It’s again this time of the year that web sites and electronic dance music related magazines compile their lists of the Best of 2010. From a year that had so many releases, from so many artists on so many new and established labels, it must be really helpful for the fans of the various styles of electronic dance music to read these endless lists for many reasons. The most important is of course to check out their music collection that these days is digital or on physical format like a CD and even for some on vinyl and find out if they have the tracks that really matter and the main players of the scene were hyping all through the year. It sounds impossible for us, that within the next couple of weeks will stream radio shows, that the menu of the most of them or I can even say all of them will be devoted to the best tracks of 2010 to not organize a similar feature with the best of 2010. Of course, you know already that we have huge respect for the work that electronic music producers, djs and record labels are doing so we did not want to compile a list with our personal favorites. We decided that is better idea to send a short interview including the A&Z of the Best of 2010 to the artists and ask them to answer it in order to let us know what they were up to and what they choose as the best from the year that is close to its end. In addition, we give them the opportunity to reveal their future plans and what we should looking forward too from them.
Please come back as often as possible in these pages, actually is better to bookmark it, because every day we will add new mini interviews and who knows maybe your favorite artist will be included as well. If you are an artist yourself and you want to take part on this please do not hesitate to contact us to send you to compile your mini interview.
Enjoy the Best of 2010 through the eyes and ears of the djs and artists
Dimitri: Are you going to remember 2010 as a good and positive year for the progress of electronic dance music or as one of the worst? For instance, have you found many good tracks, new ideas, new talented producers and newborn labels that have excite you and make you feel more addicted with your favorite music?
Ville Lope: Definitely a good year. Looking from pop point of view, RnB and House music has come even closer to each other. Listening to a commercial pop radio channel, or visiting a mainstream night club is like a entry level club event or dance channel. This will bring more interested EDM enthuastics to the scene in the long run for sure. The previous era was in 99-01, so this is something I've been waiting for.
Some of the big trance labels are leaning towards pop side of things, and it give more space to the labels concentrating to “serious” dance music. Small labels will pop out every now and then, but they will fade away as soon as they were born.
Soundwise it has been good to notice that even the well known trance jocks are slowing down a bit. While the standard trance track 138 to 140 BPM even five years ago, now it's closer to 134 or even under. House and trance are becoming closer to each other.
House & Trance = Trouse?
Dimitri: Is it possible to list for us your personal accomplishments music wise that you achieved during 2010 and maybe you consider this year as one of your best helping you to go a step forward in your career?
Ville Lope : My first mix compilation, Definition of Subtraxx Vol.2. Having my own mix compilation has been a dream of mine, and now it's finally come true.
During the year Subtraxx has gone forward and hopelly it starts to look more like me.
Adding two more labels (Camouflage & Nemesis) in addition to the main label has been a huge thing for me. My hand print should be audible in early 2011 with these labels.
Dimitri: THE A to Z of the Best of the Year 2010. Please list for us your best of 2010 please always with a small comment to explain the reason why you choose the particular answer.
a) Best Full Release of the year(that means that you think that the original and the remix package was the most appropriate for it).
Ville Lope: I always pick the best version (in my opinion) of the release to be the one on my rotation. It's very rare I'd remember other remixes than the one I'm playing myself.
b) Your personal Full release of the year(if you had any releases of course and give us the kind of feedback you get for it)
Ville Lope: Ville Lope – Farewell to Forgiven. Ayleon Remix added the missing drive to this beauty.
c) Best Single track of the year(only original versions)
Ville Lope: JPL – Young Love (In Trance We Trust)
d) Your personal Best Single track of the year(if you had any releases of course and give us the kind of feedback you get for it)
Ville Lope: Ville Lope – It's In Her Eyes. There's a personal story behind the track, the journey from composing it until the release has been really memorable in many ways. The response to the track has been positive. I've got good personal feedback from my peers and people in the scene.
e) Best Remix of the year
Ville Lope: Hans Zimmer – Time (Orkidea's Dream Mix). Inception was a good movie, but the soundtrack was great. Good to see a fellow finn do such a great good-old-trance remix.
f) Best Remix on personal production that you released this year
Ville Lope: Ville Lope – Farewell to Forgiven (Ayleon Remix)
g) Best Producer of the year in your style that you play or any other that you may like
Ville Lope: Marcus Schössow. The ginger swede seems to make the graziest tracks of the moment.
h) Best New Talent/Big hope for the year
Ville Lope: Tom Fall & Lovetone. These guys are moving somewhere between house and trance, and are delivering bigger and bigger tracks everytime. Both are also very very commited to the music.
i) Best Remixer of the year on personal or others peoples tracks
Ville Lope: Marcus Schössow.
j) Best Established Label of the year
Ville Lope: I have to raise my hat for Black Hole Recordings. They have managed to build a good artist base and they seem to survive as a winner after Tiesto left the firm to pursue the pop star life. The quality sonic wise is always top notch, although I couldn't put my name on some of those dutch big room trancers.
k) Best Newborn in 2010 label of the year
Ville Lope: It's not a newborn label, but a smaller label that always seem to release music fitting my taste: Dangerbox Recordings.
l) Best promotional tool of the year(ie labelworx/fatdrop/releasecenter or others that you may use)
Ville Lope: Dropbox.com. No more need to upload to FTP servers, or use the hidious file transfer services like Yousendit or Sendspace.
m) Best dance album and mixed compilation of the year in the style of music that you work with…
Ville Lope: Miika Kuisma – Progress Of Soul. I strongly advice everyone to get a copy of this album. It's a journey more than anything else. Put the album on, take a comfortable position on the sofa and close your eyes. I guarantee you'll love the experience.
n) Best social network of the year that has been amazing for the promotion of your work
Ville Lope: Facebook. My promotion focuses mostly on Facebook. Everything syncs between my Facebook artist page and my website. Twitter is left aside of the sync though, but I'm an active user there too.
o) Best new software or hardware that you introduced in this year and you recommended it to others.
Ville Lope: Sylenth1. I use it for pretty much every lead and bass in my tracks. I haven't been looking for any additional synths after getting this.
p) Best and worst dj experience that happened to you in 2010
Ville Lope: Best: Check answer R. Worst: I was playing in a small city's small venue and they weren't so musically advanced.
q) Best country that you performed this year
Ville Lope: Finland. The scene is going up here, loads of new faces at the clubs.
r) Best club or open air festival that you attended or you even performed this year
Ville Lope: Fiksaatio: Fantasia. Vaasa, Finland. Huge party held at indoor spa. The event was huge and I was opening the mainstage.
s) Best hobby or other activity for 2010(game/movie/book/going to gym to keep fit or any other hobby )
Ville Lope: Floorball. I've been playing twice a week with friends. Good fun.
t) Best radio show of the year and Best radio station that you always check out(fm or online)preferably that plays the kind of your music
Ville Lope: I previously though podcasts would replace online radios soon, but we still need them. AH.fm seems to have solid artist page these days, and they've always been professional when I or someone I know have been in contact with them.
u) Best online or ordinary record shop that you use to get your music of the year
Ville Lope: Audiojelly & Beatport.
v) Best electronic dance music video of the year
Ville Lope: Tim Berg – Bromance (Avicii Arena Mix)
w) Best CD player or any other equipment that you use for djing
Ville Lope: Pioneer CDJ-2000 with SD cards! In 2011 I'm transferring to more towards digital Djing,
x) Best vocalist in a dance track of the year: n/a
y) Best magazine or web site that you always check out for music related stuff(releases and technical equipment)
Ville Lope: Computer Music (Magazine). I love their extra issues.
z) Best fan of your music of the year or best crowd in your performance(perhaps you don’t know the name but you can describe when you met or why you consider this person as your best fan of the year)
Ville Lope: Benizl has been an active fan & follower for a long time now. He often finds time to comment on my tracks, or Blog posts on Innotune etc. He always manages to be polite and seems to understand the way I think about music and things related to music.
Ville Lope: Subtraxx is consists now of now three labels, that takes a lot of my time, so I'd love to hear anything you think of the direction we're heading to.
I'm trying to be active and productive in the studio aswell, but I'm concentrating on quality over quantity now.
There's a big remix coming out in early 2011. I remixed a new vocal track for legendary Tilt to be released on Lost Language.
Dimitri: On the other side are the worst things of the year. Is it possible to tell us the track or album that you believe is the worst of the year and why?
Ville Lope: I rather focus on the positive things. There's loads of music done, I get a lot of demos sent in in weekly basis, and the worst stuff is filter out before hand. Some of the tracks we turn down are released on smaller labels. It's not always about the track not being good enough, it could also be about the track not being the right one for us.
Dimitri: Please give us your wishes for 2011 and your small piece of advice for anyone that reads this interview and love to get into music production or djing.
Ville Lope: Practise makes perfect. No one of your heroes are relying solely on talent or musical background, they have worked hard to gain their talent in producing or Djing. It takes time to be good, it takes more time to be even better. Take the plunge and commit to what ever feels right.
Djing is much more than playing Beatport's top 10 in some order. I challenge you to seek for new talents, tracks and releases by artists that aren't on the top 10/100 charts. You'll be amazed how much good music is released on small labels.
Many thanks to Marnik at Bonzai for helping to organize this interview
Additional info:
http://www.bonzaiprogressive.com/
Additional info:
http://www.villelope.com/
http://www.subtraxx.com/
www.facebook.com/villelope
www.Twitter.com/villelope
http://www.innotune.net/
