Thursday 25 August 2011

Top 100 DJs

It's competition time again folks. It's that time of year again when all the Superstar DJs are reaching out for for their fans to vote for them in the DJ Mag Top 100 Poll.

Apparently you can make 'Your Hero Become A Legend' by voting.

No doubt you probably can make your Hero's become Legends. But is it really a true measurement of the best DJs of the world? Or is it just a popularity contest to see who can notch up the most votes? Now I'm not saying that I wouldn't want to be included in this list, it would surely add a few 0's to an invoice after a DJ gig. You could even  justify adding a few more 0's if you landed in the Top 10...  But what I'm trying to say is does it really reflect the best of the best?

I'm not sure it does. I know the great people at DJ Mag work hard to prevent random DJs such as Lemon and Thyme entering the chart and corrupting the competition but I think it's safe to say we can all make a pretty good educated guess as to who will be in the Top 5. I'm going for; Paul Van Dyk, David Guetta, Tiesto, Deadmau5 and Armin Van Burren ( I also predict that The SWH will be lurking around that part of the chart too...) and to be fair they all are, probably, the most popular DJs in the world right now but I struggle to understand why DJs such as Erick Morillo, Pete Tong, Roger Sanchez to name but a few do not and have not featured higher in the chart in recent years. I mean it's not as if they are short of support, these guys play to the masses every week in different Cities around the world and they hold residencies in the best clubs in the world too.
Pete Tong broadcasts the biggest dance music radio show in the world, so how come the people who listen to his show don't?
Maybe they share the same fans or maybe it's just for the simple fact that their fans cannot be bothered to vote. ( I don't want to ruin the banter but I do think Trance fans and Hard House fans are more loyal (it's a good thing) hence the lack of House DJs who finished in the Top 10 in last years Poll...)
If the vote was a real reflection of the DJ World than Bobina, Infected Mushroom and Dash Berlin would have the right to earn/charge more £'s per gig/performance than Pete Tong and Erick Morillo because they are 'better' but I don't think that they do. I'm not a promoter nor am I a nightclub owner - far from it to be exact but I would confidently say that they don't earn or charge more than the latter.

Sure it's a reflection of the most popular DJs in the world but it's not a reflection of the most talented DJs in the world. If you were to compose a mini league of all these DJs and make them battle each other and make them test their skills against each other the DJ Mag Top 100 would certainly look different. I know that would never happen in a million years but what the chart doesn't measure is talent, skill or ability. All you need to win is a good fan base and fairly good marketing team-it almost forgets the music. What I need to clarify before I go any further is that I am not saying that anyone featured in the Top 100 does not have talent. They sure as hell have talent. Without doubt. They have talent I could only wish for.

But I suppose what I'm trying to say is the competition should measure more than votes. I'd like to see more producers in the Top 100. I don't mean to offend producers who only produce and I don't mean to offend DJs who only DJ but if you look at last years result Top 10 rated DJs produce hit after hit. DJing and Producing goes hand in hand now - for me it's only natural to play your music if you make it and it's only natural to want to make music if you play music. And this is the main reason why I think the concept of the competition should change. I'm all up for having a competition like this because somebody has to be the best and why not be able to prove it but there should be more to it than just votes.
The Worlds Strongest Man competition isn't based on who people think is the Strongest. The Worlds Strongest Men compete with each other to see who is the Strongest.

I think there should be another competition for the Top 100 Dance producers, based on sales figures (and votes...). From this competition you would be able to measure it against the Top 100 DJs and if a DJ/Producer feature in both they should be entered in some sort of league called something like 'The Best of the Best' but not so cheesey and the higher the DJ features in the DJ Top 100 and the higher they feature in the Producer Top 100, the higher they feature in 'The Best of The Best' and by taking their average score from both competitions it would give you a new score for the league (still following?).
This would filter both polls and this would produce more of a 'realistic' view at who is the best. You would still be able to see who the best DJs are and you would still be able to see who the best at the game really are.

I'm still deciding whether or not to vote in this years DJ Mag Top 100 and I'm not sure who I would vote for but I know I have 28 Days, 4 Hours and 27 Min left if I want to.

For me it's like Brown Sauce, I'm not for it but I'm not against it.

Fair play to everyone that does vote and congratulations to every name that appears in the list.

VOTE HERE http://www.djmag.com/top100

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