Tuesday, November 15, 2011

DJs. I think they're done.

Napster was a big deal when I was a teenager. It's how we listened to new music. It took an hour to get one song, but it was amazing! I remember trying so hard to find songs that DJ Clue wasn't on. That guy annoyed me so much. I'd wait an hour, the song would finally be downloaded, I'd press play, then ten seconds in:
"DJ Clue, Clue, Clue! I'm in the building! Shot out to DMX for this song! Get ‘em X, X, X! Shot out to my mom, my sister, the guy who sold me this hat, the airwaves, the future, the past, coconut water, water, water! Desert Storm in the building, building, building! Get ‘em X! You killing ‘em, ‘em, ‘em!"
Can you please shut up so I can hear this song? Why are you here? Did you make the beat? No, you didn't, so get out of here!

DJs love to talk over songs. Talk over "Billie Jean" as if it were missing something.
"I love Billie Jean, I just thought it needed a, "Is Franklin High in the place!" I wish I could have told Michael."

DJs used to scratch, blend, and remix songs BY HAND. Actually had turntables, and actually put music on. Grabbed a record, and placed it ON A RECORD PLAYER. Now, everything is on a computer. DJs don't have to do anything! Just put songs in a playlist and press play. Then put headphones over one ear, the other on their fitted hat, and pretend that something is being heard in either of them. What are you listening to!
"These headphones are connected to the DJ headquarters. Right now, they are saying to play an ol’ school Mase hit. Thanks, headquarters! I was about to go Usher, but I would have lost the crowd!"

DJs made sense at one point. For one, DJs did something. Also, THEY BROUGHT EQUIPMENT AND RECORDS THAT THEY PURCHASED! You have to be paid well when you have been buying records to play at parties. You are literally bringing the music! There was a point in time when you couldn't just get a song you wanted in a second. That was when DJs were needed. Who had hours worth of music that would be great for a party? Who was spending tons of money to collect music to play at parties? DJs!

Now, though? You could put an iPod in the place of a DJ. The only difference would be that the iPod wouldn't think it could sleep with every woman in the club. And ridiculous girls wouldn't think it was cool to sleep with the iPod.
"Man, that iPod is sexy. I'm gonna talk to him!"
"It's a machine, Stacey. There's nothing to sleep with."
"I don't care. I have to ride it. It plays music that I like!"

DJs have a TON of misplaced confidence. Have more confidence than Lebron would if he were also a lawyer and a racecar driver.
"I'm the man, son! I'm the best DJ in the land! Nobody plays records like me!"
...Did you hear what you just said? You're the best at pressing the play button?
"Yeah, that's what I said! Nobody presses play like DJ Play Press!"

There will come a time when DJs will be in museums.
"This, everyone, is a DJ. Also known as a Disc Jockey. DJs used to perform at shows and parties."
"Then what happened?"
"Well, a man named Steve Jobs came up with a handheld DJ that didn't even run on batteries! Some years later, DJs had him killed it’s presumed and told the world it was cancer."

It's ridiculous as well when you see a poster and it says, "Music by DJ Not Needed." Wait, wait. No, it isn't. Music isn't by this DJ, this music is by a bunch of artists! Does he own the music? Does he have a lock on everything by the Jackson 5? Nope, he just plays it.
"DJ Not Needed, we really want to listen to the Jackson 5, and not one of us knows how to work a stereo, computer or iPod!"
"You called the right person."

A DJ at a show makes sense. A DJ at a concert makes sense. A DJ at a club? Not necessary. There are a few DJs that are good. Some who make a night fun and get a crowd going. Most, though, are just ruining things. Ruining things from their pharmacist’s vantage point. Unless you are Dr. Dre, you should be on the floor with everyone else.
"Excuse, don't come up here. I'm a doctor of sound. Only I can be up this high."
"You just played LMFAO six times in a row. My diagnosis? Play something else."

DJs also make tons of money. Tons of money for PLAYING OTHER PEOPLES MUSIC. How the hell did this happen?
"We need some music for tonight's party. Will you take care of it?"
"Are you serious? I'm on chip detail and you want me to work music? What do I look like? A governor? I can't take care of all of this!"
"Look, you have to! You have a ton of records!"
"Man... alright. I'll do it... for a thousand dollars."
"A thousand dollars! You're just playing music!"
"You want music tonight? Or do you just want people rubbing chips together to hear a beat?"

How can we have commercials like, "For just forty cents a day, we can feed a child," when we are throwing money at a person whose robot replacement we have already made? How are we getting rid of cashiers at grocery stores for self-checkouts, but we're keeping DJs in clubs? We have made big machines to do what someone was doing for eight dollars an hour. We have tiny little machines that will do for free what a DJ charges two thousand dollars for! This should be the easiest move in history!
"Look, man. You've been replaced."
"What? But I'm DJ Kevin Mc-Kick Ass-tiler! When I'm in the building no one goes Home Alone! Who are you gonna get to do what I do?"
"I don't know, an old Sony Discman? It's either: pay for you or send my kid to a year of school."
"You'll be sorry! You fire me, you're not getting my hype men either, The Wet Bandits!"
"Ya know, your DJ name is a clever take on 'Home Alone', their name is a blatant rip off."
"Man, I know. We were gonna use the money from your show to pay for a think tank to come up with a better name."

With the money we could save on DJs, we could get some real things done. Fix roads, build hospitals, and send kids to school to learn how to MAKE music.
"I'm on the 'actually learn to make music and not just play other peoples songs and take some kind of ridiculous credit for it' scholarship."

Until that day, though, I guess DJs will still be in clubs with their clever names. I'm waiting for the day there is truth in their job. When a DJ will call himself, DJ "You Can Do This".

1 comment:

  1. THANK YOU FOR THIS. You are 100% correct and made me LOL. I've often thought "wait...I think I could do that..wait..I think if I adjust my settings a bit, my ITUNES app can do that all by itself...so whyyyy can THAT guy afford Beats headphones and I can't??"

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