Is it December already? Time for one of those pesky music polls. The RA team has put on our thinking caps, rifled through our records and agonised over our choices to present the first ever RA music poll. Writers and contributors to RA have been arguing about bass drum tones, stage presence and mixing styles for weeks, and this week it’s time to announce the results. Roll out the red carpet.

The RA trophies will go to winners across nine categories: top albums, top remixes, top compilations, top labels, top DJs, top producers, top live acts and of course top five RA podcasts. Votes came in from contributors as far afield as Japan, Singapore, Bulgaria, Spain and Israel. The wonders of the Internet will never cease to amaze!

But no surprise, really, because these days the dance music community is a global one. Whether you are out partying each weekend in the club capitals or dancing around the living room at home in the sticks, in 2006 it seems like we've all got access to good music in one way or another, and in that sense we're connected (give or take a trance hotbed or two in India). But while the Internet might be opening up ears to this fantastic music all the time, it brings with it a new responsibility: to choose to give back to the artists. Let's honour them with trophies, but also with cash.

Judging by the quality of the releases this year, 2006 has been great for dance music. The purpose of this poll is to celebrate the best electronic rhythms out there, but we also hope that it might turn you the reader on to something you might not haven’t discovered otherwise. At very least, it might give you a good idea for that difficult last minute Christmas present.

We've already announced the top five albums. Top five compilations of 2006 are after the jump. Snare roll please.