International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) have a long tradition of celebrating outstanding artists, venues, festivals, services, and other electronic music industry stakeholders. For years it has been one of the pillars of the Winter Music Conference that has thousands of dance music professionals from all over the world coming to Miami each March. The IDMA winners are chosen by a public vote, however, the past two years the nominees in the artist categories have been selected by the music-tech startup, Viberate.
Founded by a techno legend, UMEK, Viberate analyzes over a billion data points from social and streaming sites for almost half a million artists. For the IDMA they single out those who made the most impact within a one-year period. This methodology is fair and objective since it looks into the nominated artists’ true popularity, regardless of where they come from or who they work with. If fans show them love, they get picked.
The methodology goes well beyond just counting likes and followers, or as the company’s co-founder, Vasja Veber, says: “We monitor most of the global social media channels and streaming sites. In order to rank artists by their popularity across all those channels, we need to boil down an array of unrelated metrics into one single key performance indicator. For each channel, we measure audience, engagement, and the ratio between those two. An engaged audience means more than a huge mass of inactive followers. We also look into how artists are following each other across monitored channels. So if you’re a local techno producer, and you get followed by Adam Beyer and Amelie Lens on Soundcloud or Twitter, this definitely brings extra points to your profile, and you rank higher. This, combined with a pile of other raw data, is then processed by our statistical algorithms. The result is various popularity charts – filtered by genres, countries and different time periods. Working in a music startup sure sounds like fun, but with Viberate it’s more about advanced math and all those other things most of us hated in school.”
For those who want to find out more about the use of big data in the music industry, WMC will host a panel on the topic, featuring Rolling Stone’s Director of Charts – Emily Blake, NWA founding member – Arabian Prince, Napster’s Chief of Programming – Andre Glanz, and Viberate’s business development director – Vasja Veber. More about the panel can be found here: https://wintermusicconference.com/panel/viberate-presents-data-science-can-social-media-and-streaming-metrics-be-the-deciding-factor-between-profit-and-loss
DANCE/ELECTRONIC (Male)
- Calvin Harris
- Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike
- Marshmello
- Martin Garrix
- The Chainsmokers
DANCE/ELECTRONIC (Female)
- Juicy M
- Krewella
- Mariana BO
- MATTN
- NERVO
TECHNO (Male)
- Adam Beyer
- Boris Brejcha
- Carl Cox
- Enrico Sangiuliano
- Richie Hawtin
TECHNO (Female)
- Amelie Lens
- ANNA
- Charlotte de Witte
- Deborah De Luca
- Nina Kraviz
TRANCE (Male)
- Above & Beyond
- Aly & Fila
- Armin Van Buuren
- Giuseppe Ottaviani
- Cosmic Gate
TRANCE (Female)
- Alessandra Roncone
- Christina Novelli
- Clara Yates
- Maria Healy
- Nifra
HOUSE (Male)
- ARTBAT
- Black Coffee
- Claptone
- FISHER
- Meduza
HOUSE (Female)
- Hannah Wants
- Honey Dijon
- Maya Jane Coles
- Nora En Pure
- Peggy Gou
BASS (Male)
- Illenium
- NGHTMRE
- RL Grime
- Skrillex
- Yellow Claw
BASS (Female)
- Alison Wonderland
- CloZee
- Lucii
- REZZ
- WHIPPED CREAM
DRUM & BASS (Male)
- Andy C
- Bou
- Chase & Status
- Enei
- Sub Focus
DRUM & BASS (Female)
- Changing Faces
- DJ Rap
- DJ Storm
- Kyrist
- Mollie Collins
HARDSTYLE (Male)
- Angerfist
- D-Block & S-TE-FAN
- Da Tweekaz
- Headhunterz
- Warface
HARDSTYLE (Female)
- AniMe
- Korsakoff
- Lady Dammage
- MANDY
- Miss K8
DOWNTEMPO (Male)
- Bonobo
- Four Tet
- Petit Biscuit
- Thievery Corporation
- Tycho
DOWNTEMPO (Female)
- Huxley Anne
- D. Tiffany
- RozaTerenzi
- TOKiMONSTA
- Yu Su
2020 Industry Categories
Nominations Powered by The IDMA Advisory Board
BEST ALBUM
- Avicii “TIM”
- Flume “Hi This is Flume”
- Gryffin “Gravity”
- Illenium “ASCEND”
- The Chemical Brothers “No Geography”
BEST SONG (DANCE)
- MEDUZA “Piece of Your Heart”
- Sam Feldt feat. RANI “Post Malone”
- Yves V feat. Afrojack &Icona Pop “We Got That Cool”
- Oliver Heldens, Lenno “This Groove”
- LUM!X, Gabry Ponte “Monster”
BEST SONG (ELECTRONIC)
- Bonobo “Linked”
- Camelphat ft. Jem Cooke “Rabbit Hole”
- Elderbrook& Rudimental “Something About You”
- Fisher “You Little Beauty”
- Peggy Gou “Starry Night”
BEST REMIX
- Monolink – Return To Oz (ARTBAT Remix)
- Meduza, Goodboys – Piece of Your Heart (Alok Remix)
- LUM!X, Gabry Ponte – Monster (Robin Schulz Remix)
- UK Apache & SHY FX – Original Nuttah 25 feat. IRAH (Chase & Status Remix)
- Madonna – I Rise (Tracy Young Remix)
BEST LABEL
- Armada Music
- Anjunabeats
- Astralwerks
- Spinnin’ Records
- Ultra Records
BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST
- ARTBAT
- Dom Dolla
- Meduza
- Solardo
- WHIPPED CREAM
BEST FESTIVAL/EVENT
- Coachella
- Electric Daisy Carnival
- Electric Zoo
- Tomorrowland
- Ultra Music Festival
BEST CLUB
- Avant Gardner/Brooklyn Mirage (New York)
- Berghain (Berlin)
- Fabric Nightclub (London)
- Space (Miami)
- Ushuaïa (Ibiza)
BEST RADIO SHOW / PODCAST
- “A State of Trance” by Armin van Buuren
- “Club Life” by Tiësto
- “Group Therapy” by Above & Beyond
- “Heldeep Radio” by Oliver Heldens
- Spinnin’ Sessions
BEST RADIO STATION
- BBC Radio 1
- BPM (SiriusXM)
- Diplo’s Revolution (SiriusXM)
- Evolution (iHeartRadio)
- KCRW (LA)
BEST STREAMING SERVICE
- Amazon Music
- Apple Music
- Deezer
- Pandora
- Spotify
BEST YOUTUBE CHANNEL
- MrSuicideSheep
- Proximity
- Spinnin’ TV
- Trap Nation
- Ultra Music
BEST DJ EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER
- Allen & Heath
- Denon DJ
- Native Instruments
- Pioneer DJ
- Technics
BEST DAW
- Ableton Live 10
- Avid Pro Tools
- FL Studio
- Logic Pro X
- Steinberg Cubase
