Nora en Pure Edges Maddix by 212 Votes to Top the Deep House Fan Vote

Fan votes measure something that streaming dashboards don't, and this deep house Top 3 shows the difference clearly. Nora en Pure takes first place with 11,227 votes. Maddix follows with 11,015. Robin Schulz finishes third with 9,211, even though he has the largest numbers in the group on every platform metric the three share.

The gap at the top is 212 votes, which is under two percent of the winner's total. Further down, the gap widens: Maddix finishes 1,804 votes ahead of third place.

Switzerland's Nora en Pure doesn't lead a single platform column in this group, and she doesn't need to. Her numbers are evenly spread: 1,507,561 Spotify monthly listeners, 512,287 Spotify followers, 467,000 YouTube subscribers, 460,487 Instagram followers and 289,698 SoundCloud followers. She also has 373,386 Last.fm listeners and 26,893 RA followers.

Her follower numbers are deep. Her Spotify followers come to roughly a third of her monthly listeners. She also beats Maddix on Spotify followers, YouTube, SoundCloud, Last.fm and RA. Each of those counts is made up of people who chose to keep up with an artist, and choosing to cast a vote comes from the same habit. Her credit score of 913 is second only to Robin Schulz's in this group.

Maddix, representing the Netherlands, has the lowest credit score of the three at 895 and still finishes second. That alone shows the fan vote is measuring something other than that score.

His profile leans a different way from the leader's. He's ahead of her on Instagram, with 568,009 followers, and on Spotify monthly listeners, at 4,668,574. On most other platforms he's behind her: 259,077 Spotify followers, 169,000 YouTube subscribers, 91,726 SoundCloud followers, 233,795 Last.fm listeners and 18,738 RA followers.

His entry also lists a festival count of 255, which points to a DJ who builds his case in front of live crowds as much as on streaming platforms.

Germany's Robin Schulz has the highest credit score in the Top 3 at 918. He also has the biggest audience on every platform the three share: 25,747,947 Spotify monthly listeners, 3,497,509 Spotify followers, 3,800,000 YouTube subscribers, 2,275,756 Instagram followers, 466,228 SoundCloud followers, 1,289,666 Last.fm listeners and 39,091 RA followers. His profile also lists 43,025 Mixcloud followers.

Yet he finishes third. The simplest reading is that a large audience doesn't turn into votes one for one. Streaming a track and voting for an artist are different things, and a fan ballot only measures the second.

That doesn't weaken his standing. Third place with 9,211 votes, plus the top credit score on the board, is a strong position by any measure.

Credit scores put this group in a different order. Robin Schulz leads at 918, Nora en Pure is five points behind at 913, and Maddix is last at 895. The fan vote moves the lowest credit score up to second and drops the highest to third.

The three DJs come from three countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany, and each took a different route to the podium. Nora en Pure got there through loyal followers, Maddix through social reach and a busy festival record, and Robin Schulz through sheer scale.

For now, deep house's top spot belongs to Switzerland, by 212 votes.