
I Fooled the World into Thinking I Was a Successful EDM DJ–For an Art Project - kposehn
http://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/i-fooled-the-world-into-thinking-i-was-a-successful-edm-djfor-an-art-project?utm_source=thumpfbus
======
MOARDONGZPLZ
I'm reminded of a Key and Peele "How to Rob a Bank" skit:

Now I know this plan is foolproof. Check this out. First of all, you and me
start working at the bank. Doesn't matter the position, okay, just so long as
we get in there, all right? Then we just go there every day, do the work, gain
their trust until we get them in the palm of our hand. All right. So how we
get the money? That's the beauty of it, bro. They deposit the money into our
bank accounts, week after week, month after month. They're not even gonna know
they're being robbed. And then 20 or 30 years later, we walk out the front
door like nothing even happened.

------
rblatz
I read about this woman previously (may have been the same article) but I
think this comment on reddit really summed up my feelings on it.

    
    
      https://www.reddit.com/r/ActLikeYouBelong/comments/4cb4yw/fooled_the_world_into_thinking_she_was_an_edm/d1h7aml/
    

_The fools! For they could not begin to grasp the sheer magnitude of my plan!
I toiled, sweat soaking my brow and streaming down my back as I mastered their
craft. I studied long, perfecting their techniques, learning their tongue,
adopting their ways until I could pass among them - pass as one of them! Those
cruel hours! Those long, arduous days and weeks! Those agonizing months as I
trained, developing my art unto new heights until I was finally prepared to
reveal the Machiavellian intrigue behind my scheme!... ...For as I played to
the multitudinous crowd, bending them to my every whim with each note, raising
them to ecstatic delight with each crescendo - entertaining them! - little did
any of them know that while they had been having fun I had been loathing this
the entire time!!! Muahahahahaaa!_

~~~
existencebox
As someone who DJ'd on a whim for a few years to pay some bills in college, I
think that takes away from the thrust of it.

In other fields we expect the luminaries of a craft to have achieved that
level with some significant effort/insight/accomplishments, and I don't know
about you, but 6 months is NOT enough time to truly master a craft. (I say as
someone who has spent multiple decades spent in multiple instruments, physical
crafts and otherwise, and still find myself a joke next to real experts, and
would not attempt to pass myself off as such)

I would say the "luck factor" plays more a role in djing than it does in many
other fields (most performance fields are similar in this way), which would be
fine if it were acknowleged, but there does seem to be some deifying of the
DJs, and many who I interacted with seemed to, as we put it in tech, drink the
koolaid a bit too much. Like the author I got tons of praise for my sets when
I would occasionally have thrown together whatever bullshit I had been
listening to the day of in an hour before I went onstage, and I felt like a
bit of a sham for that; I would certainly not try to pull similar shit in my
professional career and I think that's quite telling.

I take the article as a request to "See through the smoke and mirrors" and as
a shitty DJ I'd definitely echo that sentiment. There are some amazing
producers out there who get little to no credit, because they haven't gotten
critical mass necessary to start passing themselves off as DJ-famous despite
putting a huge amount of effort into making some damn good music. I'd be the
first to nod to a "Well life isn't fair" statement, but thus the article, and
my emphasizing that it's for us to see each performer for what it is and not
lessen the accomplishments of either group for the other; but to me that
requires being able to distinguish what each performer is and is not.

~~~
kristofferR
I find it really weird that the unique openness, positivity and lack of
pretentiousness among EDM fans/dancers is being perceived as something
negative. I instead find it hugely refreshing - EDM is all about going with
the blissful flow and feeling/sharing in positive emotions with the people
around you. As long as the music contributes to a great vibe it's fantastic
music as far as I'm concerned, I don't care one bit about if you spent an hour
or a year creating the song.

I spend way too much of my regular life being analytical (heh..) and thinking
instead of enjoying, and I really don't understand why it's so popular among
music fans to always look for the flaws in everything instead of finding the
beauty. I understand that as a someone who has seen through the smoke and
mirrors it may be tempting to clear the smoke.

But I came because of the smoke machine, and when I look back I'll remember
the warm feeling of empathy, fun and joy seemingly flowing through the hazy
air - not about how much time or effort the DJ spent on the tunes. That
doesn't make me stupid or ignorant, I'd argue it makes me the opposite.

[https://newrepublic.com/article/118854/edm-and-hippies-
how-r...](https://newrepublic.com/article/118854/edm-and-hippies-how-ravers-
became-new-flower-children)

~~~
Uhhrrr
Musicians and more sophisticated listeners see simple music as boring and
vapid, not blissful. Liking it doesn't make you stupid, but it may well mean
you're ignorant. I would bet the likes of Tiesto will be much less interesting
to you in a few years' time.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Uhh, it varies, really. There's music that's simple because the musicians
don't know how to be make interesting music, and then there's music that's
simple because that's the musically correct thing to do and the musicians have
the confidence to be like "no, we're not playing all the notes and doing all
the things right now".

There's layers of sophistication. Sometimes becoming a better musician means
learning to put more into a song, and sometimes it means less.

A good example of this: Ahmad Jamal, Surrey With The Fringe On Top,
particularly the section 50 seconds in -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM7PDwzY9LA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM7PDwzY9LA)

More mainstream is the drumming in "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes.

~~~
Uhhrrr
That section goes for 10 seconds. I guess if Tiesto only ever played for 10
seconds that would be cool.

~~~
Uhhrrr
One other thing: Jahmal is playing against the time signature in that section,
which would be anathema to someone who just wants to make sounds to move
bodies by.

------
etjossem
_" Everything I did was real. I managed every transition without a sync button
and I lived each performance. But still I constantly felt I was cheating my
audience and the scene by presenting a pure fiction."_

This was the part that struck me; the imposter syndrome, even after achieving
commercial success. If you become a sought-after EDM DJ (or software
developer) it's not because you were able to fool the world. It's because
you've taught yourself how to give your customer what they need. The people
consuming what you make already know you're a professional - and you're the
last one to realize it.

Congrats to the author and her mentors for figuring out what it takes to build
a popular act.

------
egypturnash
This feels a hell of a lot like an updated version of the KLF's "How To Have A
Number One The Easy Way", except written by someone who decides to get off the
ride before it gets to the end. [http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-
klf/](http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/)

I sure did roll my eyes and make wanking gestures during the opening
paragraphs. No, people _aren 't_ at a club to sit back and sip weak tea slowly
whilst listening to the intricacies of a beautifully difficult piece of music.
They are here to _dance_. And as the DJ, your job is to _give them beats to
dance to_ and _keep the party going_. Any number of these people may be
listening to and loving that difficult, cerebral music at home, but _you can
't dance to that shit_ and they are in this place to _move their asses_.

~~~
nfbush
There is dance music that is original and tasteful you know? The article
instead shows quite well how the mainstream edm scene is mindlessly homologous
and that for this scene in particular the hype of big dj's is meaningless. In
other dance music scenes DJ's are revered for combining their large
collections of music, knowledge of track selection, and understanding a crowd
to create an individual experience each time. Sure if you have brainwashed
yourself to enjoy the tired formulaic mainstream edm drivel you'd love a
cliché mainstream edm DJ, however for people who love dance music it can be
insufferable.

[edit] spelling

~~~
blub
Insufferable indeed. Goodness, how will those lovers of dance music survive
the onslaught of formulaic EDM drivel one has to wonder.

I was expecting lovers of dance music to... love dance music. Not dictate
what's right and what's wrong while passively agressively suggesting that
mainstream listeners are ignorant.

I've seen this attitude many times from smaller groups which see themselves
above the masses. They need a justification for the fact that their tastes are
not popular and that becomes often "the masses are stupid, only we understand
the true nature of _whatever_ ".

~~~
nfbush
I don't give a fuck about what people listen to, nor do i claim certain music
is right or wrong. If you could actually read i was talking about DJing, as a
lover of the internet do you love all the Child porn flowing through it? fuck
off you cuck

------
exolymph
So... basically become a DJ? This person didn't fool the world, since they
were actually doing everything that goes into being a DJ. They just happened
to have an insufferable attitude about it behind the scenes.

~~~
kemayo
They seem to have an opinion that a DJ shouldn't just be someone who picks a
set of popular/danceable songs and puts on a bit of a performance while
playing them to a crowd of dancing people. Which... okay, I guess?

They also started with insider connections, which is probably the biggest
thing that let them overcome needing "luck" to take off.

------
s889j
An attractive woman, who was familiar with the club scene, after learning the
basics of EDM was able to get well paying gigs as a DJ.

The lesson here is that a mildly competent attractive woman can easily get
jobs in entertainment/marketing.

------
forgottenpass
Welcome to everything marketed for mass appeal, ever. Mainstream audiences
don't exhibit refined tastes, and the product is more facade than substance.
In music this has been an open secret of for decades.

To me, it sounds like the author just has a chip on their shoulder about EDM
in specific. That goes insufficiently unexplored, but the reason is probably
best described as "salty."

Yet, the article is dressed it up VICE-magazine's carefully managed branding
and is designed to look like an authentic entity exposing something
meaningful. All flash, no substance. Irony, thy name is VICE.

------
radarsat1
> Their attitude betrays the avant-garde origins of the music they play.

What does this mean? (Honest question.)

> we were suddenly being booked and questioned our "realness."

well...

> Tobias has used his know-how to make an online platform called ...

Oh I see the article is an ad. Just like her whole career.

You know you live in postmodern times when someone can write an "honest"
article about how their career is phony in order to sell a product. Just, wow.

------
radley
She may have seen it as an "OMG art project" but Tobias surly saw it as "How
to Make a Popstar 101".

She also happened to ride the wave of "we need more female DJs" (Jan 2014):

[http://thump.vice.com/en_au/article/the-reason-there-
arent-m...](http://thump.vice.com/en_au/article/the-reason-there-arent-more-
female-djs)

The hook for promoters was that it was a twofer - two female DJs on the flyer
for the price of one.

What she doesn't get is that everyone doing EDM thinks it's a joke too. Nobody
takes it seriously (except getting best time slots).

I guess what I'm stuck on is, what was the "art" in the project? Being a DJ or
fooling everyone? Seems like it could be a case of imposter syndrome, but I'll
bet it's simply clickbait.

------
fred_is_fred
This piece takes itself way too seriously. EDM is supposed to be fun. It's
supposed to be done with friends. It's not artesnal "my band has less
commercial success than yours" bullshit.

~~~
smitherfield
_> It's not artesnal "my band has less commercial success than yours"
bullshit._

Depends on the subgenre.

------
pmoriarty
I have a question for DJs:

Why do so many DJs play the same songs over and over and over again from night
to night?

I've been to so many clubs that very rarely play new music, and very often
stick to the same playlist night after night.

It's so incredibly boring to hear the same songs over and over and over again,
and saps my will to go out at all, because I know I'm rarely going to hear
anything new. There's only so many times I can get up the energy to dance to
even a great song that I've heard ten thousand times in the last 20 years.

I know this varies from DJ to DJ and scene to scene, and some do play new
music, but I've just seen this happen way too often, and wonder how people can
even stomach working as a DJ if they're not interested enough to find and play
new music, and restrict themselves to playing the same stuff over and over
again.

It really bores the hell out of a lot of club goers too, and I'm convinced its
contributed to the death of some scenes.

Also, why do some clubs have the same fucking DJs for literally decades? Why
can't they let some fresh blood in?

~~~
SwellJoe
I started an audiovisual services company a few years ago, and so I've worked
as a DJ off-and-on for a few years (mostly for fun, as it doesn't pay as well
as software). The reality is that DJs play what people want to hear. The
average club-goer goes out once or twice a week; while the DJ may be playing
the same shit over and over, the people in the club at that moment probably
haven't heard that track that week, and if it's a "banger" they probably will
be happy to hear it.

Clubs are not venues for new music, on the whole. Taking in truly new music is
challenging in a way that most people out to get drunk/high and dance their
ass off just don't want.

I have a list of tracks that I _know_ will start a dance floor, every DJ worth
anything does. They aren't effective because they're new or innovative, but
because they connect with a large percentage of people. The party starters are
hits from when the audience was in college or high school; you just have to
look at your crowd, and pick the right year, play some songs from their era,
and the crowd will be happy.

I think the best DJs will expand the horizons of their crowd a little bit, by
playing something interesting and new for the people in the crowd. But, as
much as I might like to do a set of all my favorites, I know I can't play
Kraftwerk and Dead Prez and The Big Boys in the same set...I can probably get
away with _one_ such obscure track (and, I'm often surprised to find somebody
in the crowd recognizes it, or asks who it is because they really like it and
hadn't heard it before). You've gotta empty the dance floor every now and then
to keep the bar ringing, anyway, so you can do it with the weird tracks.

So...if you want to be paid to DJ in almost any environment, you have to play
the music the audience wants to hear. Hell, you can effectively be a jukebox
playing nothing but requests (which are _always_ hits) and people will be
happy; but, if you ignore all requests, the crowd won't be happy (though clubs
are less prone to requests than private parties, in my experience). If you
achieve a huge level of success, maybe then you can play a majority of your
own tracks...but, even the biggest names who are also "producers" are mostly
just playing the hits and waving their hands around while visuals and
pyrotechnics go off around them.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" I have a list of tracks that I know will start a dance floor, every DJ
worth anything does. They aren't effective because they're new or innovative,
but because they connect with a large percentage of people."_

The thing is, after a while, you can get a sense of what kinds of music is
danceable and catchy, and know that there's a high chance you'll fill the
dance floor with it, even (or especially) if it's new.

About popular oldies: each of these was new once, and some DJ had to take a
risk to play it for the first time somewhere before it was popular. I'll be
showing my age here, but I've seen on multiple occasions cases where a new
danceable, catchy song will come out, and would have been perfect for a club,
but it doesn't actually get played in clubs for a decade or two. Then I'll
finally hear it played in a club, and by then it's already stale, and has lost
a lot of the energy and excitement it would have had were it played when it
was fresh.

Also, even if a DJ lacked confidence in their own ability to pick danceable
new music, and felt that they had to stick to the tried and true oldies: there
are so many great oldies out there! Why should they stick to the same exact 10
oldies every night when there are hundreds if not thousands of them to pick
from?

Then, in my experience, most DJs don't stick to just the popular club hits.
They play obscure music all the time. Even music that is virtualy undanceable,
and clears the dance floor as soon as they play it. So they're taking risks,
and sometimes even paying for it by the audience clearly not liking what they
played. But they play those very same obscure songs night after night. It's
obvious that no one's requesting these songs, and the DJs don't give a shit
that people don't like them, but they play them anyway. So catering to what
the audience likes is not an excuse in that case.. and that happens all the
time. All the time.

So my questions are:

1 - If DJs are brave enough to play obscure songs, why do they have to be the
same obscure songs all the time?

2 - If they feel the need to play old hits a lot, why play the same old hits
over and over again?

~~~
SwellJoe
Both are valid points. And, I make fun of DJs who play the same set over and
over, night after night. I don't understand why any DJ would subject
themselves to that kind of tedium; but let's be honest: the majority of DJs
are not musicians, and their interest in music is not deep or wide. And, being
repetitive is not a negative in the mainstream DJ market.

Regardless of my preference for variety, the people hiring DJs generally don't
care about that metric. My favorite DJs in the market where I've worked were
playing really obscure stuff for their whole set...but weren't making a lot of
money doing it. But, it was clear that they _loved_ the genres and artists
they were playing.

------
xutopia
I don't think people realize the parallels between this and startup life.

Lots of people who have succeeded in the startup world attribute it to one
thing or another they did but a lot of it is just damn pure luck.

This woman faked her way through... if she had wanted she could have continued
down that road and be a bona fide DJ and none would be wiser.

~~~
exolymph
> This woman faked her way through...

She didn't, though. The only thing she faked was her attitude about what she
was doing.

~~~
charlesdm
How is that faking? That's just putting up with something to get the result
you want.

------
citizen23
The author appears confused as to what being a DJ actually involves. This
confusion is understandable considering she seems to believe that the
electronic music scene begins and ends with the Big Room EDM of Netsky/Flume.
Whilst this may be the commercial face of EDM, for many fans it is no more
representative of the EDM genre than chart Hip-Hop is of the Hip-Hop genre.
The very idea that refined DJs would want "the platform occupied by cake-
throwing pyrotechnic-firing entertainers" betrays her claim of understanding
the scene.

Anyone can play some popular tracks and mix into the EDM scene for a while but
that's not going to get you on the Resident Advisor Top 100. Serious DJ's (I'm
talking the likes of Ricardo Villalobos or Nicolas Jaar) have a religious like
commitment to the art and performing sets is only a fraction of what they do.

------
mslev
I don't see this as an "art project" as much as a fun experiment. This just
shows that good producers and promoters, and having an "in" can often get you
on the same level as legitimately talented musicians.

~~~
happy-go-lucky
That's what happens almost everywhere, but the bitter truth is they usually
don't last long.

------
stcredzero
Isn't the path to becoming a successful EDM DJ, essentially to fool the world
into thinking that you are one?

------
J-dawg
Interestingly something like this was done 15 years ago for a UK channel 4
documentary.

[https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/apr/22/features...](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/apr/22/features.review127)

------
mmagin
Darn, was hoping it was Paris Hilton.

------
bsder
Welcome to music. Tits and ass has _ALWAYS_ trumped talent.

------
Theodores
Back in the day I used to put on a few events and have a say as to who played
what records and when. We did invite DJs that played known crowd pleasers even
if I (and my housemate) were snobbish about what they played. There were two
reasons for this, we wished for an inclusive crowd and sometimes a few crowd
favourites help with getting people on the dancefloor. We also wished to
attract the following of the crowd-pleasing DJ. As the night progressed we
could steer the mood into the musical journey we wanted with decent slots for
the DJs we really did want to hear. There were times when we had to rescue the
decks (due to emptying dance floor) but generally we were hands-off and
certainly were not going to dent the egos of our DJs, we would be just playing
a 'special request for a birthday girl' or something.

My problem with people that played crowd pleasers was that there was an aspect
of them being 'poseurs'. Rather than having a confident idea of what a set
should be and putting together something amazing for that night and that
crowd, it was almost as if the poseur-DJs were second-guessing things and
overly concerned with BPM values, all very mechanical, if skilled. They also
were not challenging the audience or creating new music for them. Nonetheless
at least they tried, at least they were there in front of a crowd for their
mistakes to be heard by all, at least they invested in vinyl (as it was then)
and they were able to keep our inclusive crowd happy (if not challenged).

Our scene was 50-50 as far as gender but when it came to organisational nounce
and DJing it was mostly male. I do not think that we created an impenetrable
male-only clique, plenty of ladies around, just not hitting the decks or
having money at stake.

The poseurs did earn acceptance over time in some cases, we gave them the
space to get some confidence or whatever it was that was lacking and they
earned their place on the scene.

How would I have felt if this 'art project' had infiltrated itself into our
events? Probably pretty rotten but times really have changed. Back in the day
you could not have 30000 tunez on an mp3 player and have the computer mix
things for you. You had to take a choice 150 or so 12" records, all of which
had to be bought when they came out as limited pressings with white labels and
what not. So to have enough in the bag to cover all eventualities during an
hour or so of a DJ slot one would have to have £1000 of vinyl with you, fresh
vinyl with sensible back catalog. This was a convenient barrier to entry and
probably would have been too high a bar for 'art projects' like this.

You can take the piss out of any medium and any art form and call it an 'art
project'. You could even go along to a Trump rally and chant the usual chants
and call it an 'art project'. You could wear a football shirt and go to
football matches for the first time, posing as a fan and calling it an 'art
project'. You could fool people int thinking your graffiti was a 'banksy' and
call it an 'art project'.

Beyond the blog post, where are the fruits of this 'art project'? What is
being truly created? I don't see any creation of note, just cynicism and
assumptions, fakery and nothing really proven.

------
Justin_K
This piece could be interchanged with any music genre. Rap / Hip Hop, Rock,
Country... it would all read the same. There's plenty of examples across the
board.

~~~
davidw
Seems like it's something of a continuum, though.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otM22QcIHYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otM22QcIHYw)
\- a group of untrained people could not put that together and play it live in
6 months. No way, no how.

Maybe with a bit of training and a lot of auto-tune, someone with a decent
voice could be a 'pop star', but even that... probably more than 6 months.

There's a ton of music that's got years and years of practice behind it.

