Topple Tracks and JustGo’s guide to the best DJs of 2013 – a hidden homage to the underground?

Topple Tracks and Just Go have released their guide to the best 100 DJs of 2013. Forget the acts, it’s the methodology we’re not so sure about.

Taste is highly subjective. We at TNG would never suggest that our own or our readers’ opinions or tastes are any more valid or better formulated than anyone else’s and we can guarantee that if we put up an idea of our top 100 DJs across the globe we quite possibly be reduced to fisticuffs at TNG towers never mind raise a few eyebrows amongst our readership. There’s so many factors, from productions, technical ability, longevity, track-selection, novelty, what clubs and festivals they play – the list is inexhaustible and again all final outcomes come down to matters of taste.

That would be the more honest, credible and realistic way to compile the list. However an anti-online piracy company and a social media monitoring company developed a strategy for completing such an apparently impossible task by taking the subjectivity out of it completely and just tapped into the dark and shadowy underworld of online data mines. They created a top 100 list based on all kinds of data dredged up from Facebook, Twitter and Google and interestingly how often their music was downloaded illegally. It’s amazing how many music sites have picked up on this and are running stories using that use as some kind of definitive guide.

As you might expect from a process devoid of any humanity or personality, the list of the current greatest DJs according to JustGo and Topple Track is dominated by the bland, soulless world of commercial EDM. We don’t want to sound snobbish or opinionated but at the same time we have a responsibility to the people that read our features to speak our minds and it’s a responsibility we take seriously. All that being said there are certainly some names who could quite easily find themselves in a top 100 list of electronic music acts. These include acts like Richie Hawtin (81st in the list), Maya Jane Coles (96th), Umek (66th), Flosstradamus (72nd), Flying Lotus (98th), Dillon Francis (39th) and perhaps a handful more.

TNG’s aim is to provide a place where people can access the world of underground electronic music. We have no affiliations to anyone or relationships of any kind which might compromise our ability share and critique what we consider soulful and sincere music from artists who are music first, money second (or third, or last wherever). So on the one hand while we might scoff at this list, on the other, we are immensely proud that the music we love and share – with the underground community of artists, fans, ravers, clubbers, DJs, clubs, festivals and whoever else is willing to share with us – is so far from the soulless, inhumane world of online data hoarding, privacy intrusion and the machinery of the commercial music industry.

It’s ironic that the underworld of electronic music – which encompasses the rawest glitches of techno, or the raucous, synthetic thud of a 909 kick, a pair of CDJs or a copy of Logic – leaves its trace not in the electronic world of internet data, or mainstream radio or multinational digital TV channels, it takes its place in the sweating clubs, the pulsating parties and the breathtaking festivals of real life scenes and communities. So we at TNG are celebrating this list in that it confirms our place in a family that extends beyond the corporate reaches of music and into heart of what music really is: expression, connection and enjoyment.

Without any further ado, we would like to present the top 10 of the 100 DJs as chosen by the lovely lads and lasses at JustGo and Topple Track. The 10 supreme disk jockeys planet earth has to offer, and they are:

Congratulations to all of these DJs, we mean absolutely no disrespect whatsoever. A place on this list isn’t something they have sought or asked for and we are not making any comment on the talent or hard work that any one who has success in the music business undoubtedly must commit. We are simply using it to show that even if this electronic world of the internet, social media and big business uses trends and hard data to tell us what we do and should value – so that we can feed back into it – what all this shows is that if according to society, the internet, TV, radio etc. who you are or what you like does not comply with what is trending or popular, you can always find a thriving, loving, caring, sharing community that will welcome you with open arms. It just so happens that the environment for us at least is the wonderful family that resides in the house of electronic music and we don’t need a list to keep us there.

See their full detailed report here on Topple Track’s website.