SoundCloud Live Top 25

Amidst everything that’s been going on during recent months I completely failed to notice the passing of a personal SoundCloud milestone, the uploaded content on my page having now surpassed 3 million plays in the 5 years since I opened my account.

There have been some changes along the way – back when I put up my first live mix, from Café Mambo in Ibiza in 2009, SoundCloud was building its reputation via DJs posting their mixes and edits online. It quickly became a key point of reference within the club community, DJs very much central to its success.

Nowadays it’s a huge concern, having subsequently become popular with record companies and bands, both big and small, whilst attracting further content via spoken word / documentary sources. Many DJs feel they’ve been shunted to the side as a consequence, but although it’s been frustrating to see once essential functions disappear, as well as losing the classic version of the site that I, along with many others, personally preferred, I can understand how SoundCloud became, in a sense, the victim of its own success, straining under the weight of its runaway popularity, and, as a result, having to take a more pragmatic approach that negated some of the more bespoke aspects that specifically suited the DJ community who’d done so much to bring the site to wider attention in the first place. Despite this, it continues to be the key audio platform for me, my page having amassed over 56,000 followers to date from all over the globe, with many others dipping in and out to check out the mixes, edits and versions that I’ve archived there.

My most popular inclusion, by a long chalk, has been my Essential Mix, which has had in excess of 100,000 plays, but it’s been the live mixes, rather than the pre-recorded ones, which have provided the bedrock when it comes to content uploaded – 86 live mixes to date, as opposed to 13 pre-recorded.

I’ve just compiled a playlist that includes my 25 most listened to live mixes during these past 5 years, with the recording from the Stonebridge tent at Glastonbury in 2013 currently at the summit, having totted up over 44,000 plays. The 25 is made up of 19 UK recordings (of which 7 were recorded at festivals) and 6 from overseas. London and Manchester tie on 5 apiece with the most inclusions, whilst, on the festival tip, 3 of the mixes are from Glastonbury and 2 from Bestival. The Garden Festival in Croatia is also well represented with both the 2012 and 2013 main stage mixes making the cut (and a third, from this year, just bubbling outside the 25 and sure to make its entry at a later stage).

SoundCloud Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundCloud