10-Year Blogoversary!

Whoa! Time flies... It has been 10 years since first post!

Let me present some stats for Music Miner, in order to extract meaningful insights.

I was 100% certain that the vast majority of tracks (presented by Music Miner) would originate from the 90's. It is absolutely my favorite era in terms of electronic music. The tracks from the mid-00's follow in second place (although I remember that during my teen years which were aligned with that period I was still listening music from the 90's). The third place belongs to the first period of electronic dance music (80's). My main reason to trace back tunes from that era was to gain fundamental knowledge in music genres that emerged during that decade. Furthermore, the last time period produced the smallest output, but this fact can be justified:

- During the first years of Music Miner I was mostly listening to music from previous periods than contemporary tracks.
- I was disillusioned with the state of trance music, which was my favorite music genre (trancecracker spotted!)

In terms of tracks per music genre, I expected the results a little worse (i.e. lacking diversity). Obviously, Trance and House are the prominent genres (almost a tie), with Techno coming third. However, other genres were also presented, with smaller contribution. I believe that during the last years I was exposed at a higher level in other music realms, leading to blog posts spanning different music styles.

Drilling down to music styles, Trance / Techno / Progressive House are cited largely. I am positively surprised that Electro made it to the Top-5. It is a music style that I need to dig in deeper for more obscurities (since the majority of them were known tracks). Another future goal would be to produce more output for other styles, especially Leftfield, Future Jazz & IDM.

The country breakdown presents the Great Powers of Electronic Music (for my ears at least); UK, USA & Germany. Although tracks from different countries were presented, one may notice that Dutch music was never my preference (even Belgians had greater contribution!). One thing that I am skeptical though is if I should have focused more on Greek music or not (the last years have been very productive and interesting).


Finally, you may find below a nice visual with the labels tagged in this blog via a non-stat manner!

What would be the future plans and status of Music Miner?  One could only wonder...

Label Realm: numerical stArt

An effective way for searching great tracks is through the labels. My taste in music has evolved through the years, but some labels are memorable for their output, regardless of the genre they represent. If you are a new listener in electronic music, I have compiled a list (based on my Discogs collection) for your reference. Here we go (in alphanumeric order)!

4 Real Communication was a short-lived trance label, set up by David Gates and Malcolm Stanners, mostly known as Salt Tank. Unfortunately, the lifespan of the label was limited, as per the output of Salt Tank...

Additive was a sublabel of EMI, focused on progressive trance music. Under the label, several known artists of the genre were introduced to the masses, such as Chris Cowie (X-Cabs), Oliver Huntemann (Kay Cee), Ralph-Armand Beck (Taucher) and Laurent Véronnez (Velvet Girl). The declined popularity of trance in the mid-00's led to the closure of the label.

Armind is a Dutch trance label, which was the first imprint of Armada Music, the colossal EDM label. It was founded by Armin Van Buuren (prior to his superstar DJ status) and serves as home of his all own productions. While the current output of Armind and Armada Music in general does not seem inspirational, the very first releases were instant classics (Alibi - Eternity, Rising Star - Touch Me, Motorcycle - As The Rush Comes).

Audio Therapy was a label run by Dave Seaman, from 2000 until 2010, specialized in progressive house. It was the first production home of Stelios Vassiloudis, one of my favorite Greek artists of the genre. Additionally, the progressive breaks classic Habersham & Phil K - Cloudbrake can be found in the label.

Avatar Records was founded in 1997 by Israelis Avichay Avigal and Peter Eibenschutz. The label is mostly popular for its psy-trance output, massively produced in Israel. I am not very familiar with the genre, it is worth mentioning that the label hosted the first studio album of Astropilot (Fruits Of The Imagination), a solid release.