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Everything popular is wrong - Stefan Goldmann

Interesting read:

Everything popular is wrong - making it in electronic music despite democratization

Re: Everything popular is wrong - Stefan Goldmann

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik Interesting read: Everything popular is wrong - making it in electronic music despite democratization

I think there's a lot of good points in there to think about.

I was laughing to myself the other day because of how easy it is to just look up a track on google and download it. It's faster than that actually going on beatport, logining in, and searching.

I do not know how DJs can stay fresh and original when everyone has the same pool of available tracks.

Because the obscure tracks you ACTUALLY want to play aren't available on google. That's a great way to get a few popular tracks, and a few filler tracks, but if you're after the actual tracks that make people sit up and take notice, you need to buy them.

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Originally posted by kitphillips Because the obscure tracks you ACTUALLY want to play aren't available on google. That's a great way to get a few popular tracks, and a few filler tracks, but if you're after the actual tracks that make people sit up and take notice, you need to buy them.

Who are playing to? Sleeping hobos?

The music I get off promo pools often gets forgotten within 4 weeks, the music that I buy gets played for months, also into my sets whenever possible.

Re: Re: Everything popular is wrong - Stefan Goldmann

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Originally posted by Beatflux I do not know how DJs can stay fresh and original when everyone has the same pool of available tracks.

I guess it's because there's so much now that the effort is in filtering through it all and finding the track everyone else has missed, rather than hunting down the track no one else has.

Even the big names don't get as many exclusives as they used to - Pete Tong recently said in an interview that Deadmau5 phoned him up on a Wednesday and said "Here's my new tune, finished it this afternoon, can you play it on your show on Friday?" Pete asked if it was going to be an exclusive and Joel said "Er, no, it's already on Beatport".

But there's enough music around for every DJ to have their own playlists... (those who want to anyway)

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Originally posted by clay lol deadmaus is so cool sometimes lol. released the same night it was finished. that is so funny.

In what world does that happen? I didn't think it was possible to get a release on beatport in less than 2 weeks time.

Well anyway, the article was depressing. I suppose that's an accurate take on the current scene. I guess to "stand out" you have to make the worst, most ridiculous music you can think of, and people will flock to your "new" sound. There's only so much you do to be innovative before it starts to sound like total crap. It's not about the music anymore, anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by zodiac9 I guess to "stand out" you have to make the worst, most ridiculous music you can think of, and people will flock to your "new" sound. There's only so much you do to be innovative before it starts to sound like total crap. It's not about the music anymore, anyway.

I think the point you're missing is that there are too many imitators who borrow heavily from icons and trends and those people aren't going to make it. In order to do so, you have to be both original and competent.







But you can always try unbridled incompetence and see how that works out.

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Originally posted by EddieZilker But you can always try unbridled incompetence and see how that works out.

Hasn't worked for me.

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Originally posted by zodiac9 In what world does that happen? I didn't think it was possible to get a release on beatport in less than 2 weeks time.

quote:

Originally posted by clay deadmaus

That explains it.

I disagree zodiac, i think some stuff that is ''unique'' is actually quite good.

Like this



Sure its not for everyone but its great.

Or, think Aphex Twin he stands out and makes really nice music.

Or, maybe you think that this music is shit. Then, I completely understand your point of view lol

At the same time i kinda agree with you, some ''standout'' stuff is really hipsterish crap

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker I think the point you're missing is that there are too many imitators who borrow heavily from icons and trends and those people aren't going to make it. In order to do so, you have to be both original and competent. But you can always try unbridled incompetence and see how that works out.

I was joking a bit. You put it well though, "original and competent." That pretty much sums it up in 2 words.

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Originally posted by mathieu I disagree zodiac, i think some stuff that is ''unique'' is actually quite good. Like this

At the risk of sounding old or snobby, it's awful. It sounds like something a newb made with pirated software. It's not musical, not anything palatable anyway. It's terribly repetitious. I've heard rap and hip hop that sounds better.

Really, the first thing I look for in music, is that it has to at least be musical. For instance, I don't like Gorillaz, but they're stuff is very musical. I'm no D&B fan, but at least it's musically palatable.

I think dubstep is awful too, I just don't get it. Seems producers are really stretching it thin to find a new sound, or their own sound. They forget, that sound has to still sound good. It's starting to sound like music is produced with a random number generator, and those numbers are turned into music. The trendy stuff anyways. If people are actually buying and listening to that stuff, what I say isn't going to matter at all.

quote:

Originally posted by zodiac9 In what world does that happen? I didn't think it was possible to get a release on beatport in less than 2 weeks time. Well anyway, the article was depressing. I suppose that's an accurate take on the current scene. I guess to "stand out" you have to make the worst, most ridiculous music you can think of, and people will flock to your "new" sound. There's only so much you do to be innovative before it starts to sound like total crap. It's not about the music anymore, anyway.

There's always a high demand for amazing music, but there's always a low supply... The article is really about the artists in the middle, the ones who are not great enough or popular enough to make it out of the surf that has pulled most artists out to a sea of mediocrity.

A lot of artists see themselves in the shoes of someone who already has commissioned a status for the EDM hall of fame. Artists like Armin and Deadmau5 are the ones too look up, to aspire to, and to compete against and lose.

The ones stuck in the middle between massive fame, and complete anonymity do not have the power to control the masses, but they can cater to their own niche. They can reach out to a small group of people on an intimate level, and create a deeper connection than the Paul Van Dyk's and Carl Cox's of the world. Part of a meaningful relationship is exclusivity: keeping your tracks for the fans rather than dumping on the web for it to be archived by some mp3 whore.

A bad song that is made for you will always be more special than a great song made for no one.

quote:

Originally posted by zodiac9 I was joking a bit. You put it well though, "original and competent." That pretty much sums it up in 2 words. At the risk of sounding old or snobby, it's awful. It sounds like something a newb made with pirated software. It's not musical, not anything palatable anyway. It's terribly repetitious. I've heard rap and hip hop that sounds better. Really, the first thing I look for in music, is that it has to at least be musical. For instance, I don't like Gorillaz, but they're stuff is very musical. I'm no D&B fan, but at least it's musically palatable. I think dubstep is awful too, I just don't get it. Seems producers are really stretching it thin to find a new sound, or their own sound. They forget, that sound has to still sound good. It's starting to sound like music is produced with a random number generator, and those numbers are turned into music. The trendy stuff anyways. If people are actually buying and listening to that stuff, what I say isn't going to matter at all.

S'allright everybody has different taste btw that tune IS dubstep, atleast thats what they say. I can see why you dont like it tho, its more ''textural'' than ''musical''. I find it musical tho, to me something musical is somethign that conveys a feeling or something like that. you could have something made with no instrument whatsoever, just recordings of wind or something lol but if it conveys something to me than i say its musical. Obviously we prolly dont think the same way on this subject lol. Anyways, this is a whole other discussion.

I still think that it is possible to make great music and standout. Can't please everybody for sure tho. Andy Blueman stood out in the trance world for a bit, I and some other people thought his music was extremely tryhard crap. Its all opinion and perspective, in the end.

Do these guys, who have ''their sound'' and are successful, try to have their sound, or, just do what they like and it happens to be different?

Interesting article and very informative. Thank you for the read

quote:

Originally posted by zodiac9 I was joking a bit. You put it well though, "original and competent." That pretty much sums it up in 2 words. At the risk of sounding old or snobby, it's awful. It sounds like something a newb made with pirated software. It's not musical, not anything palatable anyway. It's terribly repetitious. I've heard rap and hip hop that sounds better. Really, the first thing I look for in music, is that it has to at least be musical. For instance, I don't like Gorillaz, but they're stuff is very musical. I'm no D&B fan, but at least it's musically palatable. I think dubstep is awful too, I just don't get it. Seems producers are really stretching it thin to find a new sound, or their own sound. They forget, that sound has to still sound good. It's starting to sound like music is produced with a random number generator, and those numbers are turned into music. The trendy stuff anyways. If people are actually buying and listening to that stuff, what I say isn't going to matter at all.

Can't believe you just picked gorrillaz over burial... Burial is one of the best artists to emerge in the last 5 years IMO.

PS
That track IS dubstep.

quote:

Originally posted by mathieu S'allright everybody has different taste btw that tune IS dubstep, atleast thats what they say. I can see why you dont like it tho, its more ''textural'' than ''musical''. I find it musical tho, to me something musical is somethign that conveys a feeling or something like that. you could have something made with no instrument whatsoever, just recordings of wind or something lol but if it conveys something to me than i say its musical. Obviously we prolly dont think the same way on this subject lol. Anyways, this is a whole other discussion. I still think that it is possible to make great music and standout. Can't please everybody for sure tho. Andy Blueman stood out in the trance world for a bit, I and some other people thought his music was extremely tryhard crap. Its all opinion and perspective, in the end. Do these guys, who have ''their sound'' and are successful, try to have their sound, or, just do what they like and it happens to be different?

Its an awesome track. That's the reason I like it, its like the sound a train makes when you hear it rushing through a tunnel from 100 meters away.

Burial's sound comes from using a really strange way of working, no midi and heaps of hand placed samples. That's one reason why its unique, because its just not quantised at all.

Pretty Lights and Girl Talk seem to be able to do well through the whole democratization thing. They reach out to the hip-hop crowd though which obviously has a HUGE audience.

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Originally posted by -FSP- Pretty Lights and Girl Talk seem to be able to do well through the whole democratization thing. They reach out to the hip-hop crowd though which obviously has a HUGE audience.

Girl Talk is just plain awful. He wants you to pay for his fucking album. The way he DJs, he absolutely no sense of musicality. If you want to call him a modern artist for convincing people that cutting up small chunks of tracks and DJing them together is the equivalent to what anyone here does, then yeah he's an artist.

Very interesting article, several good points there imo, but in the trance scene at least i think the way to expose yourself is having radio plays from the top djs, specialy from ASOT ,TATW and GDJB since are the most listened, plays in BBC Radio 1 count too but this generally consists in the cheesier "already famous" stuff.

I think the formula is radio play + X, i don't know what X is but you see some artists that appeared one year suddenly and next year came into the Dj mag top 100 (Take Arty,Avicii,W&W,Dash Berlin,Afrojack,Joris Voorn etc...) they had their own past story, please don't think that you can start producing/djing and getting famous in less than a year (in W&W case both were separate producers moderately successful, specially Re Ward and Dash Berlin is indeed a project of producers also known as Vengaboys and Alice Deejay to name a few) however others didn't have the same luck, they are arguably better than this named ones but they are not even close to the top 250 djs.

Agreeing with the OP i think now it's not about making good music but making "constant" music, a release every 2 weeks, you can alternate mediocre releases with slightly better ones, this is what people like Arty do, most of his tracks are the same generic shit, while once a month surprises you with something decent.

When your name appears constantly in ASOT if you know how to play your cards (i believe some people had 4-5 tracks played in ASOT but if you've no agency to manage your eventual gigs like most freelance producers, or not even an email contact is difficult to start having this international gigs) chances will come, people think that the n? 17 dj in the dj mag is a lot better than the dj 45 in the magazine, when both are easily overcome by a dj who is not even in the top 1000.

The best strategy i see to make a living of music is:

-Hire a ghost producer, a good one who knows the business and has already worked for an established name, don't be afraid of spending a big sum of money since this is an almost safe inversion.

-Get in touch with a sucessful label, Armada is pure cheese but does his job well, trance spins around them a lot and their promotion usually works, Toolrom is another label that works properly (getting apart the artistic quality of their releases, pure business point) they will care of the promotion of your "hits" (and i am going to post you a curious video here)



So basically you know have the ability (whithout having touched ever a daw) to produce hits (just give the directions to the ghost writer) and a good promotion.

-3rd step is getting an agency involved in good clubs, you get high profile gigs and half of the sum is for the real workers but hey, you are jesus posing in front of thousand people while having a decent amount of money in your pocket.

No dj skills?? Not necessary at all, told one of your friends to arrange you something in ableton live with your tracks and some of the hotest stuff from billboards and practice a bit your poses, learn to move knobs pretending you are doing something while aren't and go for the #1!

Mate, joris voorn has been around since like 2006, and dash Berlin were around when I still listened to trance, which was even earlier. Arty is a familiar name from back then too. None of those guys are new at all on the scene and all have been around at least 5 years. It is not by any means easy to crack the top 50 and I know some seriously talented DJs who haven't.

I'd say you're just not getting on the new artists as fast as some others are, they're hardly breakthrough artists

Another question involves whether you even WANT to crack the top 100. Its been acknowledged to be completely bankrupt and may harm your chances long term if you become associated with a bunch of other artists who push commercial tripe. There's nothing I could imagine that would be worse for my career than being associated with David Guetta or someone like him.

yes i intended to say that, they have been producing for some years but suddenly on a year.... boom. Mr.Nobody-->A big name. It's a bit strange but i don't know how much tunes they had played in before 2009.

Dash Berlin is precisely the best example as it is a new name of old figures, but they became succesful again, in a short time. If you know how i think it's not that difficult

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos yes i intended to say that, they have been producing for some years but suddenly on a year.... boom. Mr.Nobody-->A big name. It's a bit strange but i don't know how much tunes they had played in before 2009.

Joris Voorn was at his peak when he released "from a deep place" that was in 2007. Again, he was never a nobody.

Dash Berlin may be a good example of old producers under new names, but again, their first single was in 2007, and got a lot of attention even back then.

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos ... -Hire a ghost producer, a good one who knows the business and has already worked for an established name, don't be afraid of spending a big sum of money since this is an almost safe inversion. -Get in touch with a sucessful label, Armada is pure cheese but does his job well, trance spins around them a lot and their promotion usually works, Toolrom is another label that works properly (getting apart the artistic quality of their releases, pure business point) they will care of the promotion of your "hits" (and i am going to post you a curious video here) ...

And you really do think that even the mainstream audience into the different scenes will keep eating the bunch of lies surrounding what should be treated with care and passion?

What you just described is absolutely true, though, but I am not sure this still will be in a year's time.

Believe me though, if I tell you that people are sick of this non-moving, non-evolving scene full of wannabe's. There's a new scene growing that's not based on money or fame, but just on passion for good music. Too bad many can't see that yet. That will be a relief for the all of you.

1 - I will never get popular
2 - I don't want to become a DJ

I'll just release and let the world know i've got something new every now and then. If it gets picked up? great! if not, their loss

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo And you really do think that even the mainstream audience into the different scenes will keep eating the bunch of lies surrounding what should be treated with care and passion? What you just described is absolutely true, though, but I am not sure this still will be in a year's time. Believe me though, if I tell you that people are sick of this non-moving, non-evolving scene full of wannabe's. There's a new scene growing that's not based on money or fame, but just on passion for good music. Too bad many can't see that yet. That will be a relief for the all of you.

It's happening right now, it is not a guess, here we are the purists, for every one here that cares about production, who and how produces music there are 1000 who listen to 128kbps mp3 from limewire, who love Dj Tiesto - Silence, Dj Tiesto Ayla , Armin van Buuren - Take me Away , Paul van Dyk - Airwave etc... if they don't know who produced the track how can they know that someone anonymously produced it for a big name brand, they will never buy a physical cd to bother reading the booklet and discover that the track was written by a guy, arranged by another and mastered/produced by other.

People on this forum are sick about this, the underground exist, i know some clubs that book obscure trance names, for a lot of people Gareth Emery is unknown whereas 99% of people here know him, if i tell you that Gary Maguire is playing close to me next weekend even people here would doubt, who is him? But hey, some people bet for quality instead of booking a famous name.

I love that this exists, according to what the OP says many many people would play for free, would produce for free and would love to have a dayjob and at night unleash themselves, some people can get a dream job out of music, but for me it would be enough to have a following of a few hundred loyals connected with me and my music every weekend, to have a real party like they used to be, with no jesus poses, lights and groupies, just 2 turntables a mixer and a rave somewhere, where the dj is just the person in charge of music, not the god of the rest.

Something like this mythical photo



The dj and his cult back to back , no rockstars.

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