Music recommendations (2024)

Initially I had thought this year wasn’t as good as last year in terms of music, but listening again to the best tracks from the first 40-something weeks of the year proved otherwise. It was a great year.

Most music I was sent by the Apple Music algorithm continued to be Japanese, thanks to my ongoing deep dive. During the initial playlist curation I was struck by a fairly clean divide of dance and not-dance. I was also still listening to Soichi Terada’s Essential Mix from 2022. All of this merged together in my mind and I wondered if I could make a DJ mix? In 2024 surely there is software that can assist? There is.

My first DJ mix

I pruned 50 tracks down to about 30 and set to work sequencing the tracks so their key and BPM flowed nicely. Each transition became a puzzle, gamifying the whole process. I had been listening to a loosly arranged playlist of 26 tracks for about a week, and two of those didn’t make the cut for the final mix.

It was possible for me to create my first ever DJ mix thanks to some fantastic called DJ.Studio that makes light work of some difficult and cumbersome process.

24 tracks with a duration of 1h18m58s, a mere 12 seconds longer than last year. Bonus points for consistency. It also meant I could run off some CDs and MiniDiscs for friends and aquaintances.

Playlists

• Apple Music
• Spotify
• YouTube

Bonus: albums of the year

• Apple Music
• Spotify (missing my number one album)