So am I the Hipster DJ or the Angry Music DJ?
Maybe a little of both?



This article might help you solve the above question but it also sort of points out one of the things that I was whining about a few days ago. Nowadays nobody cares if you’re a DJ because everybody’s a fucking DJ now! Now I’ve been spinning records for people since the early early ‘90s and I’ve always maintained that the vest DJ was one unconstrained by genre so my sets have always been wildly eclectic affairs. I admit that through the years I’ve gone through definite phases – one of the most unfortunate being when I was trying to mix my love of the then-new Big Beat with Pavement and their ilk – but my philosophy has always been the same: play a wide variety, challenge the crowd a little bit, reward them with a few obvious hits and everyone has fun.

I guess back then one thing that made DJs a little more special was the fact that in order to be one you needed a pretty extensive music collection and most people couldn’t be bothered (or afford to spend every spare penny like I did) to build up such a beast. With the advent of P2P sharing and CD burners – not to mention iPods and other portable music systems – it got to the point where everyone was afforded the opportunity to amass a wide enough assortment of tunes to consider themselves a candidate for the ranks of DJ-dom. Yes, I just made that word up. Sue me.

I enjoy and believe in promoting a level playing field when it comes to individual opportunity and I think that to an extent that’s what we’re dealing with now. That’s also what makes this article both savagely funny and heartbreakingly true at the same time. Aside from a few heavy hitters that tend to be genre-specific it is true that nobody really cares if you’re a DJ anymore primarily because everyone is a DJ. On top of that not very many of this new legion of spinners seems to have much originality¹. They’re either mixing Journey with The Killers or sticking to a strict playlist of tunes created between 1986 and 1993. Boring Sydney, boring.

¹By the way, all you angry hipster DJs out there really need to stop stealing my shtick, m’kay? I’ve been doing "crazy juxtapositions" since back when you thought Guns N’ Roses was a little too scary and heavy for your personal tastes and you had no idea what "pastiche" meant. I do still maintain though that I’m the only guy who’s mixed Steve and Edie into Goldie and done it without a trace of irony so I guess I can always hold that a little sacred.

And I'd like to underscore that I've never claimed that DJing took any measure of actual musical talent but I've always maintained that proper and inventive song selection is a skill.