How To Become A Star DJ? Here Are Some Rules!

Twenty years ago, the young hopefuls aspiring for a lucrative music career would aim for the mastery of an instrument – picking up a guitar or learning how to play the drums. They dreamed of becoming rock stars, displaying their finely tuned, well practiced live talent for the audience. But the music scene changed, and their was a new genre appealing to mainstream popular culture.

If you can remember 10 years ago, everyone planned to embark on a journey to become a hip hop phenom, expanding their lexicon to display their mastery of wordplay, endlessly composing and revising their bars and lyrics, practicing their flow and developing their stage presence to ensure their viability as an artist. Today, as EDM–or Electronic Dance Music–finds itself catapulted into the forefront of the mainstream media, a new type of talent is being born every day: DJ’s

Jacob Schulman from Dancing Astronaut’s has commented on the changing genre:

What worries me is not that DJs are simply “pressing play,” but that they’re pressing play on the same tracks in the same order night after night after night. There’s new music being released at a breakneck pace, but many of the big name DJs are still spinning the same freaking sets every time. They are playing the same bootlegs, making the same transitions, and delivering the same exact shtick every day of the week.

Traditionally, the art of being a true DJ depended on one’s finesse and skills on the turntable. Today, with DJs being paid $100,000 for small club shows, we have seen a surge of repetitiveness. They have turned themselves into businesses and continually regurgitate the same product to scores of fans. These artists have managed to fool the crowd – playing almost identical sets for weeks, or even months at a time, and raking in enormous amounts of cash at the same time.

Long time EDM mainstays like Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren, Markus Schulz and Tiesto pride themselves on creating unique, varied, crowd oriented sets, refusing to succumb to the dearth of creativity induced by the genre’s transition to radio friendly music. While today’s most successful and popular DJ’s are true music producers, a spawn of self-imposed wannabes have eroded away the creativity of the genre with their calculated approaches to DJing.

They have created a formula and stuck with it because it has been successful, but we are deeply concerned with what this means for the genre. Some of these rising producers make their ascent to prominence look too easy, and this just may be the case.

Wanna break in big? Here are some rules.

Do some time in Sweden & The Netherlands

In countries like Sweden, where dance music does very well commercially and is played in the nightclub scene, you see a lot of home-grown talent. Holland is also a great example: Dance music regularly charts on commercial radio and the club scene reflects a similar love for the Dutch brand of house coming from DJs/producers (think Chuckie, Afrojack, Laidback Luke, Don Diablo, etc.)

Another reason is that when kids grow up idolizing house producers and checking out their shows at 15, 16, etc, they’re going to go home and download software like Fruity Loops or Ableton & start learning to make similar tunes.

To the same effect, a lot of great and commercially successful hip hop comes out of the US. In America, children are exposed to a lot more Jay-Z and a lot less Tiesto, so naturally they will go home and write rhymes rather than tinker with soft-synths.

Memorize an iTunes playlist and pretend understand how to mix live

Generation Y fully embraces technology, so why not use the resources readily available to you? Although showcased as live music, we have encountered many DJs running the same sets or playlists at multiple venues and cities. There is nothing more disappointing then catching an exact replica of a set you have already heard the artist play a few weeks prior.

This is not to discredit every DJ on the scene, however we do see significant percentage of the most popular DJs crafting their sets from the same limited pool of tracks and bootlegs. If the pros do it, so can you!

Let your hairstyle dictate your sub-genre

Whether it is the Eurotrash long hair and V-Neck shirts or the dubstep half-shaved Skrillex cut and black hoodies, your edginess must be apparent from top to bottom. We are not advising that you overtly attempt to fit in, but you definitely are not going to be able to recreate the wheel here.

Remove DJ from the beginning of your name

Drop the DJ from your artist name; that’s so hip hop.

Fake an accent

Just as hard as it is to recognize authenticity in Riff Raff’s hip hop facade, to be infamous you must emulate the famous. No one wants a DJ from the States just as much as we cringe hearing hip hop from France. It just does not work. Besides Kaskade, perhaps.

Remix “Somebody That I Used To Know” & “Promises”

You cannot be down with EDM unless you produce another mindless remix of these played out songs. At Electric Daisy Carnival New York and Las Vegas we encountered these tracks so many times that we became nauseated, almost spurring us to projectile vomit in the direction of the DJ.

Date Paris Hilton

It increased Afrojack’s brand leverage tremendously. By aligning yourself with a C-List celebrity you can rise out of obscurity and ascertain greater endorsements and sponsorships for your burgeoning career.

Fool the crowd

Do whatever it takes to make the adoring crowds forget that no actual live music is being performed. Whether it be confetti canons, laser shows, LED infused helmets, nude dancers, and excessive lights. It is no surprise that drug use runs rampant at EDM events, so throw out some party favors if you have to. The crowd will surely forget that you also played this set last night if they are “rolling face” when you drop “Levels vs Somebody That I Used To Know”.

Start DJ Beef

Even though you are doing very little during a live set–especially when your CDJ can beat match for you–call out other DJs for “just pressing play.” It is far better to diffuse the attention onto another than having the focus be put on yourself.

Get caught “faking it”

Have your iTunes playlist come up onto the screens that line the stage. Controversy sells.

Excessive left triceps work outs

This is perhaps the most overlooked fundamental in becoming an EDM sensation. The amount of arm waving and fist pumping that will be done as you hype the crowd to watch you poorly mix another person’s music will create a significant amount of muscle growth in your left arm. It is a well known fact that most DJs can easily execute a left handed push up without breaking a sweat.

Hire an American-Idol reject to provide soothing harmonizing vocals

Of course, most DJs are not well established enough to acquire vocalists with actual talent or fame to sing over their tracks. It is best to find a C-list American Idol reject so you can follow the tried and true formula of alluring female vocals over a catchy beat.

Congratulations, see you on the EDC main stage.