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Great interview! No, really, it is!

quote:

"Where are the standout individual DJs? You hear all these names lined up, but you don't hear about individuals that are head and shoulders above as far as the calibre of the selections they're playing. The way these people are received, most of the time it's just more hype-driven. You hear names. Like for me, Christine Aguilera was a name I kept hearing before I ever heard a song by her. And the principles in place in the mainstream music industry, they carry over to the independent side. So much is hyped. If you hear the name too far ahead of hearing the actual creative work, that always makes me suspicious. (laughs) There's too much emphasis. The name would just come to me organically if it were great. If it just caught my attention and I had to ask someone, and they told me it was Christine Aguilera then it would be different because I would have discovered it on my own as opposed to somebody just pushing and saying listen, listen, listen. Because sometimes you do listen but you feel you're listening out of obligation rather than enjoying it. You can feel bad. It's like when you get promos from distributors or promotion companies, there's so much pressure to get them your feedback. It sucks the enjoyment right out of it."

quote:

Do you think a lot of modern music is lacking emotion? "Yeah. We're talking from top to bottom. We're talking about the whole entity of music. On the commercial side I'm sure it's just what's best for the stockholders and keeping the company afloat and what have you. The same principle applies on the independent side where it's like whatever seems to be getting a rise out of people, getting a response and a few sales, we duplicate that same thing until it's just drained dry. At the moment in America, with a lot of hip-hop stuff especially, we've heard the same speeches, we've seen a million and one guys march across the stage saying the same words with the same premise. How long do you expect us to keep spending our money on the same thing over and over? That's why guys like 50 Cent come out with an album and…nothing. It's like they're in a rut. People are just bored with it."

quote:

"Some things need to be taken care of and put in place, especially the concept of people holding some kind of value to music. You say you like it, but it's not even worth the 99 cents or the $1.49 to buy it? That's a contradiction. I never had a problem paying for the music I liked. I saved my lunch money when I was a little kid to buy a Sly and The Family Stone 45. I spent more than 99 cents on records before I was eleven years old so it's lame of people to say they like music and then, in the same breath, say that it has no value. That means you don't like music; you like getting stuff free. If you had to pay for it you wouldn't make the sacrifice. You like it enough to get it on the download but you don't like it enough to pay for it. You're in a different category from me because I feel it does have a value. And the person and label and individuals involved that put some effort into it, they want and need to try to make something back to continue on. So those people who think they're helping the scene, they're actually helping to destroy it one lost sale at a time. Because that's what both the independent and mainstream industries survive off: sales. They don’t exist on good feelings or anything else like "I like the song but I didn't buy it". So I'm just like everyone else. I'm just hoping for the best and trying to put my best foot forward with the things I'm able to get around to doing this year. That's all I really can do because I can't really control the world. And I don't think that I would want to."

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Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!