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 International Dance Music Awards Nominees 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, while the 2020 IDMA nominees can be found below
THE 2020 IDMA NOMINEES
2020 Artist Categories
Nominations powered by Viberate
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
Roza Terenzi
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
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
