Location: Cleveland, OH USA
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TymezUp wrote: |
Post 1996 were there any djs who really made it based on dj skills? |
I think that they are few and far between. Unless you are a turntablist or someone who combines scratching/quick-mixing with a dance genre (think Bad Boy Bill), it has been very tough for a traditional DJ to get widespread recognition just for DJ skills, probably because there are just so many talented DJs out there on a local level. Plus, I think that putting out a track that becomes popular worldwide is just a faster promotional vehicle than years and years of solid DJing. It's certainly not the only way to become well known, and the Internet has definitely created a new channel for DJs to spread their talents as DJs and not just as producers who also DJ.
That being said, there is certainly nothing wrong with aiming to be successful just on a local level, and doing that is a huge achievement in itself. People should definitely not get into DJing with the sole goal of being world-famous -- it is important to do it just for the art itself, with no expectation or need for financial success or fame. If you persist long enough and stay true to your art, good things will eventually happen on their own, without you trying to force it to happen. Your enjoyment of the art should not be dependent on how successful you become. If you're in it for the money, people will sense that, and you can be certain that you will never be successful. I think that the dance-music biz is unique from other genres in that it is driven more by karma than by politics, money, or good PR.
But I don't think that it is purely opinion to say that producing successful songs is correlated to being successful as a DJ. The vast majority of new DJs ascending in the public eye have done so because of production work (that doesn't necessarily mean that they are great DJs). And a lot of the ones who have been successful for a long time continue to remain so by putting out artist albums that help broaden their audience. I'm certainly not making this conjecture based on my gut feeling, but on what I observe happening on a regular basis.
Some examples: Randall Jones, Derek Howell, James Holden, Sander Kleinenberg, Gabriel & Dresden, Andrew K, ATB, Above & Beyond, Blank & Jones, Satoshi, Slacker, Quivver, Max Graham, Felix, James Lavelle, Darude.
There are, of course, noticeable exceptions, like James Zabiela, Hernan Cattaneo, and Lee Burridge. But I would postulate that your probability of becoming a successful DJ (if you define success as reaching this tier) as being much higher if you include production in your repetoire. But no, there is no rule that says that you can't be successful if you don't produce -- but it won't hurt!
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