[iTunes Killed the DJ Hero] OR [Don't Drop That Beat]

Soaking wet from the sweat running down your face, neck and back. Sticky hot air, with the subtle funk of both the beat and the people dancing to it. The bump of the bass pulsed up through your feet and made home in your hips. You’ve caught a groove. You’re body is riding the rhythm with ease. Almost spiritual. Then, the commander starts to edge into a new groove. You and everyone else in the room feels the change coming on and all know the cipher. The sound waves travel through the crowd, pick them all up and set them gently, but solidly, into the next tune.

That commander the DJ. We have several songs worshiping these masters of ceremony. For some of us, a night on the dance floor is, in fact, ceremonious. I hail from the glory days of the disc jockeys, the 80s and 90s. The days when even using CDs was looked down upon. Any respectable DJ showed up to his gig with several 30-pound crates of vinyl in tow. (This is just how you knew they were at least dedicated to the skill. Who’s going to practically break their back just to look cool?) The crate held message he wanted to give the crowd; the night’s set chosen carefully from a library of records that took years to build.

The young buck DJs holding down the party these days don’t even seem to know their place and purpose in the scene; to hold the crowd hostage on the dance floor. The young partiers reading this might only see the club scene as just that, a scene. A place where you gather to look good in the space you are in order to get drunk and pose for Facebook. Most party people now don’t pay any attention to the man in the booth. The old school partiers call the digital jockeys "DJ Spacebar". The dance floor these days tends to look more like a bunch of first graders crammed together bopping, off beat, to whatever happens to come through the speakers.

So why should DJ Spacebar care what his beats sound like?
Because that’s his job, that’s the craft; flowing seamlessly from one song to the next. They should know how to change the energy and tempo without causing a train wreck. They should be aware that the people who are on the dance floor are the ones who count most. Lastly, recognizing that not every single to hit the radio waves is a good dance beat. Perhaps the party people would actually dance if what they were hearing actually moved them.

You could blame iTunes and digitized music along with the ever growing trend toward cheap, easy and fast. It takes years practicing tricks and juggles, those aren’t supposed to be just a push of a button. So subtle aspects that make DJing art are getting lost in the mix. Even with digital DJ systems like Serato and Itch, if you don’t really know the craft, it usually just sounds a mess.

There are some upsides to this switch to MP3s. Those heavy crates… gone. No more breaking your back setting up for a gig. That library that took years is reduced to just a couple of nights of downloading. You never have to worry about the record skipping. The biggest of all, it’s cheaper. Records are expensive compared to digital music. But taking away the physical and financial investment leaves the door open for anyone with a laptop and iTunes to step in and say “I can do that,” and get paid for it. But I’m sorry DJ Spacebar; you can’t just hop in a booth and start clicking away with your cursor.
For the old school DJs, it’s about developing a relationship with the music you are playing. That relationship begins in the record store while flipping through the LPs. Then deciding which records to purchase, which to leave for next time and then pairing them up with other cuts in the collection for smooth transitions.
DJs that know vinyl talk about knowing the way the grooves feel under their fingertips when they play each record. Newbies who begin on the digital systems don’t know anything about that. They just glare at the screen, mesmerized by the time counter or overwhelmed by the thousands of songs they have in their library. They don’t even look up to see how the crowd is responding.
That’s probably the worst sin of a DJ, to not check in with the crowd, just click, click, click from one song to the next. DJ Spacebar often has ADHD and only plays about 40 seconds of the song before hitting the cursor to the next selection. Since he never looked up, they don’t know how much the dancers were feeling that previous song. He never sees that just as he began to pick up the crowd… he dropped them flat on their faces. How are you supposed to respect that?
The elders who now spin using Serato get a pass because they have paid their dues in records & still have them. Whether they use MP3s or vinyl they take it to the next level, beyond any newbie, just because they've been doing it for so long and know the music so well. Their skill overshadows anything a newbie could possibly think of. The experience of knowing how to use a fader and change levels manually shows through. The old school DJ is use feeling his crowd and he knows just how to pull them back to him. He will still have that song you needed to hear for it to make everything better.
Sure, it’s the music that transfers the energy into the party and the skill of the DJ who holds you captive, but for some of us, it’s deeper than that. For those of us who use the dance floor as a way to release the spirit, it’s still the vinyl that holds, conveys and conducts that energy unlike any other format. The feeling you get from the music is literally different. MP3s are made up of blocks, numbers and squares. They have the tendency to sound tinny and midrange. There’s no bass which sounds abrasive. Vinyl sends off actual analog sound waves and the way your senses and emotions receive that sound is more genuine. It’s mystical from the diamond needle to the vinyl plate; the static; the skips that somehow stay on beat; the dusty fingers; the milk crates of timelessness; the awe disbelief when he actually has that record.

Sometimes, as the song goes, the DJ really can save your life.