Beatport have just launched their first ever music awards and having checked it out it makes some interesting reading. There are 36 categories altogether: Best Artists (separated into 18 genres), and Best Track (17 genres, with both originals and remixes), with a final open question asking the public to name the ‘most influential, relevant and forward-thinking person in electronic music over the past 12 months’, however all nominees are based solely on Beatport sales data from March 2009 – March 2010.
Fundamentally this makes logical sense, however having read through the list of nominees in each category you cant help but feel that these awards don’t comprehensively recognize the music talent…… Whilst I can understand you cant argue with hard and fast sales figures I think I would prefer to see a system that asks you to vote for your top 5 artists, as the current setup can only really celebrate those that are commercially viable on Beatport and therefore doesn’t allow you to vote for who you actually want to vote for, and ultimately restricts exposure for those emerging acts who deserve the recognition.
Having said all this I think this is a solid addition to the Awards calender and there is still plenty to vote for despite my reservations above…..
Click Here to Vote – Voting closes May 19th 2010
We Voted for the Following:
Best Indie Dance Artist – A-Trak
Best Dubstep Artist – Skream
Best Drum & Bass – Sub Focus
Best Dubstep Track – EmalKay – When I look at You
Best Indie Dance / Nu Disco – Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Heads will Roll
Best Drum & Bass Track – Sub Focus – Rock It
Best Techno Track – Paul Ritch – Split the Line (Dubfire Remix)
Most Influential person – Diplo
Some of the votes seem very obvious, plus I couldn’t vote in some of the catergories as there wasn’t really an artist I wanted to vote for. Be interested to hear other people’s thoughts and what they voted for….