With a somewhat unusual reveal date, yeah, because we’re used to finding out who the #1 DJ in the world is during the Amsterdam Dance Event (AMF) at the end of ADE, this year DJ Mag has compiled its much-talked-about ranking that declares who the most voted DJ is by users.
They did it with a dedicated event, separate from the usual festival, and it saw performances from different parts of the world by some artists: Carl Cox from Victoria in Australia, ALOK from The EDGE in New York, Nora En Pure from Bali, DESIREE from Boda de Muertos in Mexico, and finally, the winner of the ranking. The world’s most important ranking for DJ producers received 1.3 million votes from a whopping 237 countries.
This year, no drumroll because, in fact, even though there’s a change on the podium, we all kind of expected it: David Guetta wins (check out his set here). Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike follow, and Martin Garrix (former #1) is next in line.
As usual, there are a lot of discussions that could be had about this ranking, both constructive and destructive criticism, but they’re just bar talk; this is the people’s vote, and that’s enough for us. However, it’s interesting to tally up how many awards and records the world’s most popular Frenchman has scooped up just in 2023. David Guetta is the most-played French DJ producer on Spotify in the last 15 years (we talked about it here), he’s also the 4th most-played artist in the world on the same platform (article), he’s just been nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Pop Dance Recording category, he’s the Artist of the Year for NRJ (post here), shall we go on? Yes, he just won an MTV EMA in the ‘Best Electronic‘ category (discussed here), he’s the world’s most supported DJ/producer and therefore tops the Top 101 Producer of 1001Tracklists (article), and there’s probably something else we’re missing. In addition to this, in 2023, David Guetta has released at least one track per week, including remakes, remixes, unreleased tracks, and almost all of them have become global hits. In short, there was really no question about who the #1 DJ was this year. No!
Moving on to the other 10 positions of this year, the placements of other artists like Armin, Afrojack, or Alok are not that surprising anymore. What stands out is the rise of Peggy Gou, who has become super popular thanks to her track “It Goes Like (Na Na Na)” and who only ranked 24th last year.
So, that’s a wrap, and now straight on to a 2024 filled with good (new) music!
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