The DJ Magazine Top 100 DJs poll was first introduced in 1995 and is now widely considered the industry barometer for clubland’s most influential jocks. But as the years have passed and the survey itself has grown more influential, debate about its legitimacy and relevance has amplified accordingly.

Full results from the 2010 poll will be announced this October both in the monthly magazine and at a major but as yet unspecified industry party. The voting process is the same as always – participants are asked to hit up www.top100djs.net between now and September 23, and nominate their five favourite DJs of the year. The votes are calculated and a longlist of movers and shakers trumpeted. Simple.

Nevertheless, whilst organisers aim to remind and reassure us that the Top 100 is an entirely public vote uninfluenced by any of their number, or the “industry cabal that is trying to promote their own interests,” many within the dance scene, clubber and commentator alike, remain unconvinced or, at best, confused.

Reigning DJ Mag #01 DJ Armin van Buuren

Launching this year’s event just over a fortnight ago with a sweep of PR and marketing activity, new DJ Mag Editor Ben Murphy was immediately put on the defensive. A major criticism levelled at the poll for a number of years now is that it skews too heavily towards trance performers. “Many people misconstrue what the poll is about” Murphy responded. “It’s not representing ‘the best DJs in the world’. It’s the most popular DJs in the world, as voted for by the public. It’s not a question of whether they are better, but their standing in peoples’ estimation.

“As trance is so popular, it follows that in a popularity contest, trance DJs often come out on top.”

Murphy is currently calling on house, techno and dubstep enthusiasts to shake off any previous electoral apathy and make sure their scenes are sufficiently reflected this time round.  But he also offers words of warning to those DJs organising super-sophisticated voting campaigns: “People can hire PRs if they want and making use of social networking sites is definitely a winner. But people cannot offer incentives to vote or they will be disqualified.”

The Top 100 has, undoubtedly given rise to an increasingly slick, increasingly elaborate set of DJ voting campaigns in recent years. With that has come allegations and some little evidence of vote rigging, but also an acknowledgment that poll results are being affected as much by marketing skills as those skills behind the ones and twos (and laptops….) The poll measures DJ popularity, fair enough, but with so much intensive spin whirring away in the background can it be said to truly measure someone’s influence based on talent and talent alone?

Last year’s countdown was generated off the back of a whopping 350,000 votes from club followers in over 230 countries; around 40,000 DJs were nominated. The rise of stars in a number of sub-scenes was well noted, dubsteppers like Skream scoring particularly well. And yet the Top 10 was littered with familiar trance names, including Armin Van Buuren (current reigning champion,) Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Deadmau5 and Ferry Corsten.

Skream

In the poll’s early years, of course, there seemed to be a much wider mix of sonic personalities. Take the 2001 poll, for example, when Corsten and Van Dyk shared high rankings with Yank-house heavyweights Danny Tenaglia and Roger Sanchez, as well as progressively-minded duo Deep Dish.

Back in 2007 DJ Magazine uncovered voting irregularities where US stars Christopher Lawrence and DJ Dan were concerned; the pair were removed from the process but vehemently denied any wrongdoing, implying that their former marketing manager had been instigating illegal votes without any kind of consent. Other DJs confessed to paying cash for votes.

Sadly this year’s competition has already been tarred with the same dodgy brush. In a terse statement DJ Magazine admits that, for the past four years, it has been aware of “advancing attempts to score fake votes” and has subsequently “tightened all computer systems and guidelines to ensure this cannot be attempted successfully.”

Of course, the statement goes on to confirm that a video has been circulating on the internet ahead of this October’s poll, detailing how DJs can cheat using a “well-known international jobs site.” It also suggests that a number of DJs, or their various agents and representatives, are allegedly paying computer ‘coder’ companies in India to generate thousands of illegal, untraceable votes.

Magazine organisers continue to investigate and have, in turn, set up an ‘amnesty’ email address where evidence or suspicion of dubious voting practices can be sent to in confidence.

One well-informed contributor to a recent Top 100-related forum thread on the popular Trance Addict site offers various thoughts on just how easy it is to bend IT software in order to defraud, before cynically adding [sic]: “Wont point out names but again – it’s all rigged by artist’s own agents. Something like 65 per cent of the votes are by the agencies. Everyone who made the list had his/her agent have a hand in getting there.”

The same user drops a further post in which he outlines the agenda he feels these ‘agents’ are following when manipulating the DJ Mag poll [sic]: “agents play around to make a low top 100 figure for new artists. Then they hope that picks up their artists for a few gigs. Then stick with that for the next year guessing to move up or down a little - till you release a full cd. With that, you then vote for yourself some more to make a higher rating….”

So where does this leave us? Not necessarily in chaos for there are many regular clubland dwellers that do vigorously support the Top 100. Further down (again) the Trance Addict thread user ‘darthseph’ offers his ‘agenda’ for taking part in the annual poll: “I do it [to] support the DJs I actually think did something that year or the ones I truly enjoyed throughout the year.” Another, Nerologic, stresses “I need to show my love to the 2 best DJs in the world!!!” before pasting a photo of the Tiesto and Van Buuren chest tattoos he has had specially etched in honour of this year’s proceedings.

Whilst the fires of controversy continue to rage around DJ Magazine’s high-profile who’s who, it is clear that a significant number of music lovers do still take voting extremely seriously. To them, the Top 100 is a chance to shout loud and passionately proud about what, in their humble opinion, makes clubland rock; about who deserves respect and recognition within the clubbing community.

That, according to one new pure ‘n’ prominent Facebook voting campaign, is “the man who invented 2 turntable mixing” Sir Jimmy Saville. If Jim’s supporters really can fix it this autumn, then it’ll be for all the right reasons….

Visit www.top100djs.net to cast your 2010 vote.