Beatport Top 10 back to its reputation

“Consistently hailed by producers and non-producers alike as one of the crowning achievements in terms of releasing dancefloor-oriented music, the chart — and more specifically the top 10 — has long offered a quick snapshot into the biggest tracks of the moment. As such, the chart further serves the purpose of a transparent window into the changing tastes of our scene.

Circa 2010-2014, for instance, during the rise (and subsequent plateau) of big room culture, Beatport’s famed front page soon came to embody the increasing homogenization of dance music culture. Progressive House, or at least its bastardized mainstream offshoot, seemingly dominated the charts without end, with but a few other genre outliers cutting through the noise. With opportunistic producers replicating the chart’s top hits ad nauseam — no doubt capitalizing on the easy marketability of the genre’s time in the sun — the Top 10 soon became synontmous with formulaic dance productions.To strive for, admire, or even celebrate the Top 10 soon became regarded as shameful behavior for artists.

[It’s worth noting that this phenomenon has never been unique to mainstage-oriented productions. For every banal big room track, there are just as many (if not more) mediocre tech house tracks biting on the sound of the moment.]

Somewhere along the way, however, Beatport’s Top 10 started to evolve — or rather yet, devolve — back to its old ways, before the EDM explosion. Artists like Sasha, Solomun, and Green Velvet once again began ruling the charts, with labels like Innervisions, Crosstown Rebels, and Diynamic holding steady court over the home page. And somewhere during this period — which is holding steady throughout 2017 — the chart has regained its credibility.”

Guest post by Michael Sundius, read more on Dancing Astronaut.