🔥 Thermo's hot hits | EOY 2021 🔥



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Merry Listmas! :cheer:

it is getting close to that time of the year where we reflect on the year that has just passed. the top 200 best-performing songs of the past 12 months, based on chart points and playcount, will be counted down within the month of Dancember – I am hoping to get it all done before Danuary this year, last time it took me up until 21/01 which was an improvement over 2019 but not quite quick enough for my liking - after all, it is meant to be an 'end of year' thread. Over the next week I will start by going through some of my favourite album releases of the year eventually culminating in my crowning of Album of the Year.

but before anything though, let's take a look at last year's top ten singles.

01 Boris Brejcha ~ Gravity (feat. Laura Korinth)
02 Saint Jhn ~ Roses (Imanbek Remix)
03 Jax Jones and Martin Solveig presents Europa ~ Tequila (feat. Raye)
04 Grum ~ Afterglow (feat. Natalie Shay)
05 Avicii ~ Heaven (feat. Chris Martin) [EOY #1, 2019]
06 Gareth Emery and Nash ~ Yesterday (feat. Linney)
07 Regard and Raye ~ Secrets
08 CloudNone and Laura Brehm ~ Changed
09 Nora En Pure and Lika Morgan ~ In The Air Tonight (Croatia Squad Remix)
10 Martin Solveig ~ Juliet & Romeo (feat. Roy Woods)

it was the melodic house & techno producer Boris Brejcha who took the top spot with 'Gravity', becoming the first non-mainstream song to top my EOY chart (a feat that could very well be repeated this year). Boris will be seen a few times in the forthcoming chart including with this very song from the tail end of its chart run alongside two additional #1 hits he scored in the year, but will either of them give him a second EOY #1?

Hi Dan!

Nice to see you starting with your Year-End lists soon.

I need to finish my Year-End list of 2020 before I would go to the Year-End list of 2021.

Hopefully I'll start somewhere in December.

Album of the Year Contender: Bicep - Isles

 

 

I don't usually go for electronica and indeed I wasn't all too keen on their first album but this was a rather good listen back at the start of the year. They really know how to do the breakbeat sound well here alongside some great soundscapes. It was also great to see the album in contention for UK #1 which you don't often get with these acts nowadays, and 'Apricots' getting close to the singles top 40. The album highlights outside of the two singles are mostly the ones with Clara La San vocals and it would've been great if she was featured some more. They really should've put 'Siena' on the main album though as it's too good to be relegated to the deluxe edition. 'Apricots' will be making a feature within the singles rundown too being the big standout of their output so far.

 

Charting songs from the album:

07 Apricots

28 Atlas

44 Cazenove

64 Siena (feat. Clara Le San)

84 X (feat. Clara Le San)

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track

Album of the Year Contender: Boris Brejcha - Never Stop Dancing

 

 

Well this album only came out just this week but he had been dropping singles from it all throughout the year. Mr Brejcha, not to be confused with another Boris, is one of the most prominent melodic house and techno producers around although he'd only appeared on my radar last year with the track 'Gravity' that ended up as my EOY #1. He's a bit like the Eric Prydz of techno really, his productions are expertise and he manages to make these long techno songs feel like a journey (it's great to finally have the full length versions of his singles on streaming now too with the album's release). From the album tracks 'State of Mind' is an instant highlight which should end up charting for me.

 

Charting songs from the album:

01 Spicy (feat. Ginger)

01 House Music (feat. Arctic Lake)

13 Take A Ride [feat. Ginger]

38 Twisted Reality

39 Never Stop Dancing [feat. Ginger]

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track

 

And so EOY season begins! Can't say I've heard either of those albums but giving 'Spicy' a play now, sounding quite nice (although when the robotic vocals came in at the end I was definitely expecting it to be a mid-song interlude!)

That bit actually is the start of a mid-song switch-up in the (9min) album version but there's only so much of the song they can use in the radio edit.

Album of the Year Contender: Chicane - Everything We Had To Leave Behind

 

 

Following up his 2018 album which was my favourite of his to date, he partnered with Armada Music releasing a long string of singles eventually culminating in this release. It wasn't quite as strong as the prior album, with no songs that were truly outstanding, but it's still a great collection of songs proving the veteran producer has still got it. The title track is a strong opener being very atmospheric then there's a lot of nicely chilled trance all the way through with the stand-out track 'Make You Stay' coming towards the end in the breakbeat remix (oddly placed only a few tracks after the not-as-good original version so I just skipped that on repeat listens of the album).

 

Charting songs from the album:

26 Make You Stay (Back Pedal Brakes Remix)

38 An Ocean Apart (Ruben de Ronde Remix)

40 Sailing

43 One Foot In the Past, One Foot In the Future

50 Everything We Had to Leave Behind (feat. Joseph Aquilina)

50 1000 More Suns (feat. Joseph Aquilina)

53 Never Look Back

63 8 (Circle)

74 Don't Look Down

83 Capricorn

85 Hello, Goodbye

87 Now Or Never

88 Juno

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track Another good single because he released almost the whole album as singles

Album of the Year Contender: TheFatRat - Parallax

 

 

So an artist who'd been racking up a fair bit of chart history for me and who I'd sent to BJSC twice in TheFatRat eventually put out a debut album although it was put out by releasing one track every week for ten consecutive weeks, done with the idea of telling a story in a similar way a traditional TV series release would (but also sure is a good way of doing an album campaign in the modern era for assisting streaming figures). For me he definitely put his strongest tracks forward first, with his first 4 singles all ending up making my top 10. The rest of it wasn't up to such a high standard so an album I thought could've easily been my AOTY ended up not being so. It was great in any case to have him finally do an album and it's worthy of a mention here.

 

Charting songs from the album:

03 Upwind

05 Hiding In The Blue [feat. Riell]

08 Arcadia

10 Pride & Fear [feat. Riell]

60 Our Song [feat. Cecilia Gault]

69 Love It When You Hurt Me [feat. Anjulie]

84 Warbringer [feat. Everen Maxwell and Lindsey Stirling]

85 Fire

88 Violet Sky [feat. Cecilia Gault]

 

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track Another good single because he released the whole album as singles

Rarely listen to Boris Brejcha, but somehow I'm able to hear House Music inside my head without even playing it.

Hiding In The Blue and Warbringer are my favorite tracks from Parallax.

House Music is incredibly catchy indeed, it could very well be making an appearance in my singles chart very high up...

 

Hiding In The Blue will be in my singles chart too though I wasn't so keen on Warbringer despite the Lindsey Stirling feature.

Album of the Year Contender: Leaving Laurel - Leaving Laurel

 

 

Leaving Laurel were a duo who sadly first appeared on my radar for tragic reasons, with the death of member Pierce Fulton at the age of 28. This album was finished by other member Gordon Huntley and released in tribute. It's for the most part very beautiful melodic house with a lush atmosphere. Just a great album to clear your mind to, not much else to say here.

 

Charting songs from the album:

12 Sometimes It's Scary But It's Still Just You and Me

13 Winter In The Woods

 

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track

Album of the Year Contender: Ashley Wallbridge - Ready For Life

 

 

Ashley Wallbridge formerly featured here with his Gareth Emery collaborative project and now he followed it up with an album of his own, his first since 2012 which I've yet to listen to. He produces trance music in a similar style and he undeniably has some great tunes given five of the singles here reached the top 10. His uplifting vocal tracks are mostly his strongest however the instrumental 'Golden Hour' was the biggest stand out, a great summer trance anthem. On the basis of having the most great tracks it should be my AotY but it has more of the feel of a singles collection than an album, indeed by its release date most of it had been released already. But go check it out if you're one of the five trance fans left on Buzzjack.

 

Charting songs from the album:

01 Golden Hour

06 World For You (feat. Sarah De Warren)

07 Still Alive (feat. Evan Henzi)

07 This Is Home (feat. Bodine)

08 5000 Miles [feat. Bodine]

13 Cvnt5 of the Caribbean (Gareth Emery & Ashley Wallbridge)

14 City of Angels [feat. Linney]

16 Ghost of You [w/ Nash feat. Sally Oh]

29 Neon Rave

 

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track Another good single because he released almost the whole album as singles

Isles is a great album

 

I remember TheFatRat from hearing "Windfall" lots of times on Geometry Dash videos back in 2015.

From the snippets I've heard, the Ashley Wallbridge LP is the one that catches my eye the most

Ready For Life is absolutely amazing!

Such a shame I forgot to chart "Still Alive" last year. It was my favorite track of the album!

Windfall was the first song I'd heard of TheFatRat from BJSC, though it's not one of my faves of his now.

 

Still Alive isn't quite my fave from that album but was a great track to lead the album with.

Album of the Year Contender: Ben Böhmer - Begin Again

 

 

Ben Böhmer is considered as one of the most prominent and best producers in melodic house, a house sub-genre focused more on compositional elements and not-so-much music to party to, which I'd been getting more into this decade. So with his first album having passed me by before I really took note of him I was excited for it to be fairly promptly followed up with 'Begin Again'. There is some more electronica leaning tracks on the record too including A Matter Of Time which the Bicep fans here would likely enjoy, although the two real stand outs for me here are Beyond Beliefs and Escalate which will appear in my singles rundown.

 

Charting songs from the album:

02 Beyond Beliefs

04 Escalate [feat. Jonah]

20 A Matter of Time

39 Home [feat. Jonah]

74 Erase [feat. Lau.ra]

89 Strangers

 

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track

Album of the Year Contender: Grandbrothers - All the Unknown

 

 

Grandbrothers are a German duo who had been going for the best part of a decade and released two albums prior but were only introduced to me early this year through the Spotify algorithm and they turned out to be the best such discovery yet, particularly with 'What We See' which will be in contention for the year-end #1. Their fusion of classical piano elements with electronica is perfectly right up my street as a pianist and EDM fan, and even if you're not it's a great listen even if just as music to work or study to.

 

Charting songs from the album:

01 What We See

31 All the Unknown

47 Black Frost

48 Four Rivers

49 Organism

 

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track

Album of the Year Contender: ilan Bluestone - Impulse

 

 

If hard hitting melodic trance is just what the doctor ordered then here's a great album for ya. His second album release and a substantial improvement from his debut, it's full of anthemic trance tunes such as the two recommended below that will make my singles chart. There are a couple of journeys out of the genre too in 'Hopeless Dreamer' (synthpop) and 'Stay' (DnB) which are also highlights of the record. Otherwise it's what he does best of festival-ready bangers but not sacrificing compositional quality in the process.

 

Charting songs from the album:

03 Love Is A Drug (feat. Giuseppe De Luca)

05 Paid For Love (feat. Gid Sedgwick)

26 What Do You Want From Me? (feat. Giuseppe De Luca)

32 Hold On (with Maor Levi feat. Alex Clare)

46 Stranger To Your Love (feat. Ellen Smith)

52 Rule the World (feat. Jan Burton)

64 Stardust & Madness (feat. Giuseppe De Luca)

65 Hopeless Dreamer (feat. Giuseppe De Luca)

63 Stay (feat. Laura Zay)

77 Three Kings (with Maor Levi & Otiot)

 

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track

Album of the Year Contender: Aurosonic - Euphoria

 

 

Another trance record now though this one is a bit more introspective and falls under the 'progressive' label. It is for the most part a singles compilation of their releases over the past couple of years however the Russian duo Aurosonic only recently appeared on my radar through the Susana feature on 'Weather The Storm'. I also very much like that they've done special 'album mixes' and mixed it with atmospheric intros for the songs allowing most of the tracks to have around a 5 minute runtime which really benefits them. It's an album to really get lost in with beautiful melodies and vocalists, true to its album title. Although it doesn't really need the six chill out mixes of earlier album tracks plonked at the end of an already lengthy album, so take this entry to be the album up to that point.

 

Charting songs from the album:

02 Weather The Storm (with Susana)

39 Can I Count On You (with Costa feat. Cathy Burton & Julia Violin)

42 Touched By An Angel [with Spark7 feat. Sarah Russell]

45 In Euphoria We Rise [feat. Stine Grove]

52 Ask Me Anything [feat. Ana Criado]

56 I Would've Stayed [feat. Kate Louise Smith]

 

RecommenDANtions:

 

Best single

 

Best album track Another good single because they released almost the whole album as singles

Albums of the Year 2011-2020

2011: Nero - Welcome Reality

2012: Calvin Harris - 18 Months

2013: Avicii - True

2014: Calvin Harris - Motion

2015: Avicii - Stories

2016: Rihanna - Anti

2017: Avicii - Avīci

2018: Above & Beyond - Common Ground

2019: Avicii - Tim

2020: Gareth Emery - The Lasers

 

So, which album will be joining that list above? I can guarantee whoever it is it will be their first AotY ever...

 

Find out tomorrow! :cheer: