This feature was produced in partnership with Volumo.
In the last two decades, Electronic Groove has published more DJ charts, Top 10 selections and tracklists than I could possibly count. We still do it because a good chart can tell you something useful about the person who made it. Not simply what is popular or what sold the most copies, but what that DJ is actually listening to, playing, rediscovering or carrying around with them at that particular moment.
Cover photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
Over the years, some of the most interesting examples have come from artists with decades of experience behind the decks. When Dave Seaman, Danny Howells and Darren Emerson shared some of their current favorites with EG as 3D, the value was never in deciding which record deserved to sit at number one. Each of them explained why certain tracks were working in their sets, what caught their attention, and where those records fitted within their own taste. That original EG selection is still in our archive.
That is when a chart becomes useful to me. You are not being handed a definitive list of the ten best records available. You are being allowed into somebody else’s record bag for a few minutes.
A sales ranking does something different. It tells you what people are buying, and that can also be useful information. Popular records can be excellent records, and knowing what is moving inside a store can tell you something about where attention is gathering. The problem starts when popularity begins to function as recommendation, because those are not the same thing.
When sales become guidance
The mechanics are easy to understand. A record starts selling, moves higher in a ranking, and receives more visibility. More DJs see it, more people listen, more people buy it, and the record moves higher again. At that point, the chart is not only reporting what happened. It is also influencing what happens next.
There is nothing wrong with that record becoming successful. The interesting question is what happens when so much discovery begins with the same ranking.
Running EG gives me a strange view of how quickly that consensus can form. A record arrives through a promo campaign. A few days later it begins appearing in DJ charts. Then you see it in more playlists, more social posts, and more sets. Sometimes the music deserves every bit of that attention. But you can also watch visibility create more visibility.
For a DJ trying to develop a recognizable identity, that distinction matters. A sales chart shows you where attention already is. Digging begins when you decide what to do with that information.
That is one reason I find Volumo’s approach interesting. The platform deliberately does not use a global Top 100 sales chart. Instead, it separates different forms of recommendation according to what each one is actually supposed to communicate.
Its Focus Charts are selected by the Volumo curation team rather than generated by sales numbers. On Rotation highlights music receiving support from DJs in their sets and radio shows. Then there are charts created by individual DJs and selectors. One reflects the judgment of a curation team, another shows what DJs are actually supporting, and another gives you access to the taste of a particular person. Those are very different signals, and they should be.
Context changes everything
A number beside a record looks authoritative. Number one appears more important than number seventeen, but a sales position is measuring activity. It is not measuring musical value.
A DJ selection is much less precise in that sense, but often much richer in context.
Earlier this year, Hernán Cattáneo recorded EG.1062 for us during Miami Music Week. He described the session as a selection of tracks that had been working particularly well in his sets during the South American summer. The mix included music from Federico Epis, Gai Barone, Mariano Mellino, Henry Saiz, Hicky & Kalo, Kevin Di Serna and others.
That context immediately tells you something a sales position cannot. You are hearing records that survived actual sets and became part of Hernán’s musical world during a particular period. You can start with one artist, follow the label, discover another release, and end up somewhere completely different from where the tracklist began. That is discovery doing its job.
The same thing happens with the Top 10 features we have published for years. The track sitting at number seven can end up being much more interesting to you than the one sitting at number one. You follow the artist, then the label, then another producer on the same imprint. Twenty minutes later, the original chart has almost become irrelevant. It simply gave you somewhere to begin. A useful chart should start the search, not finish it.
Seeing the problem from the label side
Running Electronic Groove Records has made the other side of this increasingly clear to me.
You can believe deeply in a record, release it properly, support it through your own channels and still watch it enter the same weekly stream as thousands of other new tracks. A strong record does not automatically find an audience simply because it exists.
Our Revelations series has been built around putting established artists and newer names inside the same catalog. Across the series, we have worked with artists including Campaner, Nikko Mavridis, Freedo Mosho and Futura City, alongside many others at different stages of their careers.
From the label side, you quickly understand how much the right selector can matter. One DJ plays the track. Somebody else hears it. A chart sends another listener toward the label. A mix introduces the artist to someone who had never seen the name before. Attention grows through people.
That makes Volumo’s approach to curator compensation particularly relevant. The company says 75 percent of each sale goes to rights holders, while DJs and curators can receive 5 percent when somebody purchases music through their charts.
The commission itself is not what interests me most. I would never want somebody recommending a record simply because they can make a small percentage from the sale. The interesting part is that the model recognizes something our culture has always known: people who introduce music to other people create value. Record shop staff did it. DJs do it. Radio hosts do it. Journalists do it. Friends do it. Volumo has simply attached an economic mechanism to that act of selection.
The problem is not popularity
None of this is an argument against popular music or sales charts. There are times when I want to know what is selling. Seeing what hundreds of DJs are buying can tell you something useful about what is happening inside a genre.
The danger comes when one type of information becomes the default route into everything else.
Electronic music has always benefited from having many different entrances. DJ sets, radio shows, labels, record shops, magazines, promos, friends and charts all send people toward music from different directions. Today we have social feeds, recommendation systems, and increasingly powerful search tools added to that list.
The more different routes we preserve, the better the chance that two DJs who begin in the same place eventually end up somewhere completely different.
Maybe the more useful question when looking at any chart is not simply what is number one. Ask who selected these records. Why are they here? What else does that person play? What else has the label released? Where does this record take me next?
Volumo’s decision to separate human curation, DJ support, and individual selector charts from raw sales rankings is one answer to that question. It will not make every DJ discover different music, and no platform can do that. The final decision still belongs to the person listening.
A good chart should not save you from having taste. It should give your taste somewhere new to go.
Explore the Volumo Charts, browse Electronic Groove Records, and discover more at Volumo.com.
