The Annual - History

History

From 1995-1999, the individual releases of The Annual were denoted by roman numerals, from The Annual to The Annual IV. In 1999, the series' titling was reorganized and all following albums were named by year, beginning with The Annual 1999 - Millennium Edition. Starting in 2001, the album was named for the year following the Autumn release date instead of the year of release, thus there is no album assigned to 2001 (aside from the Spring 2001 Annual). After the Clubbers Guide To .... 2001 (Mixed By Tall Paul) Ministry of Sound decided not to use big name DJs but to use lesser-known DJs that mix digitally, and not credit who the mixer is on the front cover. This has since been denied once, where CJ Mackintosh, Jazzy M and Marc Hughes mixed Fifteen Years in 2006, and several times since then such as on Live & Remastered (though the mixes on this box set were mixed in the 1990s). The Sessions series still continues to be mixed by a DJ.

As the series became more popular in the early 2000s, similar (though not identical) albums of the same name were licensed to Ultra Records in the United States, Ministry of Sound subsidiary labels in Australia and Germany, and Universal Music in many countries worldwide, including Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Portugal and the Philippines. These albums share many tracks with the (original) UK releases, though they are mixed in a different order and replace some songs with more local songs in the track listing.

The Australian Annuals in particular are held in much higher regard than the UK Annuals, as much more local and underground tracks are used and are always mixed by well known and underground DJ's. Every Annual since the The 2002 Annual have been chart toppers and go either Gold or Platinum and stay on the ARIA Compilation charts and Australian iTunes charts for months on end.

The Annual II remains one of the biggest selling compilation albums of all time in the UK, including quite possibly the biggest selling DJ mix album in the UK.