How Do I Found Out What Music is Hot?

[exokinetic]

Having a couple gigs of fresh music I haven't listened to yet, that needs to be sorted, diamonds in the rough found, religiously beat-gridded...

...is like a giant Christmas present.


Then maybe I found one or two artists or producers or labels I have never heard of yet, and more research, and present finding ensues...

...a literally endless cycle of consumption, disposal of waste, and polishing the library of music that is an amalgamation of everything that it means to be "Me".

[rt24]

Yeah I have a bunch of artists I have on my beatport list, I listen to podcasts religiously, and then I check out the top 10 of each genre etc.

But really though, if I like the sound of something, I am going to play it. As DJs, don't we determine what is popular?

[sebastiannz]

I guess thats the one drawback with digital DJing, the abundance of music, yet lack of organization in trying to buy it!

It used to be such a pleasure going down to the local record shops, be handed a bag of 50 newest releases by a shop owner each week who knew exactly what you spin and what you like (or not) and spend the afternoon trawling though every flipside mix before laying out your hard earned cash.

Now its needing to wait on buffering, pages to reload, more pages which link off other pages of stuff completely irrelevant , then waiting on the files to download, then organize them and find album art (or create it) all just feels like an endless chore.

Surely there must be some money in a physical MP3 shop that specializes in digital releases ? A middleman, like the vinyl shops of old who for want of a better word cut out the crap and takes the edge off trying to find the good ones ?

the thing is, for me anyway, it took ages to go through 50 pieces of vinyl in a shop. You have to pull it carefully out of the sleeve, put it on the turntable, needle, etc...play it for a few seconds, then if you don't like it, put it back. Do that x 50 and it's a lot slower than skimming through 50 tracks on beatport.

Secondly, you have a record store guy filtering stuff for you. He might be not giving you tracks that he either doesn't want you to have, or doesn't know you like. Another negative.

Thirdly, the record store itself doesn't pick up everything - so again your range is being filtered and you are missing out on potential gems.

Fourthly!! Vinyl is sooo much more expensive than digital. Assuming you are holding the same standards for both vinyl and digital (and good DJs do ) you can get 4 x as many tracks on digital as you can on vinyl. I used to pay 25 bucks NZ for vinyl, and maybe one of the sides would suck. For 25 bucks I can get about 11 tracks off Beatport or Juno!! Again...I'm assuming you are still getting really high quality, good music.

At the moment I've got about 8 tracks in my crate in beatport...in the olden days that would cost me a freakin fortune...8 x 25 bucks...argh. I'd have to drop a few for sure. Now...I can get em all And they are all good too. I've listened to each one about 10 x each to make sure I like them. Again...you can't do this in the shop, not enough time! You'd have to sit there all day.

As you can tell I like digital shopping :P

[sebastiannz]

Forgot to make my point... lol.

I agree with your point that without the middle man in the form of the record store, there is a lot more crap. But once you have setup a good system, using artist and label favourites for example on beatport's website, you can begin increasing increasing your hit rate. You still need to dig, but like everything, practice makes perfect!

[StevieDee'j]

The great thing about being a DJ is YOU get to decide what's hot. That's one of the responsibilities of being a DJ. Don't pass that off onto someone else.

I totally agree dj's can decide whats hot, If you enjoy it and your mixes are tight then its all good + when you find tunes you love and they arnt commercially hot, people will come up and ask what it was or they will remember your set the next day due to the tunes they heard you drop. But theres no harm in pointing people in the right direction, not all dj's got where they are today without asking a few people for help

+ dont follow all the top tens on download sites because theres no passion in that.

[deevey]

the thing is, for me anyway, it took ages to go through 50 pieces of vinyl in a shop. You have to pull it carefully out of the sleeve, put it on the turntable, needle, etc...play it for a few seconds, then if you don't like it, put it back. Do that x 50 and it's a lot slower than skimming through 50 tracks on beatport.

You should come and try my internet connection sometime :P

I just don't "enjoy" shopping for music online the same way and feel I put much more thought into what I might, would, could or couldn't play on vinyl, having to wait for the download etc.... maybe I'm just weird

But damn dude, $25 per vinyl .. thats crazy money $10 was my average + you had the remixes / EP tracks to factor in as well as a nice lump of 12' goodness to cuddle. All things considered, price of pressing, printing, distribution fee's, rental ... vinyl isn't priced that badly.

It's as much a DJ's job to MAKE something new be hot as to play something already hot.

[victoryrisen]

Gentleman,

Thank you for all the help.
Essentially, I've picked up on a lot of artists that I love, and that's what I've been mixing my demos to. What I didn't want to do though was show up to my first major gig with everyone looking at me going, "who the heck is Arty?"
So, I'm doing exactly what I need to be, but I needed to make sure I wasn't just being a total noob.


Anyways, thank you guys for your replies.

[keithace]

Don't listen to those guys, here it is in four easy steps.

1. Go to music site
2. click on new releases
3. listen to new releases for an hour or two.
4. pay for the only two tracks that were worth a crap.

when you get tired of that find a remixed track you like --> click on the remixer --> listen to all his/her music --> click on also the record labels of said singles --> keep digging

[Ryan Leo]

Once you start digging on a place like beatport, it becomes one of your favortie things to do.