This past week DJ Mag released their highly anticipated annual rankings of the top 100 DJs and producers from all around the world. A new king was crowned after five years of rule by Armin Van Buuren. Hardwell was named #1 to much of everyone’s expectation. He has made huge strides in his music production and live sets to have earned this award. Before the announcement was made public, Armin Van Buuren had already conceded the seat in an article on Dash Berlin’s website.
“Secretly I’m very unfortunate. Everybody wants to be the best… I can still call myself number two after I have been number one five times. The music develops further, there will be new talent. And I’m especially proud that the new number one is a Dutchman.”
He doesn’t specifically say the new number one is Hardwell, but he does make mention of the fact that he is a Dutchman. That is actually a pretty vague description considering one-third of all the DJ’s listed were Dutchmen. The 100 top DJ’s were made up of DJs from twenty-seven countries all over the world. Below is a graph of how the nationalities of the top 100 DJs are distributed.
In an industry that takes place all over the world it is clear that the Dutch have produced the best. A Dutchman has held the seat 6 of the last 7 years. Tiesto even posted a flowchart on his Instagram the other day showing exactly what we are all thinking,
As much of a joke as this may be, it seems logical. The next country with the most DJs is Sweden with 9 and then America and France with 8 a piece. It is also interesting to look at the top 10. In that list there are six Dutch DJs as well, which means 60% of the top ten and 30% of the top 100 are Dutchmen.
There must be something in the water over there. Whether you know each DJ’s nationalities or not, you know the names Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Hardwell, Nicky Romero, Afrojack, Dash Berlin, and the list goes on and on. Its truly incredible how one country can have such a stronghold on a music industry in the way these greats do.
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