Are we to blame for the state of the dance music industry ?
One of the best articles I’v read in recent times. Every single member of this forum should definitely read this article. Share & spread the article as far as you can. Its still not too late. Its our Industry, Lets bring about a change & Set high standards. We are the one’s responsible for it, so lets take a step ahead & do something about it.
I don’t know, I think this article is silly. The truth of the matter is that the majority of the most popular club music has lost its soul. It’s become crazy popular which has opened it up to new audiences. Because of the increased audiences, greed has created the ability to create cookie cutter stuff which kids love and buy because it’s got a catchy organ riff and a 16-bar build of snare rolls that makes anyone rolling go nuts. Going to clubs has become a thing for the masses, big-time DJs are heroes and hawking products now, so now the masses want to become those heroes, hawking new products. There’s now an audience for software and products that make it easier to get into DJing. Is that a bad thing? No. Is it bad that managers hire some of these cats because they’re cheap, or free? Yeah, but that’s on the manager - and that will always happen and be the case - twenty years ago as it is today. Acceptance of DJs who don’t have “the basics” down has nothing to do with the “saving of the industry.” I have a friend who mixes and used to splice them in audacity, didn’t know anything about phrasing until I explained it to her. She’s attractive and follows a bunch of local and international DJs on soundcloud, facebook, messages them, etc. and she’s gotten offered a gig at a local club. Will/would she trainwreck? Probably, especially if she follows someone because she can’t beat match. Will she have the crowd going? Probably, because she knows her music and can pick out some great tunes.
The “industry” doesn’t need saving - it needs to follow the natural ebb and flow that happens frequently with things that get overly popular, over-commercialized, then back to the way it was before. “The industry” will never die. Eventually it will get back to just the people that love the music and not the people who love “the experience.” Producers will stop using the “magical template” that generates sales, people will love the music and environment because they love the music and want to share it with people. God knows, I spend way too much time and money on this hobby of mine with no real aspirations to get a gig at a club. I just love the music and sharing it with people - hence the many trainwrecks and mistakes in my mix posts. (and I started with Traktor and sync, whereas now, if you take my turntables from me…we throwin) Sooner or later, “the industry” will return full circle to the people like you and me, who just love the music, not the hipsters with the crazy mustaches because it’s cool to like Hot Since 82. (I’ve never seen so many hipster Mario and Luigi mustaches in my life than I did when he was spinning a couple weeks ago here in Denver)
So are we, or more specifically you, as established, professional, gigging DJs responsible for the “industry’s” state as it is now? No. It’s commercialism at its finest. You’ll always have people wanting to DJ though, so you guys can take them under your wings or not - that also won’t “save the industry.”
I’ll leave you with a song that was released in 2003, long before the use of Traktor/Serato/laptops/synch buttons/controllers to DJ. (I’m assuming)
See, the thing about beat-matching, phrasing etc is that the arguments for and against have always been framed in a very odd way, as far as I’m concerned. It’s always presented as ‘You Must Learn This’ on one side and ‘I Don’t Need To Learn It’ on the other. Neither viewpoint seem right to me, because the angle of attack is bizarre.
The way I have always looked on it is this: If you are doing something you apparently love and enjoy to the point you want to do it in front of other people, why would you not want to learn as much as possible about that in every conceivable way? Why would you not have the simple curiosity to explore every available facet of something you do? Why would you discover one way of doing it and never attempt to learn another? That’s as applicable to vinyl only DJs as it is to Digital, in fact. Unless, of course, you are Derrick May, and you can do things on a pair of Technics that not even software can do.
This is the thing I hated about this article (at least from what I could fathom of it. I’ve read it three times now and still don’t have a clue what it’s actually about.). I’ll be honest, I couldn’t give a damn about ‘The Industry’, I couldn’t give a damn whether it lasts or fails. That entire article fails to understand that the artistic, cultural and experimental nature of music is what propels it all, not the money, not the promoters, not the media. Whether or not there is a single club left on earth is irrelevant, because people will always be driven to create and listen to music regardless of whether or not there are any big name DJs left to snort marching powder off a Jockey Slut’s nipple. And people will DJ as well - not because they want to make a career out of it, but because it’s fun. People will gravitate towards others of a like mind, not because of any misplaced sense of enforced community but because that is what people do.
Ach, what the hell do I know? All I know is I lost interest entirely when I read this:
Well, all I can say is if that is really what the writer thinks, maybe he should get out of his bubble and go to one of those nights that still exist in ‘Basements, Dirty Clubs and Back Paddocks’ and embrace a world that still sees the term ‘Underground’ as an ethos instead of a marketing gimmick, music as something more than a commodity, and community as something other than a commercial opportunity.
It’s sad but it is an Industry now, Wish we could call it a community rather. Times have changed, We will have to get over it. Leaving this debate aside, We can still have a better industry to work in. Can’t We ?
I dont see this to be intended as a Commercial vs Underground debate, Thats an endless discussion. Now if we leave the commercial aspect aside & talk about the underground I like to see this as a, say for example, Richie Hawtin vs Some Underground DJ who nobody has heard off & probably plays better music than Richie Hawtin. I’m sure there are hundred’s.
PS : I Love Hawtin!
I think this article was intended to raise the standards of the industry in general. I can’t comment about the scene outside my country but atleast the way the scene here in India is that everyone is just following hypes (I’m talking about the little underground community we have here, Leave the commercial scene aside). Let’s start with the younger batch of Dj’s. We have quite a bunch of House & techno dj’s playing decent underground music, but what they do is just follow tracklists of guys like Richie Hawtin, Dubfire etc & play tunes in an exact/similar order. They only wear black Tees(They think Black is the so called “Techno Color”), They openly copy effect & mixing styles of big named dj’s. This is just a small example I pointed. This should not happen. These Dj’s should not copy someone because its “cool”, they should work hard, try to find their own sound, get creative & promote themselves in a new/alternative manner. Now this is upto the senior dj’s to raise the bar & educate the younger one’s about finding their own sound rather than copy others sets, getting creative when it comes to promotion & blah blah blah. The younger ones look up to the senior dj’s as their idols, they listen to their advice. Its understandable, the younger one’s don’t have a direction, they will obviously follow hypes, even i was one of them. If the senior dj’s take a step to set a standard the younger ones will defo follow which will result in a better scene. This is a huge problem in the Indian Scene, There’s no standards being maintained. Its not only about the music, its about the event, the experience, the way they promote them, their artwork, their vision, the language they use etc.
Genuinely asking, How many of these still exist ? A scene which was like the older days, Only about the music & No fucking hype at all!
Hmm, im not too sure. It would seem the article is pitched at small percentage of people who are in this ‘industry’ everyone keeps banging on about, and it would seem these are the only people that the ‘state of the scene’ bothers.
For the meantime though, i’m just going to have a mix and swap some tunes. Boom.
I turn 30 in June, and I think I’ve been hearing this same boring madlib on the state of music since I was a teen - all these years later same stupid moaning just fill in the blanks
The scene I consider myself involved in - west coast hippie/burner Ghetto Funk Glitch Bass Music etc - doesn’t really suffer from these problems and frankly I ignore the more “mainstream” stuff. There is so much amazing music released everyday and there are so many amazing DJs playing it out that I have nothing to complain about.
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