Just recently at the Winter Music Conference the International Dance Music Awards were given out to the most innovative artists in the industry. This year it was the 23rd year and what I feel was the biggest year for electronic music and the community has really grown to include a mainstream crowd. People of all different backgrounds, cultures and ages have been united by electronic music on a global perspective and with the likes of David Guetta, Fedde Le Grande, Axwell, Daft Punk and Justice. Never before have people from all over the world connected with electro house and the days of massive festivals are back again, but not only in the UK and North America but huge crowds in countries such as Brazil and Serbia flocking to party it up to these dj’s/producers who are now looked at as modern rock stars.

Let’s take a look at some of the winners at the International Dance Music Awards of 2008:

Best House/Garage Track: Love Is Gone by David Guetta and Chris Willis beats out Axwell’s I Found You. Personally I was quite moved by Axwell’s track, especially the music video which made waves amongst my colleagues. But you have to say David Guetta has been on fire lately and has been headlining major events around the world (check out Global Gathering). Love is Gone also wins Best Breaks/Electro track which is kind of strange in my opinion! It shouldn’t even be nominated in two categories like this. (David Guetta Music Videos)

Best Progressive House Track & Best Alternative/Rock Dance Track: Let Go by Paul Van Dyk. Paul Van Dyk makes a major come back and wins three awards this year (including White Lies as Best HiNRG/Euro Track).

Best Dance Music Video: D.A.N.C.E. by Justice. This wasn’t really any surprise as this music video made waves throughout the industry for it’s stylistic and relevant video, even breaking mainstream culture and being on almost every tv music station on the planet. I only wish their music video DVNO was nominated instead! DANCE was good, but DVNO was absolutely brilliant! (Justice Music Videos). Justice was also the award winner for Best Break Through Group.

Best Break-Through Artist: Sander Van Doorn. Just to show that Trance is still the heavy-weight when it comes to dance music around the world. But come on, without a doubt the winner for this category should have been Deadmau5. He has been the talk of almost every producer in the industry and at such a young age we are sure to see much more greatness from him in the near future.

Best Dance Artist: Bob Sinclair. Bob Sinclair has been on a path of the gold road lately. His tracks and music videos are absolutely in their own league and style which translates very well to a large group of people due to the chilled out cultural nature of his music. In fact his music video has reached over 6 million views on Youtube! (Bob Sinclair Music Videos)

Best Dance Group: Daft Punk. Undeniably Daft Punk has emerged from the dead rocketing charts and crossing over into hip hop with Kanye West’s remix of Harder Better Stronger Faster (originally released in October of 2001…it was?!). Their recent tour for Alive 2007 was quite remarkable selling out numerous venues across North America and it will be interesting to see if we can get some new productions by this duo. (Daft Punk Music Videos)

Best Turntable: Technics SL-1210M5G. Some may say that this was probably the last year of the traditional Turntables as cd players are now the norm Which leads on to…




Best CD Player: Pioneer CDJ-1000MK3.
Pioneer can do no wrong and their DJ equipment are outselling other brands hands down across the marketplace. (check out this awesome package for Pioneer CDJ-100/DJM-800 package including the winner for best mixer)

See a complete list of the winners of the International Dance Music Awards at the winter music conference web site