@Julian Zeisberger

For fans of melodic dance music, no style takes you there quite like trance or progressive house. Consider them flip sides of the same coin: While the former basks in lush, sunlit color, the latter is darker and more hypnotic, with a heads-down emphasis on the groove. From breaking artists and old favorites alike, these songs harness the high-flying toplines, in-your-feels chord changes, and euphoric vibes that are common to both genres. Our editors regularly refresh this playlist. If you like a track, add it to your library.

Dance music as we know it begins with disco. The vintage style’s silky groove is written into the DNA of contemporary club culture; it’s practically synonymous with good times themselves. And for some glitter-ball diehards, the genre still lives, promising fertile territory for both retro experiments and futuristic hybrids. That might mean a house anthem based on a well-chosen sample or a gentle throwback jam with old-school panache but the hi-def production qualities to match today’s big-room floor-fillers. Club Disco is the place to keep up with all the latest developments in this most dependable of styles.

At heart, contemporary electronic dance music is a euphoric dream set to a 4/4 beat. That vision finds its purest expression in trance, a sleek, streamlined style that centers emotional uplift as its raison d’etre. The genre evolved alongside techno in the late ’80s and early ’90s, with the rigid arpeggios of Belgian new beat guiding its steady groove and glistening synths. Trance largely took shape in Germany, the site of its harder-edged innovations, and Holland, home to superstars like Tiësto and Armin van Buuren, while the trippier subgenre of psytrance took root in Israel and Goa. By the ’00s, aided by the music’s versatility—equally able to absorb pop melodies or get beefed up to main-stage proportions—trance had become a proudly global concern whose soaring melodies and rolling rhythms transcend borders and language. At festivals, trance fans may wear their home countries’ flags flung over their shoulders, but their chief allegiance is to the music and its message of unity.

Throughout all the bass mutations of the 21st century, drum 'n' bass—the high-BPM, breakbeat-driven style that evolved out of early hardcore rave and dub-influenced jungle in the '90s—keeps going strong. The UK remains home to a vital scene that stays focused on the future without losing sight of the music's roots. These songs stem from that tradition: Deep, soulful, and fluid, they're as well-suited for listening as they are dancing. Our editors regularly refresh this playlist. If you like a track, add it to your library.

You don't need to be perched on someone's shoulders to appreciate the Festival Banger—but it helps. These dizzying dance anthems are EDM's energy drinks, with howling trap horns, big-room basslines, midtempo moombahton grooves, and mosh-pit breaks designed to turn a grassy field (or your living room) into one huge, sweaty rave. They're just as good in the off-season, too, which is why our editors keep this playlist updated all year long. Add it to your library to keep up with what's hot.

Lesser-known gems and crucial album tracks. Our editors regularly update this playlist—if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

Inside electronic music's myriad scenes and subcultures, bass music occupies a world all its own—it's as much a physical experience as an aural one. Its low-end wobbles draw on some of dance music's most interesting rhythms—grime, dubstep, trap, drum 'n' bass, and UK garage are a few—with DJ/producers carving out deeper, more experimental sounds to accent their woofer-flexing drops. This playlist has some of the gnarliest tracks rumbling through Reddit threads and dance tents, and it's updated weekly with the latest cuts. If you hear a tune you like, add it to your library.

Since 1998, the UK's Defected label has set the standard for forward-thinking, floor-filling house music. With a catalog that switches between the flickering disco accents of Bob Sinclar's "I Feel for You," the minimalist tech-house of Amé's era-defining "Rej," and the carefully controlled drama of Dennis Ferrer's "Hey Hey (DF's Attention Vocal Mix)," the only common denominator here is an irresistible groove and scads of soul.

In the early ’90s, Britain provided its own trancey take on classic house. Where acid house had previously borrowed from both the Chicago sound and Detroit techno while adding squelchy bass lines, progressive house stripped those abrasive noises away in favor of more ambient textures. Thanks to the efforts of pioneering acts such as London duo Leftfield and Kent-born electronic siblings Orbital, its euphoric vibe ruled the dance-radio airwaves for the first half of the decade and helped establish a mainstream clubbing culture in the UK. The same thudding bass and ethereal touches permeate many of its most memorable songs, including Orbital’s breakthrough classic “Born Slippy” and James Holden’s remix of Nathan Fake’s “The Sky Was Pink.” Artists who’ve since picked up the repetitive-beats baton include Canadian DJ deadmau5, who toughens up prog house with EDM beats, and London indie synth-poppers Hot Chip, who add some nerdy joie de vivre.

Big beat—an expression of ’90s dance music at its most crowd-pleasingly boisterous—was always upfront about its intentions. Its philosophy was right there in the name: The bigger the beats, the better. Coldcut and M/A/R/R/S lay the foundation in the late ’80s, fusing acid house and turntablism with infectious hooks. By the mid ’90s, at club nights around the UK, DJs like Fatboy Slim and The Chemical Brothers were bringing ravers and rockers together under the umbrella of the eclectic new sound. Big Beat’s early incarnation joined hip-hop breaks, rock guitars, and attention-grabbing vocals with a distinctly gonzo sensibility that helped entice American fans previously immune to electronic music’s allure. Long past the style’s chart-topping late-’90s heyday, its super-sized sonics helped pave the way for DFA’s dance/rock crossovers, French electro, and the ’10s EDM boom. Just like the Big Bang’s gravitational waves, ripples from big beat’s collision of rave, rap, rock, and pop keep spreading outward.