Track. Bomba. Tune. Tuerie. Riddim. Qanbula. Belter. Mina. These are the ways many of us describe the pieces of music at the foundation of our scene. But while the terms shift from place to place, the feelings electronic music evokes are universal. Many tracks touch your heart, others feed your mind. Some special tunes, like the 100 that defined last decade, manage to do both. These tunes soundtracked student nights and warehouse raves, afterhours and squat parties. You may have heard them surrounded by thousands of screaming ravers, or alone in your bedroom, deep into the night. Wherever they were played, these tracks touched millions.

Electronic music also became more global. Exciting scenes in Durban, Vancouver, Copenhagen and Kampala introduced sounds that travelled the world, twisting house, techno, electro and bass music into thrilling new forms. Some scenes looked to the past for inspiration, releasing vinyl-only EPs that stayed true to the sound of early pioneers. Others forged new ground, embracing the internet as a distribution tool. In doing so, many producers became less reliant on labels, breaking down the structures that had long dominated our scene. By self-releasing music online, there was a direct channel with listeners. The many artist-run labels, of which there are more than ever, did the same. Medium ceased to matter, as DJs went from digital to vinyl and back again, swapping laptops for turntables and turntables for CDJs.

These are the tracks that defined the last decade. The list, which was whittled down from a shortlist of hundreds, features house, techno, disco, minimal, ambient, drum & bass, dubstep, gqom and more, including some tracks that are impossible to classify. Whether produced in high-end studios or through decaying laptops overloaded with pirated software, this was the sound of the last ten years.

Listen to highlights from the definitive tracks of the 2010s on Spotify, Apple Music and Buy Music Club.

The Top 20:

- 2010
  Maya Jane Coles
  What They Say
  Real Tone Records
- Maya Jane Coles' breakthrough track, 2010's "What They Say," is a testament to the timeless charm of a catchy house organ riff. Its success sent her to the top of year-end lists and kicked off her global touring schedule, which included appearances at American EDM festivals like Electric Zoo. At the time, progressive trance and main-stage dubstep reigned in those settings, so Coles' presence there—as well as the response to her hit track—may have helped pave the runway for two major trends that took over those festivals within a few years. Both the dayglo style of big-room deep house and the spate of post-dubstep tracks with '90s-style hooks and pitched vocals bear traces of Coles' catchy and lush production on "What They Say."
  
  The pop industry invested directly in "What They Say" in 2014, when Nicki Minaj sampled its '90s-style hook on "Truffle Butter" featuring Drake and Lil Wayne. In the following years, more Top 40 hip-hop artists tapped underground club sounds (particularly UK or US garage permutations) for inspiration. Drake sampled Moodymann and flirted with English substyles like UK funky, grime and OG dubstep, while Kanye West sampled American house classics by Mr. Fingers and Hardrive on his 2016 single "Fade." None of which could have seemed possible at the beginning of the 2010s if tunes like "What They Say" didn't lead the charge.
  
  - Elissa Stolman
  
  Also on this list: Paranoid London - Paris Dub 1 / Willow - Feel Me
- 2010
  Head High
  It's A Love Thing (Piano Invasion)
  Power House
- What was your favourite revivalist trend of the 2010s? Jungle? '90s house? Breakbeat techno? How about UK rave and hardcore? If you ticked box three or four, you owe a lot to René Pawlowitz. As Head High, the artist also known as Shed created a warehouse-ready sound that paired '90s euphoria and exquisite sound design with slamming kick drums. As Pawlowitz once put it in an interview with Crack: "No sounds that are playing around, no effects, just 'boom-boom-boom.'"
  
  This simple yet seductive approach was at its best on "It's A Love Thing (Piano Invasion)," which appeared on the first Head High release in 2010. My word, it bangs. The thunderous drums, earworm vocal snatches and heavenly piano chords—even now, it all sounds totally fresh, the hallmark of truly timeless music. Its influence, too, can still be heard everywhere, from labels like Kulør, Ilian Tape and Lobster Theremin, to anyone who makes or plays techno embellished with piano riffs, rave stabs and chopped vocals. So here's another question for you: is Pawlowitz the most important club producer of the decade?
  
  - Carlos Hawthorn
  
  Also on this list: DVS1 - Black Russian / Stanislav Tolkachev - Sometimes Everything Is Wrong
- 2011
  Kassem Mosse
  Untitled
  Workshop
- "—ensuality," "—ensuality," "—ensuality," "—ensuality...." If you were going out much in winter of 2011, that creepy refrain, repeated again and again over a lurching, anvil-heavy kick, probably haunted you on the dance floor sooner or later. This was the untitled A-side of Workshop 12, a high point for both label (Workshop) and artist (Gunnar Wendel, AKA Kassem Mosse). Workshop are masters of the liminal vibe, releasing music for what its cofounders call "the many in-between situations" of a night out. Wendel, too, is most at home in this vague terrain—in his review of Workshop 12, Daniel Petry said he made the record as if from behind a screen, visible only in silhouette. This might be the closest thing to a club bomb either party has released (at least until Willow's "Feel Me" a few years later), but its power comes from the odd details that save it from that simple classification: the slight stumbles in its rhythm, the four-minute acapella tacked on at the end, but most of all, the surreal, unnerving darkness of its mood. Heard today, it's a reminder of the gloom that hung over so much house music at the beginning of the '10s, from Levon Vincent to DJ Qu to STL (the B1 of Workshop 12 is another lovely example of this sound). And yet, it's too far off in its own weird universe to sound like anything other than Kassem Mosse.
  
  - Will Lynch
  
  Also on this list: Steffi - Yours / Omar-S - Here's Your Trance, Now Dance!!
- 2011
  Rrose
  Waterfall
  EUAX
- At the beginning of the decade, Seth Horvitz thought he was done with dance music. After studying electronic music and recording media at Mills College in California, he was busy trying to work as a composer. But a meeting with the sound artist Bob Ostertag sparked a course of events that ultimately sent him back to techno, a form he'd previously worked with for at least a decade under the name Sutekh. A dance music skeptic, Ostertag would send Horvitz recordings he'd made on a Buchla 200e synthesiser, asking, "Is this techno? Would this make people dance?" Horvitz started working the stems into a techno framework, inspiring him to return to the form with ears freshly opened by years studying the minutiae of sound.
  
  "Waterfall" used that experience to turn techno into the audio equivalent of a Fraser spiral illusion. Using a tiny, half-bar-long snippet of audio recorded from the Razor softsynth, Rrose created a cascade of phantom sounds. What we hear isn't necessarily what's really happening. Things change so slowly that our perceptive systems are confused by the changes taking place. By the time the breakdown comes around, that little synth loop resembles an aeroplane taking off between our ears. "Waterfall" works within the tradition of finding worlds of change and complexity within a narrow field, but Rrose achieved a degree of finesse that manipulated our ears and brains in ways we're still struggling to understand.
  
  - Mark Smith
  
  Also on this list: Donato Dozzy - Cleo / Aurora Halal - Eternal Blue (Wata Igarashi Crossing Remix)
- 2012
  Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish
  Flowers
  Sound Signature
- The precociously talented Andrew Ashong would doubtless have made his way onto our radar eventually, but teaming up with mood-house maestro Theo Parrish for a debut 12-inch? Now that's impressive. A teenage crate-digger, born in South London to Ghanaian parents, Ashong had already flipped his love of vintage soul into a loose and psychedelic style of his own, following in the footsteps of funky outliers like Shuggie Otis. On "Flowers" he tied together a barely-there vocal harmony and a strung-out groove, floating along on the breeze. A jazz kit clattered gently in the distance, dabs of bass drop like stepping stones, and the whole homespun machinery seemed to be in perpetual motion, like a Fela Kuti all-nighter or, indeed, a Theo Parrish DJ set. South London's jazz scene had become a potent force by end of the decade; "Flowers" proves that this "nu" scene has deep roots.
  
  - Chal Ravens
  
  Also on this list: Thundercat - Them Changes / Floating Points - Nuits Sonores
- 2012
  Joy O
  Ellipsis
  Hinge Finger
- So many modern titans got their start in the heady days of post-dubstep. Back then, the UK's red-eyed soundsystem kids were finding fresh inspiration in the archives of house; every weekend seemed to bring a new anthem for this genre-crossing moment. Again and again, Joy Orbison was the name on the credits—and his tracks felt essential even after the typically long journey from Plastic People dance floor to Rinse FM radio rip to precious vinyl. Nearly a decade on, "Ellipsis" still kicks like a mule. Through pioneering a certain saucer-eyed rave nostalgia, Joy O set a template that lesser artists have spent years trying to emulate, but "Ellipsis" remains a cut above its imitators.
  
  Like any number of classic records, part of its charm lies in its naivety—the sound of a producer trying something he's not entirely familiar with, unsure of how it will work but eventually finding a novel route through his influences. Take a basic house skeleton (remembering that four-on-the-floor felt oddly radical at that point), splash in several waterlogged pianos and an endearingly simple sample from Source Direct's Phil Aslett ("We just used to like... do our own thing") and you're almost there. The magic ingredient? It must have something to with Joy O's longevity; since then he's done his time in techno, become a big tent festival staple, and revitalised his production career with a 2019 EP of R&B-inspired cuts. Like "Hyph Mngo" and "Sicko Cell," "Ellipsis" remains a tidy time capsule of an era that changed the course of dance music.
  
  - Chal Ravens
  
  Also on this list: Mosca - Bax / Objekt - Theme From Q
- 2012
  Fatima Al Qadiri
  Desert Strike
  Fade 2 Mind
- This past decade, many dance music producers used their work to get critical. From the very beginnings of her career, Fatima Al Qadiri, an experimental artist born in Senegal, raised in Kuwait and now based in New York, has been one of the scene's most explicitly conceptual voices. "Music is an abstraction," the producer said on her 2018 RA Exchange. "I try to fill it with this story, with this narrative, with these concerns. With this love, and with this kind of anxiety about decolonizing the mind."
  
  One of Al Qadiri's most vivid and complex stories is also her most personal. It belongs to her second EP, 2012's Desert Strike. The music is inspired by a surreal, twofold experience: first, living through the Gulf War (the artist was nine when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990), and later, replaying that trauma through a video game inspired by the war, Sega Mega Drive's Desert Strike. On the EP's title track, Al Qadiri translated this into an equally strange hybrid of grime and bass music, glazed over with an early '90s-style digital sheen. Hitting as hard as it haunted, it helped carve the way for bolder ideas not only from Al Qadiri, but experimental club music at large.
  
  - Steph Lee
  
  Also on this list: Mssingno - XE2 / Oneohtrix Point Never - Chrome Country
- 2012
  Todd Terje
  Inspector Norse
  Smalltown Supersound
- One night at Robert Johnson, sometime in 2012, a DJ, struggling through a deep house set that just wouldn't take off, made a drastic move: he reached for "Inspector Norse." This made zero sense based on what he'd been playing so far, but no one cared—as if on cue, there were whistles and hands in the air as soon as that cartoon bassline strutted in. Such was the power of Todd Terje's hit, a club anthem whose sheer addictiveness has not been matched since. Many people already knew it by the time it was released—DJs had been playing it for months by then—and throughout that year it received shamelessly regular club play. Somehow, though, it lost none of its luster, feeling like a treat every time. Since then, dance music fragmented in a way that's prevented any single track from being so broadly loved. That's a good thing overall—it shows a greater breadth of sounds are finding their audience. But there is something special about the unifying factor of the proverbial club anthem, and few deliver the warmth of shared experience as well as "Inspector Norse." Whenever it faded into the mix, often near the end of the night, it seemed to congratulate everyone in the room, as if to say, "Yep, you did it, you are here, in this moment, with these people, having an absolutely badass time, throwing your hands in the air to the most carefree melody ever written. Go you."
  
  - Will Lynch
  
  Also on this list: Powder - New Tribe / Eris Drew - Hold Me (T4T Embrace Mix)
- 2012
  Andrés
  New For U
  La Vida
- RA's number one track of 2012, Andrés' "New For U" was an unarguable anthem from that year alongside Todd Terje's "Inspector Norse." When this track landed, Andrés was not at all new to the game—he'd released a solid body of work on Moodymann's Mahogani and KDJ labels, played percussion in Theo Parrish's Rotating Assembly project, and toured as a member of Slum Village—but "New For U" was the first 12-inch on his own label, La Vida. It was a prime example of sampling magic, and proof of how a DIY operation can give rise to a global hit. This was masterful MPC use, throwing together a short string riff from Dexter Wansel's "Time Is The Teacher," a couple of electric piano notes, a tight percussive drum loop and playful bass grooves. You can hear Philly International disco vibes from the '70s, stripped-down Chicago deep house from the '80s, and the art of sampling from '90's golden-era hip-hop. Andrés intentionally (or intuitively) condensed this lineage into one timeless jam.
  
  - Yuko Asanuma
  
  Also on this list: The Mole - Lockdown Party (DJ Sprinkles' Crossfaderama) / AceMo - Where They At??
- 2013
  Mari Kvien Brunvoll
  Everywhere You Go (Villalobos Everywhere You Go Celestial Voice Resurrection Mix)
  Jazzland Recordings
- The marathon sessions in Ricardo Villalobos's Berlin studio have resulted in some of minimal's most stunning tracks. Thanks to a live approach, which is a bit like a surreal one-man-band, the individual recordings Villalobos pulls from his extensive modular setup are usually over 30 minutes long. But because those tracks are destined for a vinyl-only release, there's rarely space for the full recordings. As such, listeners are left with only a snippet of a much larger whole, usually selected by the label owner.
  
  Villalobos's 2013 remix of Mari Kvien Brunvoll's "Everywhere You Go" was the closest most of us will get to hearing one of those pieces in full. In addition to a vinyl release, which remains one of Villalobos's most sought-after records, a full, 28-minute version was given a special release by Jazzland Recordings, the Norwegian label that released the original track. Even by Villalobos's high standards, it's spellbinding. A spacey voice hovers above the rolling groove, the energy rising and falling as layers of ghostly atmosphere are added and stripped away. There are passages of calm and chaos, light and dark, combining for the decade's most powerful remix, a masterstroke from an artist who remains one of electronic music's essential voices.
  
  - Matt Unicomb
  
  Also on this list: Sakro - No Time To Explain / Matthew Herbert - It's Only (DJ Koze Remix)
- 2013
  Tessela
  Hackney Parrot
  Poly Kicks
- In 2017, the Poly Kicks label wrote a neat summary of (probably) its biggest release. "Originally released in 2013, Hackney Parrot has had enduring success and over the past few years has been played by nearly all the DJs." There's some truth to that. "Hackney Parrot" was the breakbeat heard around the world. This was during the high-tide of UK dance music's early 2010s zeitgeist, when shuddering rhythms and pitched vocals on tracks were ubiquitous. "Hackney Parrot" stood out because it brought in a big, booming, cavernous breakbeat.
  
  Of course, Tessela wasn't the first of his contemporaries to work with breakbeats. Artists like Special Request and Pearson Sound also used them, and in a similar way—but none of their breaky tracks became a juggernaut to rival "Hackney Parrot." While others referenced juke, footwork, dubstep or (in the case of tracks like Joy O's other 2012 megahit, "Ellipsis") UK garage, Tessela channeled the bombast of rave, jungle and hardcore. In retrospect, this makes "Hackney Parrot" feel more significant because it portended future trends in a way other tracks of its size didn't.
  
  - Elissa Stolman
  
  Also on this list: Demdike Stare - Patchwork / DJ Rashad - Let It Go
- 2013
  SOPHIE
  Bipp
  Numbers
- SOPHIE, simply, made music like nobody else this decade. On January 1st, 2010, could you reasonably have put "Bipp" and "Is It Cold In The Water?" next to one another and convinced someone that they not only came from the same source, but that source would be one of the most beloved and influential musicians of the next ten years? What's doubly heartening about SOPHIE is that as she got weirder, she got more powerful. It's to her credit that "Bipp," so dumbfounding in 2013, now comes off as a little tame after you've been trampled under the hooves of "Ponyboy."
  
  Go and listen to "Bipp" again, though. Perhaps you had your fill of the bouncy castle a while ago, sore with rubber burns and light-headed from all the Zero-G action, but one more round won't hurt. For this to become legitimately popular, a muse for McDonalds and Madonna alike, is outrageous. SOPHIE guided electronic music through progressively more colourful and chaotic spaces—past cartoon trap and soaring torch songs and cripplingly heavy industrial and EDM helium balloons that couldn't stop rising—all blooming exclusively from her fantastical imagination. Once the reflexive need to rationalise it subsided, a realisation dawned. This is exactly what everyone bemoans a lack of: a genuinely new sound. "Bipp" wasn't the beginning of SOPHIE, but it was the beginning of SOPHIE's reign.
  
  - Gabriel Szatan
  
  Also on this list: MMM - Nous Sommes MMM / DJ Lag - Ice Drop
- 2013
  Paula Temple
  Colonized
  R&S Records
- In the early '10s, UK techno got its groove back. Thanks to a fresh wave of artists—Perc, Blawan, Truss—putting an exciting twist on a classic style, the world's attention refocussed away from Germany and the so-called "Berghain sound" and towards producers across the English Channel. The resurgence also coaxed one talented Sheffield artist, Paula Temple, out of hibernation, a state she'd been in since giving up techno in 2006 as the minimal movement was taking hold. "Colonized," her comeback track, was the best of this thrilling new sound. A blend of violent percussion and whirring synths, this five-minute assault put Temple back at the forefront of techno, where she remains seven years later.
  
  Everything about "Colonized" hits hard, thanks to Temple's meticulous approach to percussion. Every element, from the offbeat drum hits to the zapping synths, feels obsessed over, products of a perfectionist with deep knowledge of what moves dance floors. Released in 2013, "Colonized" was a sign of things to come, as more techno producers turned to hard, industrial-sized sounds, the style becoming tougher by the year. Temple would contribute a handful of excellent tracks to this movement, but none captured her sound better than this one, a blistering slice of industrial techno that still hits like a wrecking ball today.
  
  - Matt Unicomb
  
  Also on this list: Dopplereffekt - Tetrahymena / Factory Floor - Two Different Ways (Perc Remix)
- 2014
  Mumdance & Novelist
  Take Time
  Rinse Recordings
- In the summer of 2014, Mumdance and Novelist had everything to prove. Mumdance, in his early 30s, was jaded from a stint in the spotlight on Diplo's Mad Decent, cycling through modes to figure out what felt right again. As for the 17-year-old Novelist, his bone-dry wit and fast-jabbing freestyles had been an outsider's pursuit; for lyricists like him, chart cash-ins were the order of the day. But in a flash, it all changed. Meridian Dan's "German Whip" and Skepta & JME's "That's Not Me" kicked down the door, and it was open season for a new wave who had waited to be taken seriously. "Take Time," penned in just three hours at Mumdance's gaff sometime in late 2013, crackles with the energy that defined grime at that moment. Novelist surveys the scene around him, one eyebrow quizzically raised, decrying poseurs in his midst—with a little nod to Dizzee Rascal's "Stop Dat," too—over a spartan backbeat that Mumdance likened to aural fireworks.
  
  The track signposted what came next. An emboldened Mumdance would carry on making icy instrumentals, prying the depths of negative space, reintegrating breakbeats, getting his black-metal shred on, and coming up with some of the most out-there dance floor weapons of the decade's second half. By January 2015, Novelist had signed a new record to XL and was shoulder-to-shoulder with Kanye and a whole cohort of grime greats at the BRITs—which would come as no surprise to anyone who watched him command the stage at a year-capping Just Jam takeover at The Barbican. Or anyone who heard "Take Time," and instinctively learned to trust the alarmingly talented new MC with his head screwed on.
  
  - Gabriel Szatan
  
  Also on this list: Skepta - That's Not Me feat. JME / SHYGIRL - BB
- 2014
  Jack J
  Something (On My Mind)
  Mood Hut
- A gently rocking bassline, warbly keyboards, a saxophone that sounds like it's played with a sigh—sinking into "Something (On My Mind)"'s ten minutes is like daydreaming on a boat far out in the Pacific Ocean, gently bobbing up and down with the waves. Jack J's solo debut was the track that broke what came to be known as the Vancouver sound, a Canadian Riviera movement that hotboxed house music in the name of all things chill. These records couldn't help but be inspired by where they came from: sandy beaches, coniferous forest, candlelit loft parties and clouds of pot smoke, all of which came to life on Jack Jutson's unassuming anthem.
  
  The success of Mood Hut changed the sound of dance music in Vancouver and beyond, inspiring plenty of imitators. "Something (On My Mind)" outlined everything that was special about this movement. There was a focus on musicality and live instrumentation—Jutson and his partner in the Pender Street Steppers, Liam Butler, were both in a rock band called No Gold before they switched gears—a touch of dusty disco, the sound palette of obscure Canadian synth funk and a relaxed pace inspired by old New Age records. Mood Hut made Vancouver sound like the chillest city on the planet, and "Something (On My Mind)" still feels revelatory, unbothered and innocent. Who wouldn't want to ride that vibe for a while?
  
  - Andrew Ryce
  
  Also on this list: DJ Metatron - Oh Ah / Bookworms - African Rhythms
- 2014
  Shinichi Atobe
  Butterfly Effect
  DDS
- It's easy to scan dance music in 2014 and ask: why so chill? There was a rare patience for slowly-cresting music to take centre stage, a break to breathe after a deluge of manic bass hits, and before a heel turn into all things hard and fast. Shinichi Atobe's Butterfly Effect was the refined work caught between these cycles, existing out of time and place. Its relation to any trends is anachronistic: Atobe might have done the album in one go after a night stomping to a ruthless Ken Ishii set. Or it could have been an incremental process taking the full 13 years after his last release, 2001's Ship-Scope. One day we suddenly had a new-not-new clutch of stately dub techno, crystalline deep house and arid soundscapes—tracked down by Demdike Stare from an apparently dormant producer living in Saitama, Japan—with a golden closer, "Butterfly Effect," that seemed to groove along endlessly.
  
  On "Butterfly Effect," Shinichi Atobe made a big shout using his indoor voice. It is an oasis of calm, the ultimate healer. Every part, from the peals of digital synth to the subaquatic kick, felt soothing. Ultimately we don't know how it was made, or pretty much anything about its maker, and it's likely we never will. In a field of cash-grabs and endlessly picked-over DJs, there is something pure and appealing about a myth we can't bust, a mid-tempo number exuding powerful magnetism. The enduring fact is this: "Butterfly Effect" felt classic upon arrival, and so it has maintained.
  
  - Gabriel Szatan
  
  Also on this list: Machine Woman - Camile From OHM Makes Me Feel Loved / Mr. Fingers - Qwazars
- 2015
  Kelela
  Rewind
  Warp Records
- While she was piecing together her 2015 hit, "Rewind," Kelela said, "I had the intention to make a Miami-bass inspired song that gave me butterflies, or that made me feel romance, but something light and fun." To accomplish this, she enlisted five producers from the underground: Obey City, Girl Unit, Kingdom, Nugget and Ariel Rechtshaid. She recalled a feeling of lament when she first heard that sustained, aquatic melody, but she wasn't sure what to make of it. The answer surfaced when her best friend described a long-winded missed encounter with a girl she had been pursuing the night before. "When she told me that," she said, "I was like... that's so rich. And we just pursued the idea." The upshot was an atmospheric, glacier-cold R&B track that gave nods to the So So Def Bass All-Stars heydays.
  
  At the track's apex, the chords are muted and Kelela's voice pivots to a rap-talk as she exposes her most vulnerable reflections, "This ain't a mystery / I'm tryin' to keep my cool / You standing next to me / I'm about to break the rules / Turn my head to the right / now I'm looking for you." Enveloped by subterranean synths, her saccharine falsetto whispers through the dark—here she comes off both flirtatious and regretful. And then suddenly, the chorus swoops back in, and it's like we're hearing it all again for the first time. Obscuring the borders between dance music, R&B and pop, this single signified a darker approach to R&B that felt subversive in 2015.
  
  - Kiana Mickles
  
  Also on this list: The Galleria - Calling Card / Yaeji - Raingurl
- 2016
  Avalon Emerson
  The Frontier
  Whities
- The year before "The Frontier" came out, Avalon Emerson had a busy, but not overwhelming, touring schedule. That all changed after the release of "The Frontier" in 2016, the record that helped to transform her from an underground up-and-comer to a top-tier DJ. Its peculiar synth voice—something like an erhu crooning a prairie folk song in a Western scale over rumbling drums—hit the spot of emotive techno with a heavy dose of personal flair.
  
  This track was distinctive on the basis of its songwriting and synth voice, so it didn't really provide others with a replicable formula. You'd have to write just as strong of a melody in order to emulate "The Frontier." Increasingly, big tunes seem to come from already-established producers or they get a lot of play within a specific sub-scene, and thus don't push an artist from small clubs all the way to main stages. In some senses that makes it a dying breed: a hit record with the power to propel a new artist on a path to the top.
  
  - Elissa Stolman
  
  Also on this list: Pearson Sound - XLB / upsammy - Another Place
- 2017
  Lanark Artefax
  Touch Absence
  Whities
- As the decade wore on, more and more club producers opted to directly embrace the era's computational possibilities. Though each artist did this differently, the results elicited similar descriptions: high-definition, hi-tech, hyperreal. "Touch Absence" may be the enduring anthem of this virtual-reality sound, a successor to acts like Gescom and AFX. While not as obviously complex as tracks like AYA's "That Hyde Trakk" or much of what Objekt makes, it felt unique in its evocation of a technological sublime. Tactile thwacks, perfume-mist synth pads and seraphic choral harmonies gave "Touch Absence" an unblinking awe, the kind that might precede alien abduction. Its contrasts of the physical and the ethereal—chewy bass drum distortions, halo-rimmed tones—only enhanced its mystique.
  
  In the months surrounding "Touch Absence"'s release, a breakbeat mix of that cut and other Lanark Artefax tracks were being played out by Aphex Twin. His DJ sets in 2017 were a big deal, given his absence from festival stages in the years prior, and the race to fastidiously ID every moment of his performances produced an aftershock effect. Whereas some producers basked in the glow of this co-sign, others saw a one-man cottage industry that didn’t exactly chime with rave’s idealised values of information dissemination and communality. In Lanark Artefax's case, it's telling that the impact of his music felt disconnected from this chatter. He was already up and away. If anything, it felt the other way around: well done AFX for slotting such a natural descendent of his future-mulching aesthetic into his oeuvre. He recognised the brilliance of "Touch Absence" straight out the gate, as we all did.
  
  - Ray Philp
  
  Also on this list: Slikback - Ascension / Burial - Loner
- 2019
  Schacke
  Kisloty People
  Kisloty
- Towards the end of the decade, techno fans fell back in love with vocals. It may contrast sharply with the years of stripped down, minimal styles that came before it, but this renewed interest shouldn't be a surprise. To some degree, crowd-pleasing DJing has always been about playing "the hits." What can rile up the dance floor more than a catchy melody?
  
  Samples of t.A.T.u., Britney Spears and Robin S. became techno, donk and breakbeat edits, a fresh wave of DJ weaponry that was as silly as it was slamming. But Danish producer Martin Schacke wrote the biggest vocal anthem to emerge in the past few years. His "Kisloty People," coming out through St. Petersburg label Клуб ("Club"), was not only 2019's song of the summer but RA's Track Of The Year, a cut of fast and colorful techno overlaid with hyperactive Russian pop. Schacke samples a hook from Акула's 2001 Europop hit "Кислотный DJ" ("acid DJ"). Out of the perky Russian chorus a few English words pop through: "people," "music," "love." In this way, "Kisloty People" taps into the blissed out ecstasy that's always been at clubbing's core, but reinterpreted with fresh personality.
  
  - Steph Lee
  
  Also on this list: India Jordan - DN4 / PTU - A Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day

The wider 100

Here's 80 more tracks that defined the 2010s.

- 2010
- Tensnake
  Coma Cat
  Permanent Vacation
  
  This glorious tune, with its nod to Anthony & The Camp and "Can I get get" refrain, is scorched into the minds of a generation of clubbers who came of age at the decade's start.
- 2010
- Addison Groove
  Footcrab
  Swamp 81
  
  Immensely satisfying hits of undistilled TR-808 meet a vocal that does what it says on the tin, deliriously, over and over again.
- 2010
- Emmanuel Jal
  Kuar (Henrik Schwarz / Olof Dreijer Remix)
  Innervisions
  
  A Sudanese singer and activist's call to vote in an election symbolizing the end of a war in which he'd been a child solider, remixed into surreal party-rockers by Henrik Schwarz and Olof Dreijer of The Knife—with this one, Innervisions outdid themselves.
- 2010
- James Blake
  CMYK
  R&S Records
  
  Before James Blake was hobnobbing with R&B superstars, he made weird, insanely catchy dubstep.

- 2010
- MMM
  Nous Sommes MMM
  MMM
  
  Errorsmith and Fiedel's twisted take on stadium-sized rave music—if only the big beasts of EDM had taken cues from MMM instead of Steve Aoki.
- 2010
- Joe
  Claptrap
  Hessle Audio
  
  The originality of modern UK dance music, crystalised.
- 2010
- Robyn
  Dancing On My Own
  Konichiwa Records
  
  An instant classic from the moment it hit the airwaves, the Swedish electropop star's irrepressible end-of-the-night anthem will live in the pantheon of sad bangers forevermore.
- 2010
- Gregory Porter
  1960 What? (Opolopo Kick & Bass Rerub)
  Expansion
  
  Standing out through a sea of pedestrian edits at the time, this robust slice of house jostles with all the heart, vibrancy and craftsmanship of a soul smash from its namesake year.
- 2010
- Icicle
  Minimal Funk
  Shogun Audio
  
  The sound of drum & bass dance floors in 2010.
- 2010
- Art Department
  Without You
  Crosstown Rebels
  
  Welcome to the vampire nightclub, a netherworld soundtracked by Kenny Glasgow and Jonny White's spooky tech house smash.
- 2010
- Girl Unit
  Wut
  Night Slugs
  
  Play this to any Night Slugs detractor and watch their world turn upside down.

- 2011
- Steffi
  Yours feat. Virginia
  Ostgut Ton
  
  Ostgut Ton's greatest love song, a pumping house tune that dragged us to the dance floor, again and again.
- 2011
- Tin Man
  Nonneo
  Absurd Recordings
  
  A slo-mo acid groove from the master of the style, perfect for warm-up sets and half-empty dance floors.

- 2011
- Omar-S
  Here's Your Trance, Now Dance!!
  FXHE Records
  
  In the 2010s, Omar-S released albums called The Best and It Can Be Done But Only I Can Do it—when you make tracks like this, you can flex as much as you want.
- 2011
- Grimes
  Vanessa
  Arbutus Records
  
  The clear standout from Grimes' early EPs, this crystalline whir of bedroom enchantment was a warning shot that the Canadian was about to reshape electronic pop in her image.
- 2011
- Julio Bashmore
  Battle For Middle You
  PMR Records
  
  This anthem took the Dirtybird sound, chucked in some rave stabs and set every dance floor in the UK on fire.

- 2011
- Stanislav Tolkachev
  Sometimes Everything Is Wrong
  Subsist
  
  The apocalypse has never sounded so good.
- 2011
- Levon Vincent
  Man Or Mistress
  Novel Sound
  
  Let this snake-charming synth draw you down the rabbit hole, the standout melody in a catalogue full of them.

- 2011
- Mosca
  Bax
  Numbers
  
  The sample that goes, "My DJ is live in the place," isn't even the silliest thing in Mosca's casual masterpiece, a track that gently pokes fun at bassline and UK garage while reminding us that they're two of the best genres in existence.

- 2012
- FunkinEven & Fatima
  Phone Line
  Eglo
  
  Sometimes it just comes together—mutant, retrofuturist funk, a massive chorus, a perfect video and a synth that sounds like a busy signal.
- 2012
- Blawan
  Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage
  Hinge Finger
  
  Before Blawan's slick modular experiments, he released this morbid singalong, a club bomb that helped bring UK techno roaring back to life.
- 2012
- Burial
  Loner
  Hyperdub
  
  Of Burial's many attempts to break the Burial myth in 2010s, switching the rave strobes on with "Loner" still leaves hairs raised and heads swimming.

- 2012
- Factory Floor
  Two Different Ways (Perc Remix)
  DFA Records
  
  A club destroyer from a producer whose thundering productions ushered in a new age for UK techno, where industrial-sized sounds met churning grooves.

- 2012
- Paranoid London
  Paris Dub 1 feat. Paris Brightledge
  Paranoid London Records
  
  For years Paris Brightledge's timeworn voice on "Paris Dub 1" drew cheers on every dance floor where it was dropped—which was, essentially, all of them.

- 2012
- Bookworms
  African Rhythms
  L.I.E.S.
  
  Inspired by San Francisco's lo-fi punk outfit Mi Ami and first knocked out in rough on a MPC 1000, Bookworms' amalgam of snaking drums, echoed chants and dripping synths sounds just as revelatory today as it did back in 2012.
- 2012
- Matthew Herbert
  It's Only (DJ Koze Remix)
  Pampa
  
  This wispy house gem was everything you'd hope for from an interaction between sample-twisting brainiacs DJ Koze and Matthew Herbert.
- 2013
- Xosar
  The Calling
  Rush Hour
  
  Like its clever video, this rolling, jazzy house track had us drifting into space.

- 2013
- The Mole
  Lockdown Party (DJ Sprinkles' Crossfaderama)
  Perlon
  
  Sprinkles' 12-minute "Crossfaderama" manages to encompass the stripped-down Perlon aesthetic, classic house, fader tricks and avant collage—a winning approach that was like catnip for dance floors at all hours.
- 2013
- Floorplan
  Never Grow Old
  M-Plant
  
  Hammered to within an inch of its life, this Aretha Franklin-sampling smash was a favourite of DJ Bone, Ricardo Villalobos and many more.

- 2013
- FKA twigs
  Water Me
  Young Turks
  
  The most affecting twigs song of the decade is the simplest, with a backing track that sounds like a melted "O Superman" and one of the most stunning lyrics in a catalogue full of striking turns of phrase: "He told me I was so small / I told him, water me."
- 2013
- DJ Rashad
  Let It Go
  Hyperdub
  
  What might be considered footwork's equivalent to "Strings Of Life," this emotional roller is a testament to how far DJ Rashad had come, and how much further he could have gone.

- 2013
- Mssingno
  XE2
  Goon Club Allstars
  
  Instantly omnipresent, "XE2" was the radiant debut that placed MssingNo among the artists who defined the essence of 2013's sonic world: emotive R&B hooks imaginatively reshaped into tender instrumental grime tracks.

- 2013
- Dopplereffekt
  Tetrahymena
  Leisure System
  
  The iciest track in a catalogue that emphasizes the cold detachment of technology, "Tetrahymena" was a career highlight for Michaela To-Nhan Bertel and Gerald Donald.
- 2013
- Jai Paul
  Jasmine
  XL Recordings
  
  The enigmatic Jai Paul might have made a career out of mostly leaked material, but his fusion of pop and lo-fi funk on "Jasmine" signaled a new wave of chilled-out alternative electronic music in the early '10s.

- 2013
- So Inagawa
  Logo Queen
  Cabaret Recordings
  
  Lush, warm and driving, So Inagawa drew from deep house's past to craft this perfect late-night groover.

- 2013
- Oneohtrix Point Never
  Chrome Country
  Warp Records
  
  Drifting dopamine clouds of synths, uncanny choral voices and the most righteous organ solo in human history combine to make the Sistine Chapel of net music.
- 2014
- Amadou et Mariam
  Ce N'est Pas Bon (JD Twitch Edit)
  Autonomous Africa
  
  A favoured weapon of Hunee, Antal and the like, this edit took Amadou et Mariam's original and sprinkled it with some Optimo dance floor magic.
- 2014
- Boy Harsher
  Pain
  Nude Club
  
  Boy Harsher's smash-and-grab synth-pop focuses on the thin line between love and hate, and on this 2014 single, their knack for a seething, insistent chorus was on full display.

- 2014
- Floating Points
  Nuits Sonores
  Eglo
  
  In a decade where it felt like Sam Shepherd could do it all, "Nuits Sonores" still felt like a milestone, sounding a bit like Herbie Hancock trying his hand at trance.

- 2014
- K-Hand
  Do It Again
  Dockside Records
  
  Two decades into her career, The First Lady Of Detroit showed she can still work up a killer house groove.

- 2014
- DVS1
  Black Russian
  Klockworks
  
  An instantly recognisable chord progression made this an emotional high-point of techno sets for years.

- 2014
- DJ Metatron
  Oh Ah
  Traumprinz
  
  Cosmic arps, momentous pads, a solemn sense of wonderment—with "Oh Ah," the artist best known as Traumprinz and Prince Of Denmark perfected the transcendent mood so much of his music aimed for.

- 2014
- Skepta
  That's Not Me feat. JME
  Boy Better Know
  
  Armed with a video that cost £80 and a point to prove, the Adenuga brothers instantly changed the narrative around grime and kicked off the movement's staggeringly successful second act.

- 2015
- Willow
  Feel Me
  Workshop
  
  The introduction to Willow's wonderful world, where twisted vocals and hazy chords entwined with a stoned house groove.
- 2015
- Demdike Stare
  Patchwork
  Modern Love
  
  The bizarrely banging highlight of Demdike's celebrated Testpressing series was an unlikely marriage of UK garage and anything-goes experimentation.

- 2015
- DJ Fett Burger & Jayda G
  NYC Party Track
  Freakout Cult
  
  By taking the strutting bassline from G.Q.'s "Disco Nights" and adding a nightcruising riff, a police siren and the best cowbell this side of DFA Records, Jayda G and DJ Fett Burger laid down a cool cut for lounges and lofts alike.
- 2015
- Dominica
  Gotta Let You Go (Bicep Remix)
  N/A
  
  Legal issues might have prevented an official release, but Bicep's muscular update of a mid-'90s organ house tune will live on in road-trip playlists, peak-time euphoria and first-tinny-of-summer infamy for years to come.

- 2015
- Skeptical
  Imperial
  Exit Records
  
  Surgical 175 BPM rollidge, precision-tuned to steamroll the dance.

- 2015
- The Galleria feat. Jessy Lanza
  Calling Card
  Environ Records
  
  With razor-sharp production from Morgan Geist meeting a quintessentially Lanzian tale of jilted love, you could have mistaken "Calling Card" for a lost freestyle anthem from Miami circa 1986—and you'd at least be right about the anthem part.
- 2015
- Thundercat
  Them Changes
  Brainfeeder
  
  What happens when The Isley Brothers and Parliament/Funkadelic get together, switch on a lava lamp, and excavate the darker corners of their minds.
- 2015
- Sami Baha x Rihanna
  Bitch Better Have My Money (Total Freedom Edit)
  Self-released
  
  An edit of an edit is a very Total Freedom thing to do, but what's even more Total Freedom about this unbelievable track is its signature of violence and grace, the powder-keg energy kept in check by a sexy swing.

- 2016
- Mr. Fingers
  Qwazars
  Alleviated Records
  
  Sci-fi synth work, lyrics about the cosmos and those inimitable Mr. Fingers chords—three decades into his career, living legend Larry Heard showed us another side of his artistry.

- 2016
- Pearson Sound
  XLB
  Pearson Sound
  
  David Kennedy has tried his hand at—and aced—a frankly silly amount of different sounds in the past ten years, but this wall-melting techno bullet continues to draw gasps when it's played out.
- 2016
- Onur
  Nomadie
  Time Passages
  
  Drawing from electro and techno, this track captured the brain-scrambling neo-minimal sound Onur Özer helped shape.

- 2016
- Sir Spyro, Lady Chann, Teddy Bruckshot
  Topper Top
  Deep Medi Musik
  
  Like the second coming of "Skeng," each verse of this guaranteed rave shutter-downer is packed with unique character and the whole thing goes off like dynamite.
- 2016
- Carla dal Forno
  Fast Moving Cars
  Blackest Ever Black
  
  A highlight from the Australian's debut LP You Know What It's Like, "Fast Moving Cars" was at once a call for adventurousness and a model of aching stillness.
- 2016
- Abra
  Crybaby
  True Panther Sounds
  
  With about 30 different hooks packed into five minutes, Abra rode the contours of her stripped-back and irresistible bedroom R&B.

- 2017
- Sakro
  No Time To Explain
  raum...musik
  
  Minimal house doesn’t have many massive anthems, but this floor-wrecker from Mexico was one of them.

- 2017
- Machine Woman
  Camile From OHM Makes Me Feel Loved
  Technicolour
  
  It may have only taken her five minutes to make, but with those grinding drums and swirling, romantic chords, Machine Woman's 2017 hit feels timeless.
- 2017
- Objekt
  Theme From Q
  Objekt
  
  TJ Hertz, master of intricate rhythms, let his hair down to make one of the decade's catchiest and most ubiquitous bangers.

- 2017
- Bullion
  Blue Pedro
  The Trilogy Tapes
  
  Whether you had "mid-tempo sea-shanty house jig" on the cards for 2017 or not, we got it anyway—and it hasn't stopped making us grin since.

- 2017
- Violet
  Togetherness
  Naive
  
  Violet's breakout track was sunny house with a sprinkling of breakbeat, the perfect representation both her and her label, Naive.
- 2017
- DJ Lag
  Ice Drop
  Goon Club Allstars
  
  DJ Lag's sleek, hammering gqom made him one of the genre's first idols, and "Ice Drop," with its clever use of space and swing—and colossal stabs—was his first anthem.

- 2017
- PTU
  A Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day
  Trip
  
  The sound of a computer eating itself, the weirdo Russian act's techno version of total system meltdown.

- 2017
- Yaeji
  Raingurl
  Godmode
  
  Not many house tracks can inspire a festival's worth of people to sing along at the top of their lungs, but not many producers are like Yaeji, whose groovy beats and deadpan hooks made her a bona fide pop star.
- 2017
- Pharmakon
  Transmission
  Sacred Bones Records
  
  Confrontational, cathartic and powerfully raw, on "Transmission" Pharmakon forced us to face our deepest fears; as she told RA in 2017, "When you're a human facing the human condition, your own mortality… that is terrifying."
- 2017
- Kara-Lis Coverdale
  Moments In Love
  Boomkat Editions
  
  Sometimes a loop can feel like everything, encapsulating the pain and joy of being alive. The concluding movement off the Montreal composer's breakthrough EP Grafts was one of those loops.

- 2018
- upsammy
  Another Place
  Nous'klaer Audio
  
  A barnstorming meld of morphing synths, welting kicks and a metronomic triangle, "Another Place" is the peak of both upsammy and parent label Nous'klaer Audio's fine catalogues to date.

- 2018
- LSDXOXO
  Death Rattle
  Self-released
  
  Mr. Vegas's "Heads High" never sounded better than when LSDXOXO gave it a Baltimore Club beat and '90s house synths on his pivotal mixtape, BODY MODS.
- 2018
- DJ Lilocox
  Fronteiras
  Príncipe
  
  Batida grooves for balmy summer nights from the Lisbon artist's excellent debut EP.

- 2018
- Donato Dozzy
  Cleo
  Eerie Records
  
  Techno so tender it gave you goosebumps.
- 2018
- DJ Call Me
  Marry Me
  Highlife
  
  DJ Call Me's sickly sweet Eurodance-kwaito hybrid took six years to make it from South Africa to the rest of the world, but its simple pleasures are timeless and universal.
- 2018
- Eris Drew
  Hold Me (T4T Embrace Mix)
  Naive
  
  Eris Drew's DJing and production hinges on a type of old-school dance music worship that she's made into a lifestyle. "Hold Me" is its anthem.

- 2018
- Slikback
  Ascension
  Hakuna Kulala
  
  As the decade drew to a close, the Kenyan artist Slickback emerged at the forefront of a new generation of club producers from East Africa—and in "Ascension," he had a genuine floor-filler.
- 2019
- Marie Davidson
  Work It (Soulwax Remix)
  Ninja Tune
  
  This festival smash that gave DJs another way to sneak Outlander's "Vamp" into their sets.

- 2019
- India Jordan
  DN4
  Local Action
  
  This standout from India Jordan's jaw-dropping debut EP captures their dual strengths—building a head-swirling atmosphere and ravey warped synths that burrow deep—in one urgent belter you'll desperately need to listen to over and over again.
- 2019
- Aurora Halal
  Eternal Blue (Wata Igarashi Crossing Remix)
  Mutual Dreaming Recordings
  
  Two of the decade's most psychedelic techno artists crossed paths on this mind-bending masterpiece: a propulsive powerhouse of spiralling arpeggios set to take any dance floor to another universe.

- 2019
- AceMo & John FM
  Where They At ? ? ?
  Self-released
  
  That instantly recognizable "Show Me Love" bassline, coupled with a subtle jungle breakbeat and John FM shouting out butch girls and equal pay, made AceMo's "Where They At ? ? ?" nearly inescapable on Brooklyn dance floors.
- 2019
- SHYGIRL
  BB
  NUXXE
  
  Every member of the NUXXE crew makes eye-opening leftfield club, pop and hip-hop, and SHYGIRL is their queen bee, as the urgent, intoxicating rapidfire rapping of "BB" attests.

- 2019
- Powder
  New Tribe
  Beats in Space Records
  
  Powder's knack for crafting hypnotic dance tracks reached new heights on "New Tribe," which came with one of the decade's cutest music videos.
- Listen to highlights from the definitive tracks of the 2010s on Spotify, Apple Music and Buy Music Club.
  
  More reading /
  A Note On Our End-Of-Decade Coverage
  Albums Of The Decade
  Fresh Sounds From Around The Globe
  Reflections Of A Black Woman In Dance Music