To expand on that thought, 2011 marks a year of further decline in the music industry as a whole, and dance music specifically. While some may disagree with me on that point for various reasons, I find it objectively demonstrable that the volume of well-crafted, quality music has been heading (and continues to head) downward. I’m not here to debate the point, nor speculate on the reasons for it—if I happen to be right. It’s easy to blame file trading and piracy; too easy, in fact. But I suspect the causes are far deeper than that. I’ll leave it to the experts; all I know is that the situation is getting worse, not better.

In any event, at least for me, it’s remarkably difficult to come-up with a list of even a dozen tracks from 2011 that I’m truly, genuinely, enthusiastically excited about—let alone 50, let alone 100. What you’ll find below is the best I could manage.

You’ll find some important information below the chart. I hope you enjoy the list and find it useful. Please support dance music and keep it alive by supporting with your entertainment dollars the artists, remixers and record labels who bring it to you.

Several things to bear in mind for those reading this chart:

• The artists and tracks listed are those I personally find the most interesting. I don’t read the Billboard charts, and I don’t care about them. I don’t pay attention to what’s on the FMQB chart, or what other DJs play, or even what promoters happen to tell me “everyone else” is playing. I play what I think has the best hook, or the sweetest groove, or whatever else about a song happens to catch my ear. As a result, my top 50 list is likely to be quite different than what you might be expecting.
• As a DJ, I characterize my music as “mainstream dance.” As a result, this chart may not even match your idea of “dance music,” especially if you prefer trance, techno, dubstep, or other sub-genres. “My” dance music is largely melodic, vocal, commercial, mainstream dance with largely house roots. Your mileage may (and probably will) vary.
• The tracks shown here are selected for the chart based on the number of times played, and other objective and subjective factors. In some cases (notably #28), you might see some material here that wasn’t released in 2011, but that for whatever reason I “discovered” and started playing during the year.
• I often play a variety of mixes of a single song. This year, that is taken into account in the data. My “preferred” remix is listed, though I may play others.

It’s no different in music. You may think you’re ready, but you’re not. You think if you just tell enough people, send e-mail blasts, fill up inboxes with unsolicited MP3s, you’ll make it. But this just turns us off, we’re immune to marketing. We only want to find out about products from friends.

But worse, when we finally check you out, we find out you’re just not that good.

I don’t know how it works in the greater music industry, but I can’t think of a truer commentary on music (and music promotion specifically) with regard to the dance music realm.

As an established mixshow DJ, working “regular” DJ, and program director for iDanceRadio.fm, I suppose I’m fortunate in many ways to be the recipient of a fairly huge volume of promotional music, sent to me by artists, producers, record labels, promoters and others, and I am a regular user of zipDJ, a fantastic promotional service for working DJs, not to mention a member of one of the oldest record pools in the country, DDK.

The bottom line is this:

• I hear a lot of new music. I’m hammered with it practically 24×7 from all sides. I’m buried with CDs; my in-boxes are clogged with MP3s and download links.
• Most of it—the vast majority of it, in fact—just isn’t that good.

It’s gotten to the point that I delete the vast majority of unsolicited music promotion e-mail. I judge books (well, CDs) by their covers, and discard unplayed any CDs that clearly lack any professionalism whatever in terms of labeling or packaging. And I speed through zipDJ every Tuesday night as quickly as I can, skipping any track that doesn’t wow me in the first 5 to 10 seconds of listening to its preview sample.

It’s not that I don’t have time for music—I just don’t have time for bad music, and most of it is bad music.

What I truly pay attention to is exactly what Lefsetz said:

We only want to find out about products from friends.

Even then, “friends” are not always who they appear to be; I count many music promoters as friends, and they have a vested interest in what they’re excited about. But even there, some have demonstrated with time that the odds favor their recommendations, biased or not, so I tend to listen to what they have on offer.

Lefsetz has been preaching an awful lot lately about quality (speaking largely to conventional musicians, but it’s applicable to electronic musicians and DJs too for that matter)… About putting-in your time. Paying your dues. Really investing yourself, practicing, and being willing to then just throw it all away—knowing you’re really only then at the starting line.

He’s got a point. One driven home to me recently in a very personal way.

The last three remix projects I’ve undertaken, two of which were for my very good friend (and talented artist) Carol Hahn, have ended in failure. One could argue that perhaps I wasn’t inspired by her recent release Do Your Best, a song she recorded in the 80s that she decided to remake for the 2010s. But the most recent project, a new track from Carol titled Your Love, is a great song. Carol provided some terrific vocals, with her typical attention to detail, and myriad options to work with. And yet, somehow, some way, despite investing dozens of hours of effort, I just couldn’t get a song to come out the other side. A couple of weekends ago, Carol and I decided to call it quits on this one.

I’m hopeful that (I don’t believe in God, but I’m still praying, actually) that when (or if) Carol chooses to approach me again with a project, I’m able to produce a usable track.

But if you listen to Lefsetz, the fact I’ve produced and remixed perhaps a couple dozen dance tracks at this point (not all of which were released) only qualifies me for a lottery to get a ticket to come to the party, so to speak. It doesn’t reserve for me a seat at the table. It does not qualify me to be the guest of honor. And I might not even end-up getting in the door.

I’m actually pretty proud of most of my work. A couple of them (notably the unreleased remix of Vincent Medugno’s Magnetic and my remix of A Little Respect for Nivek Tek and Carol Hahn) I could point to and say with confidence that the quality is on-par with anything any of the “big name” dance producers have done. Maybe I just got lucky.

Failure doesn’t feel good. Maybe in time, I’ll look back and be able to point to something from the failures and say, “I learned such-and-such from that.” For today, it just feels like failure feels, and I’m questioning whether the studio I’ve constructed in my basement will ever be the source of another listenable release again.

What I do know is this: I’ll keep trying. And I’m not going to bother putting out anything that, like so much of what I hear, just isn’t that good. Will everything be the best of which I’m ultimately capable? Probably not. But it’ll be quality—even if that means I might not (as it feels today) release another remix or song until 2014 or so.

Stay tuned.

Medugno (pronounced “muh-DOON-yo”) is a new artist whose first release, We Are Meant to Be, hit the Billboard charts within the past few months. He’s got a strong tenor voice, and a bright future.

This next release is a cover of a rock ballad, originally from Hoobastank. The Reason is a lyrically beautiful song, and it struck me as a very unusual choice for a dance cover when I first received Vincent’s acapellas. In fact, my first reaction was something along the lines of, “What the heck am I gonna do with this?”

But, it didn’t take long to sort it out, and I’m very proud of the end result. Reason takes a different route from Dance, and while still very much dance music, you could say it’s mellower and perhaps more mainstream. The arrangement is rich, and Vincent’s amazing vocal shines through the mix nicely.

You’ll hear it show-up during the DJ Wesley Friday Night House Party mixshows starting today (September 4th), and I’ll be posting previews soon.  It’ll be out in the next few weeks on Casa Records, and as always, I’ll keep everyone posted here on the blog, as well as on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

I hope you enjoy it.

I just posted my Top 25 Dance Chart for the week on my web site. You can read the whole chart by clicking that link, but here’s the Top 10 this week:

Added this week are six hot new tracks:

• Pepper MaShay’s latest, Freeway of Love, has been circulating for a few months now, but it’s official release has arrived. It’s a fantastic cover of the Aretha Franklin hit, with a great set of remixes.
• Bananarama are back with Love Comes. I continue to be amazed that this girl group is still around and sounding (and looking) amazing. Down one of the original members, perhaps, but the two remaining are doing the Bananarama name proud.
• Novaspace’s Dancing Into Danger has been one I’ve played for a few months, but I recently got my hands on more mainstream mixes, and am pleased to be spinning this one more often.
• Nic Chagall feat. Johnathan Mendelsohn, with This Moment. This track is pretty unconventional as dance goes, but it’s a great track with a nice rock vibe and an amazing vocal performance from Mendelsohn.
• Nelly Furtado’s first all-Spanish language album has arrived, and the first single, Manos Al Aire, has been remixed to incredible effect. It’s a beautiful song, whether you understand Spanish or not, but if you do, it’s even more so.
• Naturi Naughton brings us Fame ’09, from the forthcoming remake of the movie Fame. Surprisingly, I like this track.

Back in May, I started working with Carol Hahn on a new track titled Let Me Go. The remix was pretty well completed, but for a number of reasons, Carol decided in June not to release Let Me Go right now. While I was pleased with my mix, the song is a bit “dark,” and the mix itself ended-up being a bit dark as well. In any case, it’s been shelved for now. Hopefully at some point it’ll see the light of day.

The good news is that last month, Carol wrote a different new song, Take Me and Dance. When I heard her own rough of the track, I fell in love with it immediately, and started work on a remix of the song. It came together quickly, and I think, very nicely. It has a nice sort of grungy element to it that, as Carol said, “has good energy, power, and attitude.” I hope everyone likes it when they hear it.

Also providing remixes on the release are the renowned Lenny B., who I think has remixed just about everyone under the planet, and my British-expat friends from Spain, Jamie Exley and Peter Hayward who are better known as VisionX, and who also did a really strong remix. Between the three mixes, Take Me and Dance covers some broad sonic territory, and I’m stoked about the release. I believe it’s going to be a successful track, so thanks in advance for keeping your eyes open for it and snagging a copy on iTunes or AmazonMP3 once it’s available (sometime in August).

For those anxious to hear, you expect it to show-up in this week’s DJ Wesley Friday Night House Party, and I’ll be posting it to my Facebook and MySpace pages as well soon.

Now that this track is in the can, I’ll be starting a new project here in the next week or so for another artist. I’ll post details about that as soon as I have them.

In any case, I’m pleased to report that Tod’s latest track didn’t quite play out this way. The track, Totally Numb, made quite the first impression. There are a large number of mixes available, and I warmed-up rather quickly to Georgie Porgie’s take on the track, which is richly programmed and well-structured.

Part of the difference this time around is that arguably, Totally Numb is simply a better song than Luv N Music (in my opinion anyway). It’s nicely written, and the vocals, performed by Michelle Watt, are nice, and pleasant to listen to.

While the Georgie Porgie mix is not among them, you can hear some of the other mixes on Tod’s MySpace page.

I mentioned it only briefly in that entry, but not only are some producers deaf (apparently), but I’m also guessing most DJs are as well. Before I dig into what I’m talking about, let me rant a bit about hearing.

When I was a lot younger, I did spend more than one night in clubs where I left the place with my ears ringing to the point I couldn’t hear normally until well into the next day. While most clubbers experience this every time they leave a club, let’s be clear: This is not a good thing. If you’re ears are ringing, you have done damage that’s going to subtly add-up over time. Even after your hearing has “recovered,” the damage is done, and it will be additive each time you do more of it.

People like a thundering bass you can feel, and nice loud music to drown-out all the drunk babbling I guess, but I’d prefer to keep my hearing, which is why I use Etymotic’s high fidelity ear plugs at clubs and concerts. They reduce sound levels by about 20 db, and do so pretty much evenly across audible frequencies, meaning that using them is basically like turning the volume down without giving it a muffled quality.

As for DJs, based on the ones I’ve worked with, it’s apparent that most have been doing this so long without any regard for their own hearing that their hearing is already shot. I don’t use booth monitors—that’s why I have headphones—but those DJs I’ve worked with who do, usually turn them up well past my comfort zone, obviously because otherwise, they can’t hear the music. This is why I also end-up using the Etymotic ear plugs while DJ’ing in many cases; it’s just too loud otherwise.

Point #1: DJs and Clubbers—Protect your hearing now, or you will regret it later, and there is no way to fix it once you destroy it. (This goes for DJs, and for the people who listen to them.)

This past Saturday, at my benefit gig, I was paid a high compliment by Mika from Fastlane Productions, who provided the event’s electrical, lighting and audio. (These guys were fantastic to work with, and I hope to do so again in the future.) He told me I’m the first DJ he’s ever worked with who understood anything about signal levels and the need to not overdrive the audio. I was, in a word, nonplussed.

Unfortunately, this says way less about me than it does my fellow DJs. Every DJ mixer I’ve seen has VU meters that show you visually the signal levels. Most have them for the main mix, and many (including mine) have them on a channel-by-channel basis, too. And I would not have thought it was rocket science to understand that the target level for audio is always roughly 0 db on average. If you go past 0 db, the audio will overdrive and distort—on the peaks, if not on the entire signal.

But based on what I hear when I go to most clubs, Mika’s right; DJs just don’t get it. Most clubs I go to, the sound is overdriven into distortion. It starts out the night in good enough shape, but as the evening progresses, it’s pushed higher and higher (probably in proportion to the DJ’s increasing hearing loss) until it’s distorted and unenjoyable to listen to (with or without my Etymotic ear plugs).

Point #2: DJs—If you want it louder, turn-up the amps; don’t just ram the mixer sliders to the stop and crank the main mix level up all the way. VU meters are there for a reason. (And oh yeah, yellow and red? Those colors generally mean “danger.”)

I touched on this in my original post, but there are surprising number of dance tracks that are pushed into distortion, and actually released that way. Proper mastering by a professional audio engineer would never have allowed that to get through to a DJ in the first place; my guess is that these tracks are amateur jobs done by people who just have this idea that “louder = better.”

Yes, to a certain degree, louder = better, because most people expect modern electronic music to be driven pretty hard signal-wise. However, distorted ≠ better. Distorted = amateur. Distorted = crap. Distorted = I won’t play the track.

Point #3: DJs—As computer scientists say, “Garbage in, garbage out.” If you have a track that sounds like crap, don’t play it. In the end, it makes you sound like crap. (Oh, and crap? Crap isn’t good.)

The bottom line is that it really doesn’t take that much effort to sound good. But to be able to discern what “sounds good,” you need to have good hearing. So protect your hearing, for a start. But then use it to take pride in what you’re doing. Learn the very basics about audio, apply them, and the world will be a little better place.

• Katy Perry rose with the infectious Waking Up in Vegas. Probably her best single to-date, this one’s a crowd-pleaser, and I just dig her cool vocals and the funky songwriting.
• Oceana’s Body Rock moved-up to #4, and I continue to really like this track (and so do the people I play for). It’s just one of those nice, gritty tracks that pushes you up off your butt and onto the dance floor… You can’t help it.
• Livvi Franc’s Now I’m That Bitch, at #20, is one I’m really liking too, probably just because it’s a song with attitude. I still can’t believe that there’s a version some people are playing that’s been sanitized to Now I’m That Chick. Please! The word “bitch” is that offensive? That damaging to “the children?” Whatever…

Have a great week.

I was surprised to find out that Nothing was penned by Prince back in 1985, but it was Sinéad’s cover in 1990 that propelled her (and the song) to worldwide recognition.

I wouldn’t have seen the song as a good candidate for a dance cover, but that’s precisely what we have now from Consoul Trainin, one of the names used by Greek producer John Efthimiou (a/k/a John Stephanel), with vocals provided by Joan Kolova, whose has graced other Consoul Trainin projects.

Released under the modified title Nothing Compares to You, and finding its way to the US on the Redstick label, it’s a competent, inviting reinterpretation of the song. A number of mixes are available that go from chilly and loungey, to pretty “out there.”

Kolova’s vocals don’t attempt to replicate O’Connor’s distinctive sound (a strategy that is perhaps too-often used in dance covers), but rather, gives the song a cool, new sound that is at once familiar, and fresh.

Efthimiou chose remixers for the project that are, to me anyway, unfamiliar (which is a great opportunity to find some new sounds).  My preferred mix is from another Greek producer, Agent Greg, but you can check more of them out on Consoul Trainin’s MySpace page (link at the top of this entry).

Hardly surprising, but David Guetta’s fab track with Kelly Rowland takes the #1 spot this week. I’ve blogged enough about the track, but when good songwriting, good production, good vocals, and decent promotion all collide, a hit is sort of a given.

Taking-up #2 is another really incredible song from Agnes Carlsson, winner of the second season of Swedish Idol and now making a name for herself simply as “Agnes.” Release Me is another one of those songs that you just can’t help but like, as if it was carefully engineered to succeed. Carlsson has a tremendous voice, and the songwriting is strong.

The #3 spot is another that’s not a surprise to me; Daisy with Everytime. What really makes this track work for me isn’t so much the capable vocals of Daisy (whoever she is; and who decided that mononymousness was a good idea?), but the stellar production work of Buzz Junkies, who are responsible for the mix I spin. Buzz Junkies are UK-based Rob Searle and Mark Allan, and they never fail to impress. Everytime is arguably their bes work to-date; it’s got a perfect gritty, deep, and textured sound that just forces you up out of your chair to groove.

You can check out the chart to see the rest, but a couple of quick comments on the Hot Adds this week:

• I’m really enjoying a new track from Estonia’s Ithaka Maria, Confession. The mixes all seem to have a sort of unusual quality that appeals to me, along with its lyrical interest.
• New artist Vincent Medugno with We Are Meant to Be is another great new track from Casa Records. There are a number of great mixes, but I’ve been playing the one from singer/producer Georgie Porgie. It’s another infectious track.

Have a great week.