Definitely this surge of new electronic music blogs comes from trying to socialize with DJs and producers, perhaps hoping to partake in the glamourous life that has become synonymous with the DJ lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, there are some quality blogs out there, but there are some bad ones too so beware!
While DJ tweefs and wars are pretty comical in themselves, what is even more sad is people who blog about DJs getting into wars too!
First I want to talk about EDM Snob. Once again, with my total lack of promptness in completing my posts when I want to, in the interim, this blog has somewhat disbanded. What I initially was going to address was the way this blog was going to reveal how DJ Mag was being paid to rank DJs higher in their poll. The best response to that was the last comment on this Resident Advisor post: http://www.residentadvisor.net/feed-item.aspx?id=50984 Yup! My sentiments exactly. After going through the blog's posts, I could tell this "anonymous" person behind the blog was young, because his knowledge of dance music was far too recent. But it irked me the way he wanted to hold DJ Mag in contempt, and try to discredit a long standing magazine that despite its perhaps nowadays meaningless poll contributed to the spread of dance music and knowledge to so many. A complete lack of respect for dance music as an institution and those who contributed to its success.
The Snob then claimed that he was going to reveal the dates of SHM's One Last Tour before they did. For one, it was a strange claim because the whole promotional campaign was showing exactly where they were going through posting landmarks on their website, and all you had to do was decipher that the Eiffel tower was in France, etc. Anyway, this highly aggravated SHM manager Amy Thompson, who expressed her displeasure on the SHM Facebook page. Oh the drama!
Well, fast-forward to this week, and the founder of the "EDM wikileaks" decided to reveal himself because people were supposedly losing their jobs because of him. All I can say is, these new kids on the block are way too self righteous and its disturbing. That whole "PLUR" catchphrase of dance music seems to have either skipped a generation or is lost on drugs. He even tried to pass off what he was doing as passion for the scene, but anyone with passion won't go and discredit people (ahem, DJ Sneak, ahem).
Side note: also funny, this week the "EDM Snob" declared Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs as the second coming, and that he said it first...really, I was in school full time 2 years ago and even I heard of T.E.E.D before yesterday. Yeesh, where does the credibility in the word snob come from?!
In the midst of trying to figure out who EDM Snob was, another blog, EDM insider, decided to do some investigative journalism and called out Biz Martinez, a talent buyer at mega-club LIV in Miami, as the EDM Snob http://www.edminsider.com/exclusive-edm-snob-exposed/. I was not totally convinced by the article for the simple reason that if you have been to LIV, it is one of the most self-appointed pretentious clubs in America, and so its actual snobbish ways could no way be linked to the faux-snob of Mr. Wikileaks. But seriously, how sad! This week, after the snob revealed himself, Martinez took to Twitter to state that anyone who thought it was him does not know how much work he put into the scene. Well, good for him I suppose. I still think LIV is pretty ridiculous, but that is a digression.
To add insult to injury, the "editor" of EDM Snob, Kat Bein, wrote an article in some Miami paper about EDM being the wimpiest youth movement, and then claimed it was satirical. What on earth is the point, and why aren't these kids in school? She since removed the article, probably because of the overwhelming response of kandi kids taking offence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh, and the "piece de resistance" is of course Dancing Astronaut, which I have expressed disdain for in the past http://jackhadagroove.blogspot.ca/2012/06/rant-on-part-2.html. I feel bad cause I know they do have some writers that actually try to do research and not come off as totally pompous, but when the face of the blog appears to 1) be completely arrogant and pompous 2) takes a lot of the credit even though its not his to take I just feel the need to show what I'm talking about.
Aside from writing that dumb editorial that he keeps referring to (the one about dance music going mainstream but not having to sell out), Jacob Schulman has taken on an arrogance that is beyond reproach. First off, he is the editor-in-chief, not founder (or CEO, though I don't get why a blog needs a CEO) of Dancing Astro. That title belongs to one Senthil Chidambaram.
Kia Makarechi of the Huffington Post interviewed Steve Angello, and Schulman along with another DA writer decided to call the article poorly written and presented their "interpretation" of the article. I mean, are you kidding me? MTV EDM journalist Adam Stewart saw this blatant display of ego and called Schulman out, saying not to get too tired from patting himself on the back. Ha!
Then the whole mess with EDM Snob and SHM came out. Schulman said on Twitter
Well, fine. Some kid thinks Dancing Astro is the best. No one gets hurt. But seriously, what the heck? I've read different articles saying that it is America's fault for the EDM phenomenon, and that they are killing dance music. I don't agree with those statements but when this is the supposed biggest dance blog in America, I can understand people's frustrations.
Steve Angello played Pacha NYC after his SIZE in the Park gig, and decided he was going to spin more "underground" tracks. He apparently told people they weren't going to recognize the music, and then Schulman triumphantly stated he identified Tensnake's Coma Cat. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Coma Cat one of the biggest tracks of 2010?
Most disturbing is how many DJs respect Schulman. Amy Thomspon even likes the kid, despite his scathing editorial being about SHM. Anyway, Schulman meleed himself into a conversation between Sebastian Ingrosso, Tommy Trash and Afrojack concerning SI & TT's new track Reload:
And then privately tweeted
Chidambaram also weighed in
So I guess Beat My Day hit a nerve. Good thing too, considering they pretty much never intervene when DA steals their posts.
I added Senthil's other tweet in there to demonstrate that complete lack of knowledge this "dance music" blog has. Sure, trap music origins are from hip hop, but if you say guys like Hudson Mohawke, Lunice, Bauuer, Diplo etc are not making dance music then there is clearly something wrong.
If you need to write a disclaimer about yourself, then maybe its time you check yourself before you wreck yourself (always wanted to say that haha!)
I've been telling myself, don't start sounding like a hipster with the whole "I knew about this before it was cool" and I try hard to defend the likes of Guetta and SHM and whomever else has become commercial as a product of their underground success, but what I never anticipated was the brash generation of clubbers that emerged alongside them.
Maybe I just have a case of sour grapes. But believe me, trying to keep this blog going takes too much out of me, so this truly is not blog envy. I will never say that the once underground culture of electronic music gone commercial is a bad thing. I've seen so many of my heros make it big, I've seen the underbelly of producers working even harder, making quality music. But there needs to be less negativity. That is one part of dance music's success I'm still not used to. And I don't mean to be perpetuating more negativity by hating on these blogs. Just want them to take a step back and embrace the music, do the research, lose the egos, and embrace the people in the industry that make it all come together...too much to ask?
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