Superstar DJs. What's it all about.

This topic has 10 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 10 months ago by Eliah Holiday.

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May 18, 2014 at 11:08 pm #2032307

Terry_42
Keymaster

LOL, envy can take on funny forms.

May 19, 2014 at 2:54 am #2032325

Eliah Holiday
Participant

I dunno what I laughed harder at, where he looks like he’s doing something with the DJ gear but really doing something else or the point where he “Kills them” with the drop.

But yeah, maybe not Avicii money but I’d settle for 1/2 of what Deadmau5 makes.

Speaking of “killing it” in related knews from home: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/05/18/29_sent_to_hospital_from_avicii_concert_in_toronto.html

May 19, 2014 at 4:11 am #2032335

dannyboyex@gmail.com
Participant

Am I the only one who thought the drop was actually pretty sick?

May 19, 2014 at 12:59 pm #2032424

Phil Morse
Keymaster

We wrote about this over on the main site today:

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2014/05/youve-nothing-fear-edm-parodies-like-one/

May 19, 2014 at 8:14 pm #2032501

Alex Moschopoulos
Participant

I think the SNL thing is great. We need the EDM fad to die so the bad blood can be washed away.

May 20, 2014 at 8:13 pm #2032746

Warsuit
Participant

^What he said. Satire keeps art honest. The more jackhats get called out the more people will realize they’ve been duped. If some pablum gets someone into it, more the better for the rest of us if those people decide to dig deeper and find the real deal. There’s an advantage to all the huge festival rocking types that put little effort in for maximum return; all the people who are in it for the wrong reason are in one big place and easily identified.

May 20, 2014 at 9:47 pm #2032763

Xavier D
Participant

This is kinda funny because as much as I listen to some artists that you would probably call “real artists”, “the real deal” and stuff, I still love Aviciis songs (he’s obviously the one attacked here, even if it’s a way to talk about every big DJs in the game) and been to his concert at Bercy. Even if I know that most of the producers making the main stages at Tomorrowland (and the other big festivals…) don’t focus on djing and just sync-play-pause, this is pretty cool to see them live in my opinion. Anybody else thinking the same ?

May 21, 2014 at 4:41 am #2032811

Warsuit
Participant

I want very badly to agree with you, but I can’t. If you were seeing a great live DJ, then it would be pretty cool to see them live. If you were seeing a great live PA, then it would be pretty cool to see them live. With most of these guys though you aren’t seeing either of those things; their DJing is limp and they aren’t actually playing the song live on keyboards or anything…so what are you paying for? To look at them? That, to me, seems…weird. There are notable exceptions even in the uppermost echelons…people who are really big and also either really good DJs or really talented musicians. But they’re exceptions. Most of them are personalities at best and I’m against anyone getting over simply based on marketing and a cult of personality surrounding them.

That being said, I come from a time when the DJ wasn’t even seen, he was just there to play records. Times have changed, I was there and watched them change, and with things as they are now your opinion is actually more valid than mine on the subject of whether it is cool to go see someone like Avicii. Leaving their (lack of) DJing kills aside, we could still argue all day about the quality of the big players production output (how many tunes that go boom boom boom boom boom boom boom SNARE do we *really* need?) but at the end of that argument no one will be right because there’s no accounting for taste.

May 21, 2014 at 3:28 pm #2032912

Groovepunk
Participant

I totally agree with Warsuit on this one.

Most of them are personalities at best and I’m against anyone getting over simply based on marketing and a cult of personality surrounding them

I’m sure people in just about every other media industry are having exactly the same debate (particularly TV). The cult of celebrity is everywhere and it was only a matter of time before it seeped into DJing. This started in the 90’s and we’ve been on a slow march here ever since. It depresses the hell out of me when I think that people can ‘buy’ their way to the top with clever marketing or stupid gimmicks (Steve Aoki immediately springs to mind!) but this is nothing new.

But there’s a silver-lining my DJ brethen! Popular culture is fickle, very fickle and electronic music is very resilient. The EDM fad will pass, just as many others have and in the meantime, other awesome underground scenes will develop and thrive. One of those may well spawn another fad and the masses will go nuts for that for a while, but then that will fade as well.

Just stay true to yourself and your music and let the idiots throw cakes at each other 🙂

GP

May 21, 2014 at 6:48 pm #2032968

Eliah Holiday
Participant

I think that vid was more a poke at superstar DJs in general, Guetta, et al. not necessarily just Avicii. I remember a film marketing course I took and was shown how a crap movie can be marketed to actually turn a good profit, scary. I think we are in the height of the age of marketing, it’s like a new religion. It’s not enough to be a great DJ, you gotta be pro marketer. Back in the day it was more word of mouth based on your skills alone. DJs would get recognition but not to the extend you have people just standing there staring at the DJ booth. I mean, if the DJ is doing their job then the patrons are lost in the music, dancing their arses off and having a good time. The DJ is behind the music, not in front of it.
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