Chart Movers: Producers who Killed it in 2013
By anyone’s standards, 2013 was a great year for electronic music. Heavy hitters like Avicii and Calvin Harris went mainstream, show attendance swelled, and everyone in the industry raked in the $$$. For some, it was a better than good year – it was their ‘breakthrough year’ where they were vaulted into being top billed talent at the major shows – sometimes pulling more fans than other longtimers and household names. We like to give praise where it is due. So whether it was amazing management, great PR, perfect production skills, or just really mindblowingly good luck, congratulations to all these producers for killing it in 2013.
1) Martin Garrix
2) Fedde Le Grand
3) Deorro
4) Cashmere Cat
5) Disclosure
6) TJR
7) Mat Zo
8) Pegboard Nerds
9) Griz
10) Kill Paris
A quick rundown on why each of these names earned a spot on this list: Martin Garrix was only 17 when “Animals” dropped in June 2013, and it went on to become the first instrumental track to crack the Billboard Hot 40 since Kenny G in 1999, hitting UK #1 that November and making Garrix the youngest producer ever to top the Beatport chart. Fedde Le Grand is the veteran of the bunch, a Dutch house mainstay who’s been dropping year-end “yearmixes” that basically summarize the entire EDM calendar. Deorro broke big with “Five Hours,” a moombahton/electro cut that became one of 2013’s defining club anthems. Cashmere Cat‘s “Mirror Maru” EP put the Norwegian producer’s glitchy, off-kilter style on the map, kicking off a run that would eventually land him production credits in Kanye West’s camp. Disclosure‘s debut album “Settle” was one of the year’s most acclaimed dance records, basically single-handedly bringing UK garage-flavored house back into the mainstream conversation. TJR had massive crossover with “Funky Vodka” and “Ode to Oi,” tracks so infectious Pitbull ended up sampling his work. Mat Zo dropped his debut album “Damage Control” on Anjunabeats, a genre-blurring record that proved he was more than just a trance guy. Pegboard Nerds, the Norwegian duo, built serious momentum on Disciple Records with their signature big-room/dubstep hybrid sound. Griz kept pushing his jazzy, funk-drenched take on dubstep out of Detroit, packing out shows across the country. And Kill Paris carved out a lane in glitch-hop with releases like his “Ghostbusters” remix, becoming one of the genre’s more melodic voices.
Editor’s note: this post originally embedded a “Killed it DJs” mashup player from a third-party site (mycloudplayers.com) stitching together tracks from all ten producers above. That widget is no longer something our platform can embed, and we couldn’t find a modern equivalent hosting the same mashup, so rather than link somewhere unverified we’ve pulled it. All ten producers’ own SoundCloud pages are still linked above if you want to dig into their 2013 catalogs directly.
