Rolling Stone Italy Takes A Swing At DJs

Wow. Ouch. Low blow. Uncalled for. Them fighting words! But wait!

These were more or less the thoughts that ran through my head as I watched the following video produced by Filmmaster Productions and directed by Federico Brugia on behalf it would seem of Rolling Stone magazine Italy. It’s a scathing, in your face commentary on today’s DJ. It holds back no punches as it derides the superficial and shallow nature of the entire dance music scene as it is popularly presented today. And it does it all while flashing imagery of obviously high production value that is intended to be subtle assaults to not only our eyes but to our subconscious. I hate it. Even if it did get some things right.

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that there is plenty of shallowness in the scene, that there have been many moments when I have had to stop in my tracks and wonder to myself how in God’s name did so and so get to be a Superstar DJ, rocking crowds at festivals with an audience larger than all the people I have ever shared a dance floor with, in my life. Speaking of dance floors, I hate how the culture has become less about dancing and more about standing while pumping your fists. I hate how DJs wearing costumes or masks become famous not because they’re good DJs but precisely because they are wearing costumes or masks. I hate how candy bracelets, glow sticks, and exorbitantly high priced tickets have come to represent the scene more than baby powder, friendly dance battles or soul train lines, and marathon DJ sets. I hate how the spiritual core, that longing to connect with something greater than one’s self has been replaced with an overtly sexualized scene and quick trips on the molly bandwagon. There is more I hate, but I will stop there.

I stop because despite the hypocritical nature of a rock magazine, a genre that itself was once maligned and looked down upon by the status quo, I know that DJs and dance music are not to blame. At fault is this brand happy, profit driven society that sees an opportunity and exploits it to the core until there is nothing but a shadow of its former self left to fend for itself. Blaming dance music and DJs is like raping a forest of its trees and then blaming the forest for being beautiful.

I don’t boil over in rage simply because I know that despite this commercial, empty, and vain exhibition the dance scene is experiencing, at its core dance music is in fact a very spiritual thing. DJs are our figure heads, the pastors, priests, holy figures we allow up in that pulpit that is the DJ booth to weave sounds into a mosaic of sound that touches us in our cores and if we’re lucky elevates our minds, bodies, and souls. At the very least, their sounds will bring a smile to our faces while vibrating the very marrow in our bones. And that is a good and needed thing in an increasingly volatile world.

So we don’t need your over generalized, short sighted, and narrow minded analysis into our scene Rolling Stone. Go worry about your magazine and dwindling sales, or perhaps you can put another terrorists on your front cover to boost sales. In the meantime, we’ll deal with our issues; we’ll separate the wheat from the chaff (I’m telling you we’re spiritual) and get down to what is important –while getting down. One day we will, like the genre you claim to represent, settle into our groove, into the very fabric of world culture, and be the better for it.