The “2020 was a hard year” is shared pretty much universally, and echoed by 1001tracklists in the opening sentence of their State Of Dance Music 2020 report. As one of the best sites for aggregating data on sets by any and all artists, 1001 has a unique perspective and insight into trends and popularity of songs in terms other than just pure streaming numbers.
One of the big effects of 2020 was more sets than ever — even with the absence of traditional festivals, live streams thrived and artists who typically wouldn’t or couldn’t get a slot at an in-person show were given a platform by various entities to showcase their talents. According to 1001, sets and mixes added to their platform this year were up 30% from last year. (Of course, this could also result from the ease of recording and analyzing live streamed sets versus traditional in-person sets.)
Overall, over 53,000 individual tracklists were added in 2020.
House dominated, with bass house commanding 14.4% of lists, traditional house coming next at 13.2%, and future house just below at 13%. Curiously, bass music didn’t even really make a dent, with dubstep, hardstyle, drum & bass, and other bass heavy styles seemingly grouped together in the “Other” category with 4.4%. Again, this could be due to the sheer amount of streams that artists like David Guetta, Diplo, and others put on that were pure house showcases.
You can view full breakdowns of top labels, radio shows, and even songs by genre here.