From the archives: Dancing… with tears in my eyes

Originally published on It Is Happening Again on February 27, 2014

I really shouldn’t let it bother me, I know, but I can’t stay silent any longer. I’m not a hateful person, you see, but it’s difficult to feel anything other than utter contempt when it comes to EDM.

That’s EDM as in ‘electronic dance music’, just in case anyone confuses it with non-electronic forms of dance music such as… uh… you know… polka or flamenco or something.

Ah, EDM, let me count the ways in which I despise thee.

Firstly, no one seems to be putting in the effort anymore. Producers such as David Guetta, Avicii and Hardwell (the latter officially the best DJ in the world according to DJ Magazine’s Top 100 DJs poll) are churning out the same tired sound over and over again. The last single sold well so why change a winning formula? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But herein lies the problem. The original source material for EDM (disco, house and garage) was born from the predominantly gay clubs of 1970s New York. It created an escape; a sense of belonging in a society which didn’t yet readily accept the rights of people it deemed to be ‘different’. By contrast, it’s difficult to listen to EDM and hear anything other than someone trying to make as much money as possible. This is music stripped of all emotion, all humanity… this isn’t music being made because someone feels a compelling need to express themselves creatively, this is music being made because someone has worked out that people are stupid enough to buy the same thing over and over again. This is the point where music stops being art and becomes just another brand. All style, no substance.

This brings me to my next point: EDM DJs. We now live in a world where people will swarm in their droves to see Keith Lemon lookalike David Guetta bouncing around, pumping his fist in the air and generally ticking all the twat boxes while doing absolutely bugger all behind the decks. He may be wearing Beats By Dre headphones (which I’m convinced were designed to help us identify those who shouldn’t be allowed out unaccompanied) but what’s that? A pre-recorded set? Really? Swedish House Mafia were just the same, only it took THREE of them to slot a USB stick into a CD player and push a button while their fans paid ludicrous money for the pleasure of watching them do sweet FA.

What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, if you paid good money to see a band play live only to find they were miming to a backing track, you’d feel pretty ripped off, right? Yeah, okay, DJs are playing recorded music (and no one has ever pretended otherwise), but it’s how you play that recorded music that makes the DJ. The real skill lies not just in mixing two records (or CDs or whatever) together, it’s all about reading the crowd and connecting with them via the music you play. If you turn up with a pre-mixed CD and then do nothing for the next hour then aren’t you actually showing a complete lack of respect for your fans by effectively ignoring them? If you’re going to make money out of being a DJ then the least anyone can expect from you is that you actually BE A DJ. That means more than a beard and a low-cut T-shirt, chumps.

It gets worse. We also live in a world where the likes of Paris Hilton and Pauly D (from Jersey Shore, a so-called ‘reality’ show that I’d rather sandpaper my scrotum than watch) are headline DJs. Paris, whose greatest contribution to mankind will be the oxygen someone else is able to use once she finally shuffles off this mortal coil, knows all the tricks. She can jump around behind the decks. She can point and pump her fist. She has sparkly headphones. But she can’t mix. She has some bloke who CAN mix hiding behind the decks, bobbing up every now and then to, y’know, actually DO HER JOB FOR HER. She probably has someone to wipe her arse too.

Pauly D, who looks like he was grown in a petri-dish, has a sparkly laptop. He pumps his fist. He points. He plays ‘Levels’ by Avicii A LOT. Artistic integrity isn’t in his vocabulary, along with, I imagine, much of the rest of the English language. Depressingly, people are willing to watch him do this in public, in the way that people used to go and watch executions (which, admittedly, would be more enjoyable to listen to).

What do Pauly D or Paris actually know about the music they play and where its roots lie? Do they actively seek out new music to champion out of a relentless passion for their art? Are they pushing boundaries? Or do they (or, most likely, their management) simply understand that being even slightly famous is enough to part people with their hard-earned cash, even if you have no discernible talent to speak of?

EDM celebrates the fact that you no longer need to make the effort as long as you have a brand that suckers will buy into. It’s like that person who turns up to the party empty-handed and demands to know where all the alcohol is. That irritating work colleague who offers to help with a project then wants to take all the credit for your success.

EDM asks the question ‘will this do?’

No. No, it won’t do at all.

Where dreams go to die

So it seems perpetually self-satisfied music mogul Simon Cowell’s ill-considered idea for a ‘DJ X-Factor’ is finally set to see the cruel light of day, albeit via an online platform bafflingly offered by Yahoo (cheers, guys).

While it’s not yet clear exactly what format this atrocity will take, the flat-topped twat’s track record should be enough to tell you that it’ll be about as appealing as waking up to find Jedward lying either side of you with knowing smiles on their otherwise vacant faces.

How will it work? To my mind, it takes at least 30 minutes, if not an hour, to get a feel for what a DJ is like, maybe even longer. It’s about building a mood, a feeling, a journey (clichéd, I know) – how will that be condensed into three minutes in front of an audience of over-excitable adolescents and tearfully proud nans? And DJs who CAN cram it all into three minutes – otherwise known as turntablists – already have their own talent show in the form of the infinitely more credible DMC World DJ Championships.

How will contestants be judged? Mixing ability? Track selection? How easily they can make that excruciating heart shape with their hands? Whether they have some ridiculous gimmick like throwing cake at people who’ve paid to see them? Will someone with the skills of Carl Cox or Sasha find themselves rejected with a withering: “You’re not quite right for this show – I mean, what are you going to do when it’s Abba Week?”

The advancement of technology has effectively meant that anyone can download the latest top 10 tracks from music sites such as Beatport and mix them together using the ‘sync’ button (which basically does all the work for you). Great, but where’s the creativity, the imagination? Will someone with real technical ability and a genuine understanding of the music they’re playing lose out to someone who simply plays the chart-toppers and puts on more of a show behind the decks?

What does Cowell imagine ‘clubland’ is like these days? Will extra points be awarded for demonstrating your prowess on the microphone by giving a shout out to the hen party down at the front or spitting out lyrics such as “remember, folks, it’s half price WKDs at the bar until midnight”?

Will Cowell complain that drum and bass is “too fast”? Will he put two different DJs together purely because “you look good and I think girls will really like you”? Will there be a judges’ house stage where plucky hopefuls are forced to fiddle around with expensive electrical equipment precariously close to a swimming pool while the show’s equivalent of Cheryl Cole (or whatever she’s calling herself these days) fights back tears as she stares into the distance while managing to look bored, confused and angry at the same time?

And on the subject of judges, who would they be? Fatboy Slim literally told Cowell to “fuck off” when he was approached to become a judge on the show in 2013. Could any DJ worth their salt lower themselves to this level and then expect to be taken seriously? Or will Cowell call on the services of so-called ‘superstar’ DJs such as David Guetta and Paris Hilton, who, ironically, are probably better known for NOT actually mixing.

The bottom line is that a DJ competition will not make good television. Turntablism aside, DJing is not a visual art – it’s about listening and dancing to what’s being played. Good DJs work best in their natural environment – the club, the rave, the festival, the squat party – where they can feed off the crowd in order to shape and develop their set. No amount of fancy studio lighting, overpaid celebrity guests, theme weeks or heart-wrenching sob stories (“my dead grandad always wanted me to be the next Pete Tong!”) can ever replicate this.

People: this is evil and must be stopped, or, at the very least, ignored. Cowell is a parasite who loves nothing more than to feast on the shattered dreams and bitter, stinging tears of the young, impressionable and foolish.

You’ve already encouraged him by continuing to watch X-Factor – don’t make the same mistake again. How will we explain this shame to our grandchildren?

We’re better than this.

2014: that was the year that wasn't (part one)

I realise I come across as a happy-go-lucky kind of person without a care in the world, but there are still a few people on this here planet capable of getting right on my tits.

Anyway, it's always better out than in, as they say, so in the first of two articles I thought I'd vent some steam over famous people who have no concept of my existence but have still managed to wind me up in some way.

Coldplay

Let no one say that Chris Martin isn’t consistent. Six albums in and every line he utters still sounds like a feeble apology for disappointing sex, while the other three (the ones who AREN’T Chris Martin) sit there like the three members of U2 who aren’t Bono – smug in the knowledge that however ridiculous their frontman looks and sounds, they’ll still be raking it in.

It wasn’t just his music that irritated this year either – the announcement of Martin’s split from Gwyneth Paltrow (I don’t know which one of them should be more relieved, frankly) could only have been more pretentious had they arranged for doves to deliver hand-written parchments to every household in the world.

The group’s seventh album, A Head Full Of Dreams, with its title presumably chosen from a competition open only to infant school pupils, is due for release next year. Martin’s once again dragging out the whole ‘this album might be our last’ bollocks which he’s been peddling since at least the second album.

We can only hope he’s telling the truth this time, although I won’t be holding my breath – life isn’t that kind.

Incidentally, this year also gave us the greatest review of a Coldplay album you’ll ever read. Seriously. Read it here.

Paris Hilton

This year, professional oxygen thief Paris Hilton was named ‘Female DJ of the Year’ by French youth station NRJ. Okay, it’s not exactly a Grammy and in the grand scheme of things it probably won’t have any significant impact on the course of human progress, but it does beg the question: has Paris Hilton EARNED any sort of award for her ‘DJing’?

As anyone who has seen videos of Hilton in action (no, not THOSE videos) will tell you, she does a lot of dancing, pointing and pretending to fiddle with stuff, but very little in the way of actual DJing (some videos show a ‘helper’ who hides behind the decks and does all the technical stuff that Hilton doesn’t need to do because she’s too busy dancing, pointing and pretending to fiddle with stuff). The downside of recent advancements in DJ technology is that you can pretty much get your equipment to do all the work for you – stick Hilton behind a pair of 1210s with a stack of vinyl and we’ll see how well she fares then.

Paris Hilton is a DJ only because she has seen someone do it, decided she wants to have a go and her people have made it happen. She hasn’t worked to get where she is today. Where most DJs spend years finding their sound, hunting down rare tracks and generally paying their dues to whatever scene they aspire to be part of, Hilton has simply snapped her fingers and become a DJ, just because she’s used to getting her own way. In fact, everything she has ever achieved in life has been purely down to the fact she was excreted from a rich woman’s nether regions nearly 34 years ago, rather than because she’s actually any good at anything.

To be named ‘Female DJ of the Year’ is also an insult to every female DJ who has had to strive for recognition in what has traditionally been seen as a male-dominated industry where a woman behind the decks is, unfortunately, still treated as some sort of novelty (for example, the words ‘female DJ’ might appear in brackets after their name on a flyer – you wouldn’t list a DJ’s skin colour or sexuality in the same way, would you?).

Memo to Hilton’s ‘people’: you can put an end to this. This is your time to shine. The world is depending on you.

Alex Turner

If I’m honest, there’s always been a whiff of the emperor’s new clothes about Arctic Monkeys. I don’t dislike them, as such, but I’ve just never found them worthy of all the hype that seems to have surrounded them throughout their career.

However, it’s not the band themselves that have particularly irritated me this year, it’s that bequiffed twat of a frontman, Alex Turner. He wasn't quite so bad in the early days when he generally didn’t have very much to say, but more recently the fame and success seem to have gone to his Brylcreemed little head, to the point where he appears to have adopted the voice of an Elvis impersonator for his between-song gig banter. He doesn’t look like a rock star: he looks like someone PRETENDING to be a rock star.

The glistening cherry on the cake, however, was his excruciating acceptance speech at this year’s Brit Awards, in which he adopted the expression of a teenage boy about to tell his giggling mates about how he’d lost his virginity at last night’s party, before launching into a frankly bizarre lecture about rock ‘n’ roll and how it will never die.

He even talked about rock ‘n’ roll being ready to “smash through the glass ceiling”, as if white-dominated guitar music had somehow spent the last half- century being brutally oppressed by the music industry.

This tax-dodging ‘man of the people’ then finished his little routine by telling organisers to “invoice me for the microphone if you wanna” before dropping said microphone on the floor in the style of a petulant child who’s just been ordered to tidy his room.

Rather predictably, the increasingly irrelevant NME creamed its pants and stuck Turner in all his quifftastic glory on its front page, hailing him as the leader of some new rock ‘n’ roll revolution – a cover which will probably go down as one of the most embarrassing in the magazine’s once respectable history.

Shush now, Alex - grown-ups are talking. 

Tom Odell

For that abomination of a song used on the John Lewis advert, above all else. The fact it’s a cover is irrelevant – the end result is still the musical equivalent of waking up on a cold winter’s morning to find yourself covered in someone else’s vomit.

Odell’s strained – nay, strangulated – voice can’t seem to decide whether it’s trying to yawn or let out a desperate yet futile cry for someone, ANYONE to put it out of its misery. This is doubtless what Odell himself fancies as deep and meaningful – the mark of a REAL musician trying to convey REAL feelings and yet still managing to sound like an X-Factor contestant refused a place in the final because “the standard is particularly high this year and you just haven’t got what it takes”.

Like Ed Sheeran, I struggle to see the appeal of Odell. Unlike Sheeran, I don’t know anyone who actually likes Odell’s music. That said, there’s undoubtedly a budding musician sitting in a coffee shop somewhere, guitar in hand, telling their largely indifferent audience that they need Tom Odell’s album in their lives.

That’s a brave move in a room full of people brandishing boiling hot drinks, isn’t it?

Katie Hopkins

I’m loathe to give this hateful excuse for a human being any more publicity than I have to, but it’s impossible to write about people who have irritated me this year without including her.

I can’t even be bothered to repeat anything she’s said (Google her if you’re that desperate), but I will say this: someone, somewhere, at some point has wronged her (possibly in a fairly trivial way) and she has retaliated by embarking on some sort of ideological mission to vomit venom at everything in her line of vision. This extends to banning her own offspring from mixing with other children based on their names, in case they should tarnish her little darlings’ delicate minds and, presumably, their prospects of marrying somebody rich, gullible and on the verge of a heart attack.

I’ll also say this: she looks like someone skinned a horse and then applied lipstick and a Miss Piggy wig. Just banter, Katie.