Sources & scope
Edition Three
Contour maps the melodic dance music scene using released records and the people credited on them. This page says where that comes from, what the words on a sheet mean, and what the map does not claim.
Where the data comes fromI
Every fact on this site is drawn from publicly available catalogue and credit data — release listings, credits and artist pages published by:
- Streaming services
- Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music
- Download stores
- Beatport, Bandcamp
- Open music databases
- MusicBrainz, Discogs, Wikidata
- Scene listings
- Resident Advisor, 1001Tracklists
- Listening data
- Last.fm
- Company and trade-mark registers
- Companies House (England and Wales), the UK Intellectual Property Office, the United States Patent and Trademark Office
- Published statements
- Labels’ own distribution terms and imprint pages, interviews and announcements published by the companies concerned
Nothing here comes from private sources or anyone’s internal reporting. There are no sales figures and no royalty data.
What the words meanII
- Release
- Something published under a catalogue number by one of the surveyed labels — a single, an EP, an album or a compilation.
- Artist
- A name credited on at least one release in the edition, as a lead, a collaborator or a remixer.
- Label
- An imprint that published releases in the survey window.
- Connection
- Two names that appear on the same record, or on the same label. Nothing about sound, style or quality.
- Distance
- How often two names turn up together. Close means shared people — not similar music.
What this edition coversIII
35,011artists
256labels
It is a cut of the data taken at a point in time, not a live feed. Its inputs are recorded and kept, so the edition can be rebuilt exactly as published.
What it is notIV
- Not a ranking.
- Nothing here is a chart, a rating or a league table.
- Not complete.
- A name missing from the map means it is not in this edition, not that it does not exist.
CorrectionsV
Every artist and label sheet carries a correction link scoped to that sheet. If something’s wrong, please let us know via the card link.
Edition Three