And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most.
Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you.
Some caveats before we begin:
- The list is mostly in the order at which I discovered a song. It is not a ranking. I think calling the songs on this list “the best in a broad genre” is a sufficient enough ranking anyway. Thus, they are not in any particularly meaningful order for you, the listener. If you’re one for spinning records, I’d be curious to see how you’d organize these for a live set!
- “Best” is, understandably, a subjective statement. I have particular tastes in music, and your tastes may or may not align with mine. I skew towards melodic EDM in a variety of genres, including trance, house, synthwave, techno, DnB, dubstep, psy/goa trance, and other random subgenres that fit my tastes. I also have a tendency to love the more progressive or “deep” variations of these genres. I imagine at least some of the tunes below will interest you if you’re an EDM fan, but this might also be an opportunity to try something new or give a subgenre another shot. I do from time to time!
- This list cannot possibly cover ALL of EDM. The title is simultaneously ambitious and, to any reasonable person, obviously incorrect. Just as there is not enough time in one’s life to read every science fiction book released in a given year, one cannot listen to every EDM album even if you only picked one genre. There’s too much stuff and too little time. I’ve listened to literally thousands of songs in 2024, but even that is not sufficient to cover the genres I most listen to… So if I missed something, tell me!
- This list is likely to change throughout 2025. Since I listen to a wide range of EDM podcasts, songs from 2024 will continue to to appear in my listening for at least 3-4 months. If I find a song that I like and it was released in 2024, it’ll end up in this playlist. Do with that knowledge what you will.
OK, let’s get to it. Enjoy!
