God the IDMAs are weird. The annual
International Dance Music Awards took place during Miami’s Winter Music
Conference last Thursday (10
th March), with a whopping 56 categories
in all, in that traditionally excessive American award show fashion (The
Grammys is 100+).
It’s largely non-sensical. The
most headscratching of all is how Australian rockers The Temper Trap won Best
Alternative / Rock Dance track for their single Sweet Disposition. What does a U2-rip-off (albeit a very good one)
have to do with dance music exactly?
Then you get Swedish House Mafia’s
One winning both Best Electro / Tech
House Track and Best Progressive Track. Aside from it not really being any of
those things, why does it get to feature in two genre categories? Surely it’s
one or the other?
We also weren’t aware that Yolanda
Be Cool & DCUP’s house track We No
Speak Americano qualifies as Best Latin / Reggaeton track because it
features a Latin music sample (seems slightly unfair on authentic rivals in the
category such as Shakira and Enrique Iglesias).
While we’re at it, since when was
Duck Sauce’s Barbara Streisand and ‘Underground
Dance Track’, let alone the ‘Best Underground Dance Track’ (National Chart Number 1 in at least 9 countries)?
And why on god’s earth is there a ‘Best
Turntable Category’? What is the point in pitching the (both now out of
production) Technics SL-1200 MK2 against the SL-1210? Are these new products or
something? Who cares??
OK, so it’s a public vote and you
can’t complain (too much) about that, but it’s the categories in the first
place that are ridiculous.