As a young man, Horst Weidenmüller, founder of the legendary Berlin label !K7, did a stint working in a nightclub. One day, he started an argument with the owner because he couldn't believe the DJ had to wash glasses in between records. This lit a flame inside him. What if there was a new format where DJs were respected as creators in their own right? In 1993, !K7 launched one of the first commercially available mix series, X-Mix, which arrived via CD or VHS, complete with computer-generated graphics. Two years later, the label dropped the visual element and unveiled a new project. It was called DJ-Kicks.

26 years and 75 editions later, DJ-Kicks remains the longest running and most popular commercial mix series in the world. Dozens of similar projects have since come and gone. So what makes DJ-Kicks so special? And how has it endured the myriad twists and turns of the music industry?

"From the start, we wanted a mix to be an artistic statement like an album," Weidenmüller told Resident Advisor over Zoom. "So not only with cover artwork, but press photos, videos, singles. And I think that's what carried DJ-Kicks through. The series has evolved a lot but what hasn't changed is that every edition is treated like an album. I think this is what resonates with people."

The latest chapter in the DJ-Kicks story is its recent partnership with Apple Music, which means that 14 mixes from the archives are now available to stream for the first time (they were previously hampered by licensing issues). Now that they're accessible to a new host of home listeners after 15 years off the market, it feels like a good time to pause and reflect on the iconic series. We asked ten former contributors to choose the mixes that shaped their careers and changed their relationship to DJing.

Marcel Dettmann (Claude Young)

As a DJ I will always be grateful to !K7 for both the DJ-Kicks and X-Mix series, and to all the artists that put together the mixes. Firstly, they made a lot of this kind of music more popular. More importantly though, the tracks were made accessible at a time when the internet wasn't a thing… For me as a young, penniless DJ these compilations were always a true gift… The mix itself was great listening to, but the tracks were more important to me. I learned a lot from them, especially from Claude Young's mid-90s mix on how to bring it all together, but even more regarding track selection or A&R—that's why it's still important to me that all tracks are available unmixed when I work on a mix compilation.

Forest Swords (Smith & Mighty)

I had an untracklisted cassette copy a friend gave me when I was a teenager. I was obsessed with how it sounded, the palette – everything sounded crunchy and driven, heavy but with loads of space. It's a good snapshot of what artists like them were playing around with in Bristol at the time: dub, lovers rock, soul, jungle. It opened my ears to different sonic combinations and how they work. When I got asked to do my own DJ-Kicks I took inspiration from this release and how it made me feel – there's no pristine mixing or perfect segues, they've basically put together a mixtape for you. All my favourite DJ-Kicks are where it feels like I'm at a party at that artist's house, and they're going "you've got to check this tune out – you'll love it". Those are more inspiring and exciting to me than an immaculately made club mix.

Kamaal Williams (Moodymann)

The first one I got introduced to was Trüby Trio, with all of those new jazz flavors from the early '00s. Then there was Dâm-Funk. But the Moodymann mix was special. I loved it so much, because first and foremost one of my best friends Jitwam got his track on there. It was quite random. He wasn't doing too much at the time and then one day he just got an email from !K7 saying Moodymann has put your tune on the DJ-Kicks. Moodymann had no idea who he was, he just heard this fucked up track on Bandcamp. It was a massive moment—everyone was like, "WHAT?!" It was really significant for all of us. Jitwam made a lot of money off that one track. It was a big breakthrough for him, so there's a sentimental attachment. It came at a time when all of us were starting out.

Then there's that Yaw track, "Where Will You Be," which is so beautiful. There's so many songs that really just encompass all the elements of music that I really enjoy, from more mellow soul all the way to deep house. "Tea Leaf Dancers" too—I remember that coming out and changing music. Music changed after FlyLo! It was one of those definitive moments. This whole mix was significant during my career, it had a direct effect. It led me to discover a lot of music. And it made me realize that you can go anywhere you want in a mix. When it came to doing my own, Moodymann's mix made me feel comfortable to just be free and go right across the board, which is actually really hard.

Paul Woolford (Claude Young)

Claude Young's DJ-Kicks compilation is a stark, bold rendering of the sheer funk that REAL techno holds intrinsic to its nature. We are in an age of almost an enormous, and perhaps in some cases, wilful, misunderstanding of what techno actually is. Today, for some, it has become shorthand for a certain type of relentless pounding linear background to huge rave events. And yet, when we are all honest with ourselves, those of us that truly understand this music, KNOW in our hearts that there's an innate soul and funk dimension missing from much of this background music. Claude's mix stands today both as a blueprint and still-applicable manifesto for what top-shelf machine funk can sound like, still as potent today as the day it was released in 1996.

Stacey Pullen (Vikter Duplaix)

Around the time that Vikter Duplaix's DJ-Kicks was released in 2002, I had just finished recording my album for Virgin and I appreciated the eclectic and diverse selection of music. From broken beat to jazz and Black music in general, it was one of my favourites. It's a well-crafted mix from 4 Hero to Osunlade's "Tree Of Life" to De La Soul, and it's rounded out with New Sector Movements. But his lead track, "Sensuality," remains one of the sexiest dance songs I've heard. In fact, it's still in my rotation on my iPhone. And I forgot to mention: his ghetto fabulous photo shoot for the album cover was super fly.

Jayda G (Kerri Chandler & Moodymann)

I think the best part about listening to DJ-Kicks as a DJ is that you get insights into others' creative processes and see what inspires them. I love DJ-Kicks mixes that really represent what someone plays out.

Moodymann is a great example. His sets are always an eclectic journey full of deep house tunes and his DJ-Kicks mix reflects that. He pulls from producers I look up to, like Marcellus Pitmann and Toro y Moi / Les Sins, and demonstrates the span of his tastes with Little Dragon and José Gonzalez.

Another favourite is Kerri Chandler's mix. I'm a big fan of his. He's an old school house legend and the mix integrates influences of New York house music, especially all the soul that has had an impact on me. These may be pretty recent mixes, but they're the ones I relate to.

Booka Shade (Tiga)

The M.A.N.D.Y guys played it in the studio over and over again for inspiration when the compilation first came out in December 2002. Tiga was a pop star at that time. He had huge crossover hits with "Sunglasses At Night" and "Hot In Herre," and he was a role model for the new wave of androgynous fashion DJs with taste and charisma.

It was the time when a lot of the '80s disco and electro stuff came back into the clubs (later called electro clash). After all these years of formulated minimal techno and schranz, songs and emotions were back on the dance floor. The mix is a perfect capture of this exciting time: noisy drums, dirty basslines, '80s wave vocals and '70s disco clapping (and, of course, an outstanding version of Soft Cell's "So"). Our label Get Physical would probably have sounded a bit different without this record.

Danilo Plessow / MCDE (K&D / Henrik Schwarz)

I must have been 13 years old when a friend passed me Kruder & Dorfmeister's DJ-Kicks at school. At the time, I was heavily into hip-hop and had started to work on my own music on my computer, mostly trying to make beats for local hip-hop groups. The concept of totally instrumental hip-hop, or "trip-hop" as they called it later, was totally new to me and made a big impression, showing me how it's not necessary to have much—or even any—lyrical content and still keep the music interesting. Kruder & Dorfmeister were masterful in their approach on this mix, going from slow grooves into drum & bass seamlessly, and creating a truly unique atmosphere through their selections. Along with a couple of other albums (think Nightmares On Wax, early Boards of Canada etc.), Kruder & Dorfmeister's DJ-Kicks was the definitive soundtrack of my early teens.

About ten years later, another DJ-Kicks caught me totally off guard, leaving possibly an even bigger impression on me. Henrik Schwarz's 2006 entry was everything I love about music: extremely diverse selections yet a perfectly balanced and executed mix. The most surprising thing, which truly speaks to Henrik's talent, is that most of the songs weren’t new to me. But the way he mixed them and created a story left me speechless. To this day, it's probably the one I've listened to most.

Digitalism (Tiga)

There have been many amazing DJ-Kicks, and the series has been a big part of our musical career, but Tiga's was the most influential. Back then in 2002, it marked the arrival of something completely fresh and new. We had just started to DJ at clubs together, and during the week we would hang out and work at a record shop in Hamburg, looking for new sounds and tracks to play. We were so hungry for new stuff that we needed something from outside the system, something that would break the rules. Along came Tiga's DJ-Kicks. For us, it marked the beginning of a new sound, where boundaries between house, electro, techno, new wave and other genres didn't exist. The tracklist worked so well that everyone would listen to it, even if they were into a different sound. His famous "Hot In Here" cover just flipped the world upside down. All of a sudden … everything seemed possible.

Daniel Brandt [Brandt Brauer Frick] (Vikter Duplaix)

Vikter Duplaix's mix has a very melancholic but soulful atmosphere, which is pretty unique and beautiful. The way the music is mixed is just amazing. It felt like a radio show from the future when I first listened to it. Mandrake's "Berimbau," which gets faster and faster towards the end and then echoes out into the next song, is an absolute highlight. It always works well in the club, too.

I remember buying the mix because 4hero, one of my favourite bands, were on it. I just loved their take on drum & bass. I must have listened to this mix 1,000 times, and I also bought the vinyl version later so I could play some of these tunes out when DJing. I also discovered Matthew Herbert through this mix, who I have been a huge fan of ever since. Same goes for Steve Spacek.

Duplaix's mix perfectly encapsulated the very flourishing broken beat scene, mainly coming out of London but also juxtaposing this music with American soul. It really connected the dots. It was very similar to what Gilles Peterson was doing on the BBC (and continues to do on Worldwide FM). Because I grew up in a small town in Germany called Wiesbaden, I wasn't able to listen to the show regularly, but any time I could get hold of a recording somewhere, I would burn them on CD and listen on repeat. Back then, I was listening to everything so many more times than I do now. But enough of the good old times stuff—I just need to shut up and go buy some records again.