I’m pretty confident that in the four years we have been running these year-end wrap ups that I have always willingly volunteered to take this category (backed up by no actual fact-checking, of course). Why? Because in my years as a dance music fan, writer and overall enthusiast, I have found that “bass music,” if it wasn’t evidenced enough from its intentionally ambiguous name, consistently provides the most evolution in sound and style year over year. Back when MMIBTY began, trap music wasn’t even a real concept and dubstep (for those of you that remember) dominated this category. Remember moombahton and when Dillon Francis was pretty damn good at making it? Hell, even drum and bass was kind of popular on this side of the pond back in the day.
Fast forward to today and we’ve got everyone sticking “#future” in front of a genre and producing something completely new and ridiculous. Artists like Jauz* and Wave Racer brought completely different sounds with them, while RL Grime and Skrillex found room to innovate despite having an established sound.
There are a couple artists featured on this list multiple times, and for good reason. We don’t maintain a “one-artist-per-category” policy and I’m glad we don’t. Love it or hate it, it’d be hard to mention 2014 without the influence DJ Snake imposed over the industry. What So Not made quite a name for themselves as well – as did some of the aforementioned producers. Our year end wrap-up’s are not necessarily supposed to be the best possible music of all corners of the dance music (and there are a lot of fucking corners) but rather to provide a cross-section of popular yet enjoyable music from the past 12 months. Enjoy.
In no particular order:
RL Grime – Core
Skrillex – Recess ft. Kill The Noise, Fatman Scoop, Michael Angelakos
Big Gigantic – Touch The Sky
DJ Snake & Lil John – Turn Down For What
What So Not – Touched
A-Trak + Milo & Otis – Out the Speakers ft. Rich Kidz
Branchez – Truth
Dillon Francis & DJ Snake – Get Low
Duck Sauce – NRG (Skrillex, Kill The Noise, Milo & Otis Remix)
Baauer – One Touch ft. Alunageorge (VIP Remix)
RL Grime & What So Not – Tell Me
ILOVEMAKONNEN – Club Goin’ Up On A Tuesday (DJ Snake Remix)
GTA – Hard House
Wave Racer – Streamers
*There is both dub and trap breakdowns on “Feel The Volume” so we didn’t feel like putting it on a house list was appropriate, despite the fact that the song is positioned at a house tempo. Too bad if you don’t agree. Also I DID NOT like “Take Ü There.” So there.
Due to copyright restrictions, we are not able to offer downloads of our year-end compilations this year. If you would like a copy of this compilation, email me at [email protected] with the subject “2014 Bass Music Compilation” and I’ll see what I can do.