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| quote: | Originally posted by planeteuropa
Nice work if you can get it. I think there may be two issues going on with this. When tiesto recorded his tiesto in concert in 2003 set, it was a proper set that rose and fell at perfect timings and he was beat mixing the whole set, sometimes badly. But I recently watched a set of tiesto from the US and the set was basically like a pop concert. He was basically playing one vocal track after the next and a naff singer would come out on stage. Mixing was non existent. Tiesto is a big star now so I guess you could say he has sold out to the cash. I think big business don't appreciate DJ culture, they just don't get it. So I believe they request this format of live show from the DJs. I suppose for some DJs they couldn't give a fuck, as they are still getting paid the outrageous fees at the end of the night. These DJs have become brands now so the technical stuff is just an after thought. In fact somebody recently told me that avicci doesn't even write all his own material and actually has a large team of ghost writers probably based in Sweden. Not sure if its just a vicious rumour but it wouldn't surprise me. If you look at modern pop culture its all about the act with the look but behind them are ghost writers. A perfect example would be rhianna. Sia was her ghost writer and originally wrote chandelier for her but decided to bring it out for herself because she loved it so much. If it has moved to button pushing and fist pumping then I think this will kill the current emergence of trance and people will demand returning to a level of technical ability that we all know and love. |
It's kind of the opposite in a way; big business realises there's big money in DJ culture but like anything mainstream, it's primary concern is numbers so the nuances and integrity aren't important.
What is? A product, and the simpler it is to the great unwashed to understand, the more successful it will be. While not wanting to go in to a diatribe about civilization in general, most people are sheep. They will buy or consume what they are told to like. By "most", I mean 95% of the population.
Because of this, DJ's at the mainstream level, have to make their product simple and recognizable, not complex and interesting.
You also have to realise that big DJ's are not people; they are corporations. Nearly every big name DJ you can think of has at least 10 full time people working for them. They have corporate structures in terms of employees and hierarchy and often, it's a manager or director that actually makes all the decisions, not the DJ themselves.
Tiesto has had ghost writing for over a decade. I believe it was actually exposed right here on TA for the first time sometime around 2002/2003.
Ghost producing should come as no surprise in this industry - it just followed what pop has done for about 6 decades now; someone writes a catchy tune then a label or manager would find a vehicle to market it under.
it then got to the point that the vehicle was created first, then songs would be written to fir to that vehicle. The spice girls are one of the most sucessful examples of this. Someone came up with a marketing idea to have 5 girls all with a different niche appeal, hired stylists and coaches to make the look and behave a certain way, then they got songwriters to write tunes that specifically fitted the marketing brief.
Avicii is part of the Swedish factory - and the Swedes were masters at doing it for pop and what most people haven't figured out is that there's a small group of DJ's and songwriters who basically put out everything. The SHM guys, Avicii, Ishi Mughal, even Nehneh Cherry all of them are a little clique that went to school together or had fmaily connections (avicii is the younger brother of one of the guys who were in the original SHM crew when it was a loose collective of many DJ's).
These days, if you make one hit, big business will step in and make you a brand and milk it for all it's worth.
The good news is that the first pumping, jesus posing, press play model doesn't last long. Where you're catering to the ADD generation, the public gets bored quickly. The less substance you have, the faster you'll wane.
That's why guys like Carl Cox, Sven Vath, Jeff Mills, Masters at work, Sasha, Digweed, Marcus Wyatt, Danny Tenaglia, Laurent Garnier, etc are still around; because when you scrape away the thin viel fancy logos, and big light shows that all DJ's have nowadays, you still have talent, content and art, not just shiny design and a flash in the pan track.
I know certain very big name DJ's right now who despite making a ton of money over the last years, are absolutely freaking out and/or are in a state of dispair over the fact they know they were "of the moment" and that moment has passed. For some of these people, there's nothing worse than "oh, you used to be that famous DJ right?".
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