At the risk of stating the obvious, we at RA believe very strongly that DJing is a form of art. That might sound uncontroversial to readers of this site, but in the world at large, DJs still get short shrift next to other kinds of performers—even the birth place of house music doesn't give them their proper due. In a way the confusion is understandable. To the uninitiated, it might sound strange that someone would be paid, and possibly worshipped, simply for playing other people's music. To the casual observer (especially tax officials), a DJ playing for a sweaty crowd at some weird hour of the morning might not seem culturally valuable. And whether you mix vinyl or " just push play ," there's no denying that DJing is, on a technical level, much easier to get the hang of than a musical instrument.But beneath relatively simple tasks like beat-matching, cueing and EQing lies a craft of incredible depth and subtlety. DJing means more than playing good records with smooth transitions. It means sensing the mood of a room with incredible accuracy, gauging the collective taste of hundreds or thousands of strangers and giving them enough of what they want to lure them into your own musical world. It means having the entire history of recorded music as your toolbox and drawing from it whatever you think the night requires.Every weekend, countless people around the world shell out hard-earned cash to hear DJs mix records. Some are only after a good night out, but many are looking for something more elusive—a moment of transcendence that's only possible on a good night on a good dance floor with a good DJ playing. With this annual poll, we ask who gave you that experience in the last 12 months. With the result, we toast the artists who, weekend after weekend, give people memories that will stay with them for years, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that dance music is more than entertainment—it's one of the essential art forms of our time.