Picture being in front of a crowd and having the key to their happiness – in the form of beats, rhythms, samples and scratches, of course. With the switch of a song, you’re in control of both their emotions and the energy of the room. Sound powerful? Sound like fun? This is the life of a DJ, and the world is starting to take notice.
With Skrillex making history as the first dance artist to be nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy, and with David Guetta recognized as the first DJ handprinted at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, it’s obvious that dance, electronic and dubstep are well on their way to world domination. In fact, the takeover can be traced back to last year – NPR reported that on Billboard’s Top 100 list of 2010, only eight songs could be classified as rock.
“The great thing about electronic music is that it’s a very forceful scene,” said DJ/producer Paul Oakenfold in a recent Billboard article. “It’s 20 years old in Europe — it’s still getting bigger and better. America has finally caught up; now there’s a whole new generation that loves it.”
As the genre grows, the popularity of DJing is flourishing as well. Just run a quick Google search for DJ lessons and you’ll find hundreds of resources at your fingertips. Sounds like fun? We definitely think so!
If you prefer to work yourself into the DJ scene slowly (and perhaps anonymously), many music fans are claiming their booth at Turntable.fm (no longer active), a popular social music website. For those unfamiliar, Turntable allows users to create “rooms” and rotate as the reigning DJ, selecting music to be played for everyone in the room. Fans in the room – depicted by the avatar of their choice – can chat with each other, as well as rate the music playing, so as to oust any DJ currently making the selections. Turntable opened to the public in May 2011, and according to Betabeat.com, reached 140,000 active users by June of the same year.
Last week, Turntable.fm hosted the first online DJ festival, giving several headliners and up-and-comers a chance to show off their skills and prove their crowd appeal. Taking the idea of a typical music festival experience and transferring it online, the aptly-named “Mashtival” featured more than 20 mash-up DJs in three rooms.
“What we are hoping will happen is that fans/listeners/the audience will discover new music,” Mashtival organizer Nicolas Gutierrez said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Whether it be another track from an artist they know or just discovering a new artist, the goal of Mashtival is what it has always been — to share and listen to great music.”
Want more? Our resident in-house TakeLessons DJ, Joe Maldonado aka Headshake sat down to give us some insight into his own career. Check out the video below:
Ready to try your hand at working the crowd? With the large turnout for Turntable’s festival, we’re guessing this is just the beginning of the DJ and dance music explosion. What’s next? We want to hear your thoughts – leave a comment below or on our Facebook page!
Suzy S.