2015 was the year of live music for us. We covered eight festivals. I don’t think I’ve been to that many before in my life.
Hip hop seemed to make a return on here. That’s what we started on, but hit a major dip from 2010 to 2013. It started back up in 2014 with Kendrick Lamar, and predecessors have been poppin’ up all over the place since. Some with possibly more potential than Kendrick himself. One at the top of this list.
Other genres in electronic dominated the year even more. We got out a good amount of Kawaii in the first half, but future & trap took over the second. And of course house has been most dominate. Going from the deeper, heavier side and splitting into future & chill house near the end, as well as the funkier side of house music to jack to.
The amount of new singers seems to have dipped compared to past years, but the quality hasn’t. Anderson Paak, Madelyn Grant, Liz Vice & Joey Dosik to name out of the dozen others with clear personalities in their voices.
We’ve collected 29 tracks in total and a list of our 12 musicians with the most potential. Plus our biggest accomplishments of the year below that, the playlists. We put together 35 in total! That’s up from 25 last year.
You should also dance to last year’s list.
The first time I ran into Madelyn Grant’s name was on Odesza’s Sun Models. I had recently uploaded the track to SoundCloud and she had contacted me about including her name in the title. The only reason I hadn’t in the first place was because they really chopped and skewed her vocals, making her voice barely recognizable. But she was real nice about it and it seemed more than fair.
About two months later and I see Madelyn Grant on FKJ’s Waiting. I didn’t remember she was on Odesza’s track at first, but once I did I was all the more in love. Madelyn has a breathtaking voice, but even better she knows how to use it – a much bigger problem with most vocalists.
Since then Madelyn has collaborated with a favorite of mine, Emancipator. I asked her how she got to collaborate with all these legitimate producers and she said, I sent them my demos.
That’s it. In Odesza’s case they were requesting female vocalists, but the other two she just sent them a sample. That’s all it took. How the fuck does that happen? Oh wait, that doesn’t. Minus with Madelyn.
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I’ve put together a playlist of my favorite songs of her’s as well as another list for producers she should also send her music to. Although, this time I think they should be doing the reaching out.
We’ve had two deep house lists so far, one two, but this one got too big so we split it in two.
First half is on the lighter side of deep house. Most the music deals in Love and the shit parts of it. Reminds me a lot of our Horizontal Disco playlist, but a little deeper with the house.
The other half is on a much heavier side of bass that’s a bit better for dancing. Late night raging that is. Both are good for dancing, depending on your mood.
Let me know how you’d order these differently if you had the chance.
Another style of house we made up. I freakin’ love lasers! I first remember it in ghetto funk, but it makes its appearance all over electro funk, house and everywhere electronic.
If it’s not clear off the bat what I mean by lazer, just think the synth sound and blow it out to extravagant proportions. Something like our glam fucks. Really pierces the ears.
It’s bold. It’s fresh. It’s the best music to dance to right now – it’s rooted in disco for god’s sake.