Two years ago, I was sick of nightlife. After starting my adult life as a promoter, it didn't take long before I started to despise this drug-addled world in which everything is superficial, in which men are in the driver's seat, only accepting women on flyers in underwear and where drugs are like the fuel which keeps the engine running. On top of that, I was irritated by the hoards of DJs who were worshipped by promoters and club owners, smugly convincing clubgoers that they were real musicians and artists. Their attitude betrays the avant-garde origins of the music they play.
I was even more disgusted by DJs who contributed to the super-commercialization of that very music. Those who were paid to throw cakes through clubs (and onto wheelchair users) while playing pre-recorded sets. The masses swarm to those sets, ecstatically desperate to be entertained. The music matters to the extent that there needs to be a predictable drop to give hyperventilating kids the cue to throw their hands in the air and screech collectively. It's all about mass entertainment, while the content and culture have become completely irrelevant.
The EDM phenomenon— not the genre, but rather the mass events born of it— is the sad expression of a generation for whom music is no longer culture or art, but just another consumer good. EDM is nothing more than spectacle: boom, boom, and pyrotechnics. It is the funfair version of electronic dance music.So I asked myself the question: is a DJ nowadays just a puppet who plays music on stage and shoots their euphoric audience in the face with confetti? Does a DJ really still need technical skills, now that even bog standard DJ equipment has an integrated sync-button? Isn't large-scale DJing more about a glittering performance than any authentic substance? So together with Tobias, a friend from the club scene, I decided to try out my own experiment and become an EDM DJ. Spoiler alert: it worked.
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The team drew its conclusion: the plan (obviously) seemed to work. To be really successful, we would have to invest a lot more time. This was only going to work if we made the project our number one priority. My DJ-partner was studying law, was very preoccupied with her boyfriend, and couldn't make the necessary commitment. So we decided that I would continue alone.Tobias continued to sell our "art project" brilliantly. Three months after my first gig, I was playing various festivals, including the Zurich Openair between Netsky and Flume and as a warm-up DJ for Crookers. With the festival references under my belt, promoters started booking me not just as a support act for big name DJs like Sidney Samson or Ummet Ozcan, but even as a headliner for their EDM parties. I could barely believe I was seeing myself on flyers less than six months after I first stood at a DJ deck.Leaked Email From EDM.com May Reveal How Paying for Coverage Has Flooded Us With Mediocre Music
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It makes me angry that other DJs pass of real musician's work as their own. So at this stage, my producers deserve real credit: I have enormous respect for Ben Mühlethaler and Avesta, who produced my first track. They are incredibly creative and professional, work productively and with impressive passion for the music. Success is not their top priority. What they care most about is making music for a living and being able to pay their rent.We held off on publishing the finished song. We wanted to wait for the perfect moment. One day, I got an email from the music production company Hitmill, who are behind more or less every jingle and every second pop song. They wanted to get to know me, and come up with a track together. Hitmill provided me with a producer, with whom I got on really well, and with whom I worked on a second track. But before the collaboration was finished, the producer left the company. I finished the track with a different producer.What It's Like Being a Feminist and Working for Booty-Loving EDM Star Borgore
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During the summer of 2015, I played big festival stages like Sonnentanz, the Holi Festival of Colours and Zurich Openair. At the Streetparade Afterparty I played the main stage straight after Bassjackers and Tujamo. All of a sudden, foreign bookers were getting in touch to book me. Hardly any of them knew what I could do or how good I was. But they didn't care. They saw that it worked. For making it "work" they were prepared to pay a juicy fee including travel and hotel rooms.
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Then I got a job offer: a full-time position in journalism—a childhood dream come true. I was forced to make a decision. Our "art project" had been created to prove that it really is that easy to make it as a DJ with just a bit of show, spectacle and some technical skills. We had proved the point. Of course we hadn't had an international break-through, but what if it came once we released the finished tracks? An international booker had already expressed an interest. The idea of keeping up at this rate terrified me. I was afraid that my DJ-self, this character, would take over more and more. So I decided to call it a day.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. I have enormous respect for DJs who see themselves as musicians, not as entertainers. A DJ like that is a music teacher, one who brings his audience closer to new and perhaps even revolutionary tracks. Tracks that have more to offer than the identical good feeling of tacky pop melodies laid over electronic beats. Tracks that have the potential to make you think and dream. Electronic music in particular lives off the innovative spirit which made once made it to the expression of a generation. And there are actually loads of DJs exactly like that. Those DJs deserve the platform occupied by cake-throwing pyrotechnic-firing entertainers. But they are rarely found at large, commercial festivals. This problem, too, is commercial: big music companies make huge amounts of money at their orchestrated raves. So electro was "poppified"; made radio-friendly and suitable for the masses.My DJ project was contrived in and subject to the rules of this new, commercial music world. But what I did there was still real. I understand that what cake-throwers do isn't one bit more authentic that I was. So I have to do what's only right and offer my DJ career as a sacrifice to electronic music culture and its musicians. I'm clearing the stage for those who deserve a place on the stage and who want to move and change people with their audience. Tobias has used his know-how to make an online platform called OneScreener for musicians and DJs and thus offer them a real and fitting platform.An earlier version of this article misattributed the author as Nadja Cautery. The correct author is Nadja Brenneisen, and we apologize for the error.This Video Is What Happens When You Combine the Worst of EDM and K-Pop