The idea for this project came up late in the year 2021 when I noticed some surprising names in a well known top DJ voting. While it's already commonly known as a popularity contest, I was sure that there were many DJs from Germany that were way more popular than some of those who made the list. My assignment was to find them.

In early 2023 I finally finished a standalone ranking prototype under the name of EDMGermany. Particularly in parts of German techno culture, the term EDM has a negative connotation though. Hence I opted for the name German Electronic Music (GEM). I mean, who doesn’t like gems? Even though the name doesn’t include the D for Dance anymore you’re still allowed to dance while listening to my playlists.

At release, the database already consisted of about 450 DJs and producers. It started with all the artists I already knew, which were then complemented by the ones I found while digging even further into the scene. In the future, there’ll be a feature to suggest even more names. It should be noted that producers with multiple different projects/aliases may appear in the list.

The ranking is based on the Popularity Score. It’s a value between 0 and 100, with 100 being the most popular, which is calculated by Spotify from the popularity of all the artist’s tracks on their platform.