The 50 Biggest Artists of 2013

2013: the year of the dance music artist album, the rise of SFX and EMC’s Wall Street debut, musically defined by another 365 of festival fuel and Beatport bedlam. It’s been a strange and satisfying year, but still one in which artists deserve retrospective praise. And that’s where Dancing Astronaut’s annual ranking, our Biggest Artists of 2013, comes into play.

These are the artists who paved their way into the mainstream consciousness in 2013. They may not all be your personal cup of tea, but when it comes to raising awareness for dance music, headlining festivals and tastemaking across genres, these 50 artists made the most noise for the scene as a whole. We factored in not only their commercial success but their recognition on a global stage. Some artists made their mark with landmark productions while others were a booking agent’s dream, but regardless of where they made their impact they all have one thing in common; a lasting effect on the dance music zeitgeist of 2013.

But where’s Daft Punk?

We made a conscious decision to exclude Daft Punk from our list. Despite a ton of buzz and 2013’s most talked about album, the duo had very little lasting effect on the scene we call home. There were no festival dates and no touring schedule – just one smash hit and a lot of noise on the internet. Daft Punk’s presence on our list would have tipped the scales in their favor, creating an apples to oranges comparison that we felt did a disservice to the acts on our list and to the robots themselves.

