Greetings from Denver

Gonna make a bold statement here.

Mainstream DJ’s were always commercialized and poppy.

Reason for that? Like in any area of life there are innovators, quick to like something (and equally quick to drop it for the next thing) on one end of the spectrum and the laggards on the other end. The majority is what dictates general acceptance.

So, something new, innovative and daring will have it’s early entourage.

After a while it a) whithers away to nothingness or b) remains a small, but solid underground-like niche market or c) keep increasing popularity in which case at some point inevitably commercial and marketing people smell the new opportunity to make money roses and run with it.

At this point it will no doubt become a widespread phenomenom, unrecognisable to the original founders, but readily accepted by the majority.
Presto!
Commercialised and “poppy” (after all Pop is short for popular) version of something that once was new and fresh. Even disco didn’t start off big.

Disco, by the way made it from the mid 70s well into the 80s and, depending on your definition, early 90s. Not what I would call a quick death. Recent research shows that many many young people seem to enjoy their parent’s favorite dance music more than a lot of the modern stuff. Which would make it revival number two for disco.

As for “the scene”. It’s another subject open to definition. What scene? According to whom? Based on what?

If DJ-ing is the scene you are referring to, then it’s as diverse and lively as it has ever been. The genre’s being played are different, the tools used are different, the techniques used are different, but in it’s core incarnation, DJ-ing is still what it has always been:

A person (m/f) that uses music to set, maintain or enhance a good atmosphere in a hospitality environment. Either at private parties or public venues.

I am not to worried about the DJ-ing disappearing. We have not yet made a machine that can emulate human behavior. No automix on the horizon that can do what a human being can do, which in essence is correctly asses the mood of a room based on a zillion tiny, mostly non-verbal, clues and use an intuitive approach to “control and direct” this mood to a desirable outcome.

We might be able to get harmonic key detection 100% accurate (best now is somewhere around 80-85% or so, most DJ software significantly lower), we might get song structure detection 100% accurate (beat/word/phrase/intro/outro/bridge/chorus/verse), we might get beatmatching 100% accurate (some software is crawling closer as we speak.

I can foresee that scanners will interact with your smartphone as you walk in a place, read your playlists and from all the playlists configures some kind of “genius”-playlist for the DJ software telling it what music to play to match the maximum number of people present. Digital “request-list” you can hit from the dancefloor, on the fly grading of dance music (like a rated like system) so the venue knows who likes what when.

And with all that (and no doubt much much more), there will still not be a machine capable of taking that intangible, non-verbal vibe into consideration, to boldly and creatively break the predicted optimal flow and take things in a different direction.

I do believe, like in any profession, it is paramount to stay on top of new developments, master new techniques, determine if and how they can be helpful to you. A sync button is just nice, if you use it to be a lazy DJ. It becomes a real power tool if you are suddenly able to use 4-6 decks simultaneously without having to worry about synchronicity. Any new technique in the hands of a committed, creative professional will provide us with new possibilities.

I agree we are living in a very and ever-faster changing and more diffuse society and that will reflect in the way we define “pleasure”. It is more than interesting to see that development and how the performers of this world will adopt and adapt.

Greetinx,
C.

Uhm … Oops?!

Hi! Welcome to the forum. Hope you’ll enjoy all the short (and occassionally longer) posts and replies on here!

Greetinx,
C.

Welcome to the forums – electronic music has had a strong core group of followers ever since the moog, and that won’t change. This current wave of EDM popularity is encouraging to me, though, and i don’t really have complaints.