Techno: A Year In Review

As 2024 comes to a close it’s time to look back on what has been a thrilling year in techno where there have been plenty of huge headlines.

Continuing on from 2023, Charlotte De Witte once again was crowned as the highest-ranking techno artist on the DJ Mag Top 100 DJ’s list climbing 2 spots to number 16. She has had another incredible year that has continued to establish her status as the queen of techno with her dropping ‘Roar’ which has fast become one of her biggest tracks along with having further development and success with her recordKNTXT. She also added to her long list of firsts as she became the first female and techno artist to close the mainstage of Tomorrowland Brazil where she enchanted the crowd with more of her awesome new music.

When it comes to firsts this year Oliver Heldens also had a big one as he would perform his first mainstage set under his HI LO alias at EDC Las Vegas. He performed this set alongside Eli Brown who has also been killing it this year most notably with his track ‘When I Push’ which has been blasting through speakers all around the world. 2024 has seen Heldens shift his focus over to his HI LO alias where he has thrived making some of the biggest techno tracks of the year such as ‘My Fantasy’ with Maddix, ‘Now Love Will Begin’ collaborating with Armin Van Buuren, and ‘Paradise’ alongside Danny Avila. Having had such a monumental rise throughout this year with his HI LO alias it’s exciting to see where he’ll go with it leading into next year.

Though if we’re talking about names in techno that have had massive development this year then of course we have to talk about this years techno sensation, Sara Landry. After gaining a lot of attention following her explosive Boiler Room set in 2023 which has gone on to amass 7.5 million views on YouTube, Landry has gone on to be one of the biggest names in electronic music this year. Back in July she made her Tomorrowland mainstage debut where she became the first ever hard techno artist to perform on the mainstage. With her insane amount of success this year she now finds herself on the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs list at number 75 and as the highest ranked hard techno artist. This year has also seen her release her debut album ‘Spiritual Driveby’ which has been an absolute sensation garnering over 23 million streams on Spotify already.

This year has even seen Reinier Zonneveld become a Guinness World Record holder for the longest electronic music live performance. He took to the stage at Karren Maar Festival for 11 hours and 11 minutes where he would make all the music live with synthesizers and drum computers through the entire set which is a monumental achievement. Throughout the year he has continued to release banger after banger with an impressive 6 of them passing the million-stream marker on Spotify with ‘Hard Kick Cheap Thrills’ taking the top spot for him with 1.4 million streams.

It has been an incredible year for techno artists and fans alike with amazing music coming out all year and some amazing moments. What’s been your favourite moment in techno this year?