Some thoughts on this year's DJ Mag Top 100 poll

Those DJ Mag Top 100 poll results that were leaked over the weekend were actually the real deal, as the magazine posted the exact same list on their web site today.

So what's interesting about this list?

- Dash Berlin makes his first appearance on the DJ Mag Top 100 list, debuting at the #15 slot. Again, this poll is essentially a popularity contest, but his ranking proves that he's already more popular than longtime "poppy" trance DJ's like Sean Tyas, Aly & Fila, and Daniel Kandi.

- The Swedish House Mafia's three members appear four times in the top 100. Axwell at #10, Steve Angello at #14, Sebastian Ingrosso at #16, and as the Swedish House Mafia at #23. Some people wrote the name 'Swedish House Mafia' as one entry, while I think others weren't sure if they could do that, so they listed all three members instead. If you added all these votes together, the Swedish House Mafia as a group could be in the top 10, or maybe even the #1 slot.

- Markus Schulz said that Electric Zoo was his favorite new place to play this year:

I haven't really been to a lot of new clubs this year, so can I say the Electric Zoo festival in New York? It was about time the East Coast had a proper festival. That was the most important new event in clubland.

- Arty (#78) is the guy this year who makes it onto the list for his production ability; not his mixing or DJ abilities. It happens every poll, and you can count the number of nights Arty has played this year with one hand. He was mentioned by Above & Beyond, Kyau & Albert, Super8 & Tab, Mat Zo, The Thrillseekers, and Aly & Fila as their breakout producer of the year. [What's with all those &'s? Weird.]

- Wolf + Lamb didn't make this list. The audience they cater to aren't the ones that would read a publication like DJ Mag, but their popularity is undeniable.

Beatport's new podcast series

Podcast series are a double-edged sword in dance music.

On one hand, they're usually always free, and you get to hear some of the latest tunes before they're released as singles. But at the same time, most podcasts are just that- a collection of new songs thrown together in a one to two hour format with no consideration to mixing, pacing, or storytelling. And the result is a glut of "shows" that sound more like a DJ's personal monthly chart rather than a mix.

So to be different, two approaches are becoming more common:

1) Make fewer episodes of a podcast and make each mix more thought-out. Quality over quantity...

2) Add an element to your show that makes each episode different. Quite a few of the locals here have built their podcast series around this characteristic. Brad Miller's "Push The Night" series switches genres each show, DJ Eco's "The Sound of (You)th" episodes are filled with snippets from his upcoming artist album, and Wayde Rafnel's "Uplift" podcasts usually have chunks of his live sets played at various New York clubs.

Beatport has announced their own podcast series today, centered around the first point outlined above...

except it's going to cost you $9.99 a month to listen.

*facepalm*

With a membership, you also get discounts and special offers from Beatport's webstore, and benefits at live evetns. The perks at shows is the most enticing part of the deal, but it's all dependent on your geographic location. If you're a resident of Wyoming for example, or even upstate New York, you're most likely never be able to experience these.

A monthly podcast series is a good idea for an electronic brand like Beatport. But please, don't charge us for something that everyone knows should already be free. Take a page out of Resident Advisor's book and let everyone enjoy the music- that's why we're listening, right?

[Image credit: Beatport.com]

I've got a bone to pick with the U.S. location of ASOT 500

Armin Van Buuren just blew his chance at what could have been one of the biggest gigs of his career.

Next March, his popular weekly radio show, A State of Trance, will be reaching it's 500th episode. Whether you like the show or not, you can't deny that it's one of the most powerful brand names in electronic music.

Armin has used 476 broadcasts of ASOT so far to build an empire. Each week, millions of listeners worldwide hear the latest trance and progressive tracks on his show. He uses the airtime to promote new artists from Armada Music (the trance label he co-founded), and with the show, has made himself a name that's headlined nearly every electronic music festival that exists.

But there's one place that Armin hasn't played, and neither has anyone else in the industry. It's the one place in the United States that solidifies your position as a mainstream music artist, if you can get a booking there. And everyone who has played the venue has a story to tell about it.

That place is Madison Square Garden.

Over the summer, Armin announced that ASOT 500 would be taking place in five different continents on five different dates. When he started this show ten years ago, a few big milestones could be seen: episodes 100, 500, and 1,000, if he made it that far.

With the way his career has played out; the constant touring, production work, and the amount of time managing ASOT, I predict that Armin won't reach episode 1,000. He'd have to be in the industry for another decade for this to happen, as he's only at the halfway point now. Armin's only 34, and there are a few big names right now that have DJed into their 40's and beyond- most notably Tiesto (41), Sasha (41), Benny Benassi (43), and Paul Oakenfold (47). But I find it difficult to believe Armin won't get burnt out by the time episode 1,000 would arrive.

So that would make ASOT 500 one of the biggest gigs of his career. And the U.S. location for that event is not Madison Square Garden, but in a tent at the Ultra Music Festival in 2011.

Ultra is a huge event, but chances are the lineup Armin could be playing with are guys who have been performing at the event for years, since it hosts a lot of trance DJ's. So in reality, ASOT 500 in the US is just moving all of those guys into one tent and calling it that name. It's not the standalone event that it normally is.

Maybe Alda Events (Armin's booking agency), couldn't reach an agreement with MSG. Maybe he didn't want to spoil New Yorkers after playing two ASOT 450 shows here earlier this year. Maybe the Garden told them they don't do 9pm-5am events (which I don't recall them ever doing), so they would have to settle on a less-desired 4pm-midnight booking.

But either way, I can't see performing in a tent at Ultra being bigger than playing onstage at one of the most famous arenas in the world. Not for the visuals, the atmosphere, or the fans. And not even for Armin.

Maybe we'll have to wait a little longer for that MSG electronic dance music event. Or we can just envision what ASOT 500 could have been...

2,000 page views!

Over the weekend this blog got its 2,000th page view. Whenever someone visits the site or clicks on content, a "page" is created in their browser. Users can record multiple page views per visit, and this number doesn't mean that 2,000 different people visited the site.

I'll admit it: I visit this blog often to fine-tune the layout or re-read some of my posts, so a bunch of these pages views come from myself. But as for the others, they come from you- the reader.

Here are some stats about the site based on the first 2,000 page views:

I've had visitors from every continent on earth, minus Antarctica. If a country or state on the maps below are green, then that means that at least one person from that location has viewed this blog.

                                         [Click images to expand]

The countries with the most visits:

1) United States (duh)
2) Canada
3) United Kingdom/Australia (tie)

The states with the most visits:

1) New York
2) New Jersey
3) California

The highest viewed posts:

1) DJ Eco interview
2) Brad Miller interview
3) Lorant Duzgun interview

Highest number of unique visitors in one day: 126 on February 25.

This site is most often viewed through: Firefox.

Through search engines, the most popular term that lands people on this blog: "electric zoo 2010 presale tickets"

The funniest search term that has landed someone on this blog: "peoples comments about waiting in line at nokia theater, nyc"

[Stats provided by Google Analytics]

Glistening waves on a sunset horizon

Uplifting trance is my favorite sub-genre of electronic dance music, but sometimes people poke fun of it online because of its connection to nature and the elements.

I don't see what music made on computers has to do with beaches, rolling waves, and aurora borealis, but I enjoy the whole nature aspect anyway.

So once again today I had some time to kill at a local mall, and I snapped this photo outside of a Gamestop. It's actually an ad for a Nintendo Wii game, but someone could use the title and artwork for an uplifting trance single and I bet few would know the difference:

Highs & Lows

Earlier this month I posted a commentary about trying to keep tabs on the releases of your favorite producers, which isn't one of the easier aspects of being a fan of electronic dance music.

Here's another thing though that's been on my mind though lately- the prices of tracks right after they're released on digital download stores.

For the rest of the music industry (not EDM), the long-standing rule has been that an album or individual songs are cheaper the week of their release, and then go up in price shortly thereafter.

Last week I was able to purchase Story Of The Year's new album, The Constant, for only $7.99 at Best Buy. Now if I went there it would run me $14.99 for the hard copy. AmazonMP3 also has been commonly pricing select full-length albums for only $2.99 on their release day for a special 24 hour period.

Why do these retailers do this? While I'm not a complete authority on the music industry, my guess is that all the reviews, hype, and airplay that a album will get during its release week will help push sales from casual listeners looking for new music at a discounted price. If someone was browsing Best Buy this week and saw that Story of the Year album for $14.99 and weren't a serious fan of the group, would they consider buying it? Probably not as much as the week before.

So here's where this all ties into dance music- this industry apparently operates on a digital model that's opposite of what everyone else does.

When a new track comes out on Beatport, it's going to cost either $1.99 or $2.49. While I've bought my fair share of Beatport downloads at the $1.49 pricepoint, which is a little high, the former two prices are pretty ridiculous.

I've heard the argument before that any price is worth it as long as the song is good- but really, $2.49 for a file?

Let's attempt to rationalize this:

"Maybe they do it because every other digital store does the same"

- Not really. Prices of tracks on Beatport, Trackitdown, Junodownload, and other stores are significantly higher than the likes of iTunes, AmazonMP3 and Rhapsody.

"It costs more overhead for a store like Beatport to store a file on their server than someone else"

- This could be it, but at the same time there are still countless indie and smaller digital music stores offering the same $.99 pricepoint as the big guns.

"They do it because DJ's will pay anything to be able to play the latest hot track in their set"

- This is the closest I could come up with, but at the same time it still doesn't make sense. There are more fans listening and dancing to the music who might want to purchase it than DJ's spinning in the booth.

So what's your take on this subject? 

Keeping up with the times

One of the aspects of electronic dance music that has fascinated me ever since I became addicted to it a couple years ago is how few producers release full-length albums.

Rather than releasing an album every 2-3 years like artists in other genres, they constantly pump out tracks every month to get playtime in clubs around the world. This sounds like a good idea- who likes waiting forever for an album to come out? Not many.

But this same aspect also makes dance music one of the hardest, if not the hardest, musical genres to keep up with. Producers release multiple tracks a year- sometimes several in the same month. So instead of memorizing one release date every couple years for an artist (like you would do with a full-length album), you're forced to memorize dozens per month for each track- if you can even find them.

One of Wikipedia's best, if least known features, is that it's a fantastic site for finding out album release dates. If there's a band you like- chances are that there's a fanboy out there who even likes them more to the point that they will update their Wikipedia page whenever a tidbit comes out about a future release.

But EDM is a genre that doesn't have that exposure that most of the musicians written about on Wikipedia have.

So where does one go if they want to keep up to date with the latest tracks being released by their favorite producers?

- Discogs lists what everyone has already released, but not what's coming down the pipes.

- Beatport always posts up new tracks for sale. But unless you're going to that site with a specific track in mind, it can be painful to casually browse.

- Internet radio stations usually only play what's popular, so most of the lesser known artists get snubbed.

The best place I've found for collecting all this information is actually Facebook and Twitter. Most labels have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts that they update often because these sites are some of the most popular on the internet. According to Alexa (an internet trafficking company), Facebook is the second most visited site on the internet, with Twitter ranking 13th.

So take a label or artist, give a search, subscribe or follow them, and let them bring the information to you, not vice versa.

Nokia Theatre in Times Square: A New Home for Dance Music in NYC?

In case you haven't heard already, Made Event, one of New York City's premier booking/promotion groups for dance music, has booked a trio of shows for the Nokia Theatre in Times Square, sponsored by Armani Exchange:

[A recent Michael Jackson tribute at the venue, which normally doesn't host dance events. Image credit: thecouchsessions.com]

February 12 - Ferry Corsten & John Dahlback
March 19 - ATB
March 20 - Eric Prydz & Sebastian Leger

Although the biggest names in trance and house (Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, Paul Van Dyk, Deadmau5, David Guetta, etc.) have always been coming to NYC to play in such venues as the Hammerstein Ballroom, Roseland Ballroom, and Pacha, the Nokia Theatre is beneficial to the local scene in three ways:

1) It accommodates a decent amount of people- 2,100, while being in the heart of Manhattan. Because the venue is large, it gives bigger DJ's another place to play at in NYC. More big venues + a greater selection of venues = potentially more big dance music shows in NYC.

2) It's a concert venue, so the age limits are lower than what you would expect at a club. Therefore, underage fans can still get in to see the acts, and younger, more casual fans can get exposed to the music.

3) Unlike a club, once you buy your ticket, you're good to go. No guest lists or waiting in line.

It'll be interesting to see the turnout for these three concerts, and if they do well, what Made Event and other promoters have in store for the venue in the coming months.

A blast from the past

Last night when I was watching Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian (which came in from Netflix), some of the characters in the movie randomly sung Celine Dion's megahit "My Heart Will Go On" from the 1997 movie Titanic.

I immediately thought to myself- wouldn't this song sound great in a club mix?

After the movie was over, I went on YouTube to see what was available, but everything there sounded amateurish and unfitting.

So I then searched the only place where I knew I could find something legit- Beatport, and found a disco house remix of the song by Roy "Jazz" Grant appearing on a compilation called eVOLUTION by DJ Afrowax (some guy I never heard of).

For only a buck, the song is available on AmazonMP3, and after seeing the cool album art, I couldn't pass it up.

Fun listening.