Reference
This is the public source map behind the history work on this site. If a date, a chart claim or a "this changed everything" line shows up here or in the book, you should be able to go and check it yourself. That's the whole point of publishing the map.
It's a different job from the research notes, which explain the evidence philosophy and how the two lenses stay separate. This page is the practical side: which sources exist, what each one can carry and where each one runs out.
The evidence ladder
Sources aren't equal and they don't all answer the same question. The order below runs from the hardest anchor to the softest signal, and the right-hand column is the part most arguments skip.
| Source type | Good for | Not enough by itself |
|---|---|---|
| Physical or official release artifact | Catalog number, credits, pressing details and the context a record was actually sold in. Strongest when scans, liner notes or label records back it up. | An object proves an edition exists. It doesn't prove that edition was first, and repress dates get mistaken for original dates constantly. |
| Label, artist or official archive | Release announcements, catalog history and statements from the people who put the record out. | Retrospective marketing is a perspective with an interest in the outcome. Useful for intent, weaker for neutral chronology. |
| Official chart archive | A chart position on a dated week, which is a hard, checkable number. | A chart entry says a record sold or got played into a chart. It says nothing about artistic significance or scene influence. |
| Discographic and metadata databases | Finding editions, identifiers, credits and leads fast. This is where most verification work starts. | The data is community built. It's a superb index and a poor final authority, so anything consequential gets cross-checked against the artifact or the label. |
| Contemporary journalism and interviews | What people said at the time, and the context a record landed in rather than the context it got reassigned later. | Later memory and contemporaneous reporting are different things. A 2015 interview about 1993 is recollection, and it gets labelled that way. |
| DJ, radio and playlist tracklists | Showing that a record circulated, in which rooms, on which shows and over what stretch of months. | Circulation is not causation. A track appearing in a hundred sets is evidence it travelled, not evidence it moved the genre. |
| Current platform charts and editorial | Reading what's active on a platform right now, and what a retailer is pushing. | Present-day platform activity is not historical canon and it isn't universal popularity. It measures one storefront's audience on one day. |
Every date here is earned. A release with a catalog number. A chart you can look up. A flyer that got printed and handed out at an actual venue. Dates without something attached to them are just guesses dressed up as history.
The book anchors its story to the same set of things: tracks and release dates, labels and catalog histories, compilations and mix CDs, events and festival lineups, and magazines, radio shows and documented playlists. When a word like defining or iconic turns up, treat it as shorthand rather than a verdict and ask the follow-up question: defining for whom, in which rooms, carried by which label or distribution network?
Working tools
These are the public destinations that carry most of the weight. Each one is listed with the job it does well, because using a chart archive to settle a question about influence is how bad history gets written.
Discogs is a user-built database organised around artists, labels and releases. It's the fastest way to a specific pressing, a catalog number or a sleeve scan. Because contributors build it, cross-check anything consequential before you quote it.
An open music encyclopedia. Good for structured identities, release groups and the relationships between artists, aliases and labels. Community curated, so it's a strong index rather than a sole authority.
Where UK chart claims get settled. A position and a week are checkable facts. Neither one is a measure of how much a record mattered.
Electronic-music journalism and an events archive. Useful for contemporary reporting, interviews and scene context, especially when you can find coverage published near the date in question.
A specialist editorial lens on the genre. Read it as one publication's selection rather than a definitive ranking, and use it to find records worth checking properly.
Long-form trade editorial from the retail side. It's a published perspective with useful chronology, and disputed origin claims in it still need cross-checking.
A current platform chart. It shows what's selling and trending on one store this week. It is not a historical canon and not an objective ranking of Trance.
Community-sourced DJ, radio and festival tracklists, plus track IDs. Excellent for leads on where and when something circulated. Treat entries as leads to verify rather than primary proof.
The companion playlist is the book's intentional listening sequence, arranged so the eras land in order. It isn't an evidentiary database and it isn't a best-of list, so don't cite it to settle a date or a claim about importance.
The resources page covers the wider set of archives, radio shows, festivals and forums worth following. This page is narrower on purpose and only lists what's useful for checking a claim.
How I check a claim
Almost every disputed point in Trance history is one of these three shapes. Once you can see which shape you're holding, the source you need is obvious.
Example A
Start by identifying the exact edition rather than the track. Find the catalog number, then compare what the discographic databases hold against each other and against the label's own catalog. If a physical artifact or a label record exists, that wins. If only a repress or a digital reissue can be found, the honest statement is the year of the edition you can actually see, with a note that the original may be earlier.
Example B
That's three separate claims wearing one coat. Chart performance is checkable in a chart archive. DJ and radio circulation is checkable in tracklists and show archives, with the usual caveat that community entries are leads. Retrospective reputation is a different thing again, built later by compilations, reissues and writing about the period. Verify whichever one is being asserted and don't let a strong showing in one stand in for the other two.
Example C
Primacy claims need an artifact trail and evidence that the record was labelled or received that way at the time, not just that it sounds like the thing in hindsight. If no source establishes primacy, the correct answer is that it's contested, with the candidates and what each one has behind it. Inventing certainty here is how myths get a footnote and a second life.
When something on this site turns out to be wrong, it goes in the corrections log with the original wording and the fix. If you've got the artifact that settles a contested point, that's the most useful thing you can send.
Wider context
The bibliography opens with broad context works. They're part of the research ecosystem around the book and none of them settles a Trance-specific claim on their own, so treat them as background rather than proof. For what the book-length works on the genre itself actually cover, there's a separate reading guide to books about Trance.
Common questions
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