It’s that time of the year again. It’s when the Miami compilations inevitably appear on the digital stores. It appears that the Covid-19 pandemic has not done away with this tradition.

I seriously think it’s time to ditch this practice. It’s no longer relevant in this digital age, is it? For those of you who are unfamiliar, allow me to explain.

The Miami Winter Music Conference came into existence in 1985. Over the years, it started being treated by the big dance labels as a combination of signing new records for the summer as well as being a nice holiday in a hot climate.

For years, many of the records that became popular later in the year started out being played at Miami. Frenetic bidding wars would often take place – “Groovejet” by Spiller, for example, was fought for by both Ministry of Sound and EMI-backed Positiva. The latter won due to their increased power in clearing the Carol Williams sample.

As much as I would love to be able to take my records to Miami and have some of the world’s biggest labels fighting hard to sign my music and then turn it into something that’ll be remembered years later, it simply isn’t going to happen. Does it happen for anyone these days?

With one or two honourable exceptions, it feels like Miami compilations are used by record labels these days to release things they’ve signed, but have no idea what to actually do with – or things they’ve realised that they need to put out before they breach their own contractual obligations.

Yet like many other depressing things in the music trade, it looks like they’re here to stay for the time being. Great…