What follows is an accounting of the records I played during the calendar year of 2018. This annual project started 3 years ago with me merely taking the tracklists I had put together for the few Bleep Radio episodes I had archived that year and using those. They were really only a fraction of what was played throughout the year, but still I figured it was a more accurate “Top 10” list than what anyone else is doing.

Everyone else (correct me if I’m off base here) really just compiles a list of what they remember liking throughout the year or their friends did. Or am I simply cynical for thinking that? I don’t believe people at the tail end of a year genuinely remember what they played most during the first part of that same year. So the whole year end top list idea has always bothered me.

They bothered me until I started actually using data for mine. I love data. I love making decisions based on objective information. These top lists tend to be more subjective than objective; until you use data that is. For 2016 I simply used what I had at the end of the year, which was the aforementioned tracklists for a subset of my mixes for the year. 2017 was a better year. I turned it into a project and without fail recorded the information for every record played. At home, at gigs, during live-streams. over 1600 songs played and accounted for in the data set. It was pretty hard. Not something I could every year, but very satisfying to know I managed that time.

2018 marks the 3rd year of doing this, 2nd with foresight and planning. It wasn’t quite as through in data recording as last year. It was just too much for me to keep up with. What I ended up missing was more of the away gigs. I have a habit of making it as easy on myself to tracklist after a gig by putting records back in my bag in the order they were played, but it still takes time and too many times in 2018 I had to use that bag of records again before I had a chance to write down everything played. Things got mixed up and tracklisting was missed. Not for all gigs, but I’d say 5-10 throughout the year.

What does that leave? Quite a lot actually. As most of you know I’m a frequent streamer. My Bleep Radio (www.bleepradio.ca) show airs every Friday morning and I will often fire it up between official streams too if in the mood. This year the 2018 track-list amounted to 1325 entries in total. The lists, charts and whatnot below are all break-downs of those 1325 entries. I hope you dig the project. I hope it leads you to find something new. Regardless say hi!

Release Years

One of the pieces of information collected this year was the year of release for each entry. I’m not one to just play the newest so there is quite a spread in what was played with respect to year of release. Of the 1325 entries in the spreadsheet there were releases played from 34 years ranging from new releases all the way back to something from 1983 (the only years not covered between ’83 and ’18 were 1984 and 1985. Must have been bad years 😉 )

Those who know their Techno history will likely be familiar with that bump in the mid 90s. There was so much good music released then, so many releases still very playable today. The early aughts bump was the 2nd wave of the Wonky stuff coming out of the UK and Germany, again very playable still to this day.

Release_Year % of Plays 2018 17.71% 2017 11.58% 2016 8.18% 2015 7.27% 2014 4.54% 2013 4.54% 2012 1.44% 2011 0.83% 2010 1.14% 2009 1.67% 2008 1.29% 2007 2.42% 2006 3.03% 2005 2.50% 2004 3.63% 2003 1.59% 2002 1.51% 2001 3.63% 2000 1.67% 1999 2.35% 1998 2.88% 1997 3.63% 1996 4.01% 1995 2.42% 1994 1.67% 1993 0.61% 1992 0.91% 1991 0.61% 1990 0.30% 1989 0.08% 1988 0.08% 1987 0.15% 1986 0.08% 1983 0.08%

2018 Top/Most Played Artists

One thing to keep note of for the artists grouping is I’ve merged aliases. Mark Hawkins is Marquis Hawkes is etc… Certainly different career trajectories and different music output, but the same person so the credit was condensed. The other obvious example of this was Neil Landstrumm who had multiple aliases and partnerships. On the topic of partnerships or groups or usually solo people I’ve given credit to each solo artist instead of the duo. So a track by Tobias Schmidt & Dave Tarrida for example would lead to a +1 for Toby in his column and a +1 for Dave in his. Again this is done for similar reasons as the alias merging.

The last thing to note is not every artist is listed here. The full list of artists played is 563 people long. So I’ve set an arbitrary cut-off point of 5 plays. An artist makes the 2018 list if I played their music 5 times or more. Even this leads to quite a list at 64 artists.

The following 64 artists account for 806 of the 1325 entries for the year. Or another way to think of it is 11% of the artists accounted for 61% of the music played.

Artist Play Count Neil Landstrumm 96 Jerome Hill 60 JoeFarr 54 Mark Hawkins / Marquis Hawkes / DJ MH 26 Scalameriya 25 Tobias Schmidt 24 Randomer 23 KiNK 21 TSR 21 Cari Lekebusch 20 Paul Birken 19 Alden Tyrell 16 Ansome 15 Dj Haus 15 Cristian Vogel 14 FTP UP 13 Dave Tarrida 12 Luke’s Anger 12 Cursor Miner 11 Lag 11 Green Velvet 10 Radio Slave 10 Ben Pest 9 Dj Rush 9 Dj Sneak 9 Kamikaze Space Programme 9 Paul Johnson 9 Unknown Artist 9 Dj Hyperactive 8 DJ Shufflemaster 8 Frankie Castle & Dj Ford Foster 8 Joseph Garber 8 Michael Forshaw 8 Si Begg 8 Another Alias 7 Defekt 7 Fatboy Slim 7 Herbert 7 Kali 7 MasCon 7 Norman 7 Oli Furness 7 Redlight 7 Serge 7 Subhead 7 The Horrorist 7 Bill Youngman 6 Cadans 6 Don Froth 6 Nomad 6 Poison Green 6 Robert Armani 6 VSK 6 2000 And One 5 Boris Dlugosh 5 Groove Asylum 5 Italojohnson 5 Montel 5 Pete Heller 5 Robert Babicz 5 Silicon Scally 5 Technasia 5 Trumpet & Badman 5



2018 Top/Most Played Labels

Similar to the cut-off for artists, I’ve done the same for labels. Any label with 5 or more plays made the list. I did not do any merging for labels though. I felt it did not make as much sense as an artist alias merge. It s worth pointing out for credit where it’s due that in the top 4 labels a full 3 of them are run by Jerome Hill. A man who also happens to be #2 in the most played artists table. If you don’t know who he is, I would recommend to you him as a good place to start.

There was music played from 410 record labels this year with 69 of them having 5 or more plays. I’ve also added a column that shows a ratio which is the result of the total labels plays divded by the number of catalog numbers from that label played. Most of the time it’s a good representation of the playability of the labels releases. I find it becomes a less accurate indicator when it was only a single catalog number from that label played. When that’s the case I think it’s more along the lines of a particular releases strength and less so the label as a whole.

Label Plays Cat #’s Played Ratio Don’t 47 19 2.47 Super Rhythm Trax 34 9 3.78 Tresor 30 18 1.67 Bleeper 26 4 6.50 Mindcut 24 7 3.43 Riot Radio Records 19 5 3.80 Hot Haus Records 19 8 2.38 Running Back 18 6 3.00 Djax 17 10 1.70 Genesa 16 5 3.20 Them 16 5 3.20 Perc Trax 16 6 2.67 Neue Heimat 16 11 1.45 Sativae 14 2 7.00 Unintelligent Trax 14 6 2.33 Varvet 14 4 3.50 Mosquito 14 8 1.75 Unknown To The Unknown 13 3 4.33 Clone Basement Series 13 7 1.86 Slam 13 6 2.17 H. Productions 13 3 4.33 Bombtrap 12 7 1.71 Miditonal 12 6 2.00 WNCL 11 4 2.75 Mord 11 6 1.83 Power Vacuum 11 7 1.57 541 11 3 3.33 Earwiggle 10 5 2.00 Killekill 10 3 3.33 Aus Music 9 4 2.25 Jack Trax On Wax 8 1 8.00 Turbo 8 4 2.00 Elektron Grammofon 8 2 4.00 Clone Jack For Daze 8 6 1.33 Polybius Trax 7 1 7.00 Tonewrecker 7 5 1.40 Skint 7 1 7.00 Not On Label 7 3 2.33 Coin Operated 7 6 1.17 Null 7 4 1.75 Leisure System 7 2 3.50 Feinwerk 6 2 3.00 Dext 6 2 3.00 Framework 6 3 2.00 Isope 6 4 1.50 Subvoice 6 6 1.00 Bush 6 3 2.00 Warp 6 4 1.50 Primevil 6 4 1.50 Shipwrec 6 2 3.00 Accidental Jnr 6 4 1.50 Novamute 5 2 2.50 Soma 5 1 5.00 Sneaker Social Club 5 4 1.25 Peacefrog 5 2 2.50 Input-Output 5 2 2.50 Downfall Recordings 5 2 2.50 Open 5 3 1.67 Jakpot 5 3 1.67 Snork Enterprises 5 4 1.25 Rauschwaren 5 1 5.00 Spectral 5 3 1.67 Relief Records 5 4 1.25 Bedrock Records 5 3 1.67 Scandinavia 5 4 1.25 Italojohnson 5 2 2.50 Dance Mania 5 1 5.00 Hypercolour 5 1 5.00 Balkan 5 4 1.25

2018 Top/Most Played Releases

Now we move onto the specific records that got the most play. Again, with 5 plays being the cut-off.

2018 Top/Most Played Songs

Finally we come to the songs that got the most plays throughout the year. Oddly enough the #1 spot is held by a Digital release. And I only play vinyl! What what? I used http://vinylart.co/ to press Joe and I copies. I refuse to let a good song be wasted as digital only 😉

As a side note, I think the only reason Star 69 made it back onto to any lists was because it was hauled out as a request for a local event. It ended up staying out a few weeks before it was sealed away in the vault again.

Jerome Hill and Joe Farr – thanks guys. You two and Neil Landstrumm will continue on I trust? You better or half my list goes away!

And with that, a wrap. It’s New Year’s day. I’ve had 3 hours of sleep from the local NYE event and I’ve written enough. I go out for the year saying thanks again to all who have made the music that fuels all I do. Special mentions to those who are on the lists above, those who were played slightly less frequently and those I’ve played with. To the rest… Maybe 2019?

See you all the in the live stream chat.