has the most right to be up here, but I credited their best to their collab with Disclosure and I didn’t fall for ‘Strong’ in time (wish it was still 2013). They’re also two-thirds dude, so that didn’t help them either […]
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Try not to think of EDM or electronic dance music as purely just the dubstep, deadbeat music that the mass majority like to think of it as. Dance music has been filled with electronic sounds for decades and its reach is almost all encompassing. From disco to house this music has come a long way and we’re just at the tipping point of things to come (aren’t we always).
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Starting to think Method Records may be my new favorite label. With their most notable release of the year, ‘Together‘ sports some notable names including Nile Rodgers, Disclosure & Sam Smith. But before all that, they gave us Lxury’s ‘J.A.W.S.’, which I’m now coming to find was co-produced with Disclosure.
Disclosure is all over the place and that’s a key to creativity. They know the art of collaborate as their past pairings like Lxury can corroborate.
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Well if I do say so myself Sam Smith almost sounds as pretty as Prince. And along with Disclosure’s unconventional electro wobbles, this makes for some progressive electro soul music. Not only that but Nile Rodgers features on the track and damn does his melody run through. ‘Together’ might come in a little short at just over two minutes, but a whole lotta different styles of soul are packed in.
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