News & Reviews

BASS: Paul van Dyk is tops at IDMA, voted world’s best DJ

Paul van Dyk won the world’s best DJ honors and three other categories at the International Dance Music Awards, solidifying his status as one of the most prolific club performers and studio talents. The boatload of honors capped a prolific year in which van Dyk banged out mix albums and trotted the globe performing at clubs.

Trance and techno DJ Van Dyk was also named best producer. His album The Politics of Dancing Vol. 2, released through Vandit’s imprint Mute, took honors for the best full length DJ mix CD of 2005. In addition, his song The Other Side featuring Wayne Jackson (also from Vandit/Mute) won best hiNRG European track.

The IDMA Awards, one of electronic dance music’s biggest yearly events, took place during the recent Winter Music Conference in Miami Beach, Fla.

For van Dyke, the IDMA honors capped a prolific year of performances that seemed to capture the highs and lows of club life. During his treks to California, he played San Francisco venue 1015 Folsom at least twice and was slated to play Love Parade SF, which was nominated as one of the year’s best dance events, but pulled out at the last minute. A shooting occurred at one of his shows that remains unsolved. Through it all, he continued churning out danceable beats to large audiences.

In other IDMA categories, trance DJ Armin Van Buuren, who dominated individual honors a year ago, was voted the best DJ among dance radio mixshow artists for his program A State of Trance. Gabriel & Dresden beat out Sasha as the top remixer, and The Pussycat Dolls were voted the best new dance artist group and their track Don’t Cha featuring Busta Rhymes (A&M/Interscope) took the R&B/Dance track vote.

In House music, Deep Dish was voted the best American DJ and got a best progressive nod for the track Say Hello (Deep Dish/Thrive). Sander Kleinenberg was named the best European DJ.

Among promoters, San Francisco’s Spundae took an IDMA award for the second straight year and Derek Scott Graves of the smoking hot House label Star 69 was voted best in-house record promoter.

The Ultra Music Festival in Miami is traditionally a closeout party for many Winter Music Conference delegates. The event repeated last year’s best honors among electronic music events worldwide.

For full results in all of the IDMA categories check out the Winter Music Conference website.

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