Editor Carl Loben Company Thrust Publishing Ltd | Frequency Monthly Country U.K. | |
Categories Music, technology, nightlife, style First issue 31 January 1991; 26 years ago (1991-01-31) | ||
DJ Magazine (also known as DJ Mag) is a British monthly magazine dedicated to electronic dance music and DJs. Founded in 1991, the magazine is adapted for distribution in UK, USA, Spain, France, Italy, Latin America, China, South Korea and Indonesia.
Contents
Top 100 DJs
The magazine's biggest property is a list of the World's most popular DJs, called Top 100 DJs. The poll attracted over 1 million votes in 2015, making it the World's biggest music poll.
Danny Rampling was the first winner named as the number one DJ in the world by the magazines journalists in 1991 this remained the format until 1993, the magazine then introduced a Top 100 list that was still compiled by its staff until 1996. The decision was taken by the publication to let the readers of the magazine decide who they thought was the worlds top DJ and in 1997 English DJ Carl Cox was the first winner of the Top 100 DJs Award (public vote). Armin van Buuren currently holds the record of most overall wins with five and a record four consecutively.
The awards party for the poll was traditionally hosted at the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London. For the 2011 poll, the event was hosted outside of the UK for the first time in its history, being staged at the 2011's edition of the Amsterdam dance event. The 2012 and 2013 award shows were both held on 19 October at the same event. Until 2002, the top three had consisted of at least one British DJ, since the same year at least one Dutch DJ has featured in the top three. In 2015 the Top 100 DJs Awards Party took place as the headline moment of the Amsterdam Music Festival. Over 40,000 guests witnessed the crowning of 2015's winner's Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. Following the Amsterdam event, the winning DJs were flown to London, where they performed to a sold out Brixton Academy for the Top 100 DJs London show.
Top 100 DJs is considered to be hugely important to DJs as an influencer of booking fees and their current level of popularity. DJs regularly campaign for votes, a process which is allowed by the magazine. Dutch DJ Hardwell once did a skydive as part of his campaign video; David Guetta regularly creates animated videos as part of his voting campaign; Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike released an exclusive mix to their fans as part of their 2015 campaign. However due to the weight that is placed on Top 100 DJs ranking by bookers worldwide, there have been criticisms of the poll.
Criticisms of Top 100 DJs
Top 100 DJs has been criticised as being heavily influenced by the marketing power of DJs, rather than their skill or ability. A recent article that appeared in the US edition of the Huffington Post explores this claim. Its journalist, Kevin Yu, featured an article in July 2013 entitled "DJMag Top 100 (Marketable) DJs" where he states "Over the past few years, DJ Mag has been criticized that the list is not a true representation of their skills, but instead the amount of money they can put towards marketing."
Yu asks "Has the DJMag list transformed into a popularity contest or is it still a resemblance of the DJs talent?". The list has also been criticized for not including a more balanced reflection of artists from other Electronic dance music styles and showing rankings based on less commercial mainstream DJs. A feature in The Guardian in 2010 by the journalist Ben Child entitled "What does DJ Mag's top 100 poll tell us about UK dance music? Not much" explores this further, noting that
What's surprising, at least to those of us who don't enjoy the more mainstream genres, is the paucity of artists from outside the house and trance scenes in the top 100. This has pretty much always been the case, with the odd Drum 'N' Bass or Breakbeat acts occasionally making it into the lower reaches in years gone by, but this year's situation is particularly extreme. There is just one artist Andy C whose music is not based on the standard four-to-the-floor beat pattern adopted by mainstream dance music in the top 100 - and he has been around for more than a decade and a half.
As the poll is publicly voted, DJ Mag have no direct input into which DJs are featured.
DJ Magazine Lists
Notes: The magazines journalists selected their top 3 DJ's for the years 1991-1992, on the 21st October 1993 for the 100th issue they expanded this by introducing a top 100 Best DJs in the world list - in the opinion of all the staff - were chosen. In 1997 the magazine opened the top 100 list to a public vote which is still the current format.
Top 100 DJs - 2016
Top 100 Clubs
Notes:DJ Mag also run an annual poll called Top 100 Clubs. Since 2013, Top 100 Clubs has been sponsored by Miller Genuine Draft.
Top 3 Clubs 2006–present