Well, since today is April 29, 2003, I thought it would be timely to post this: The DJ Backlash Starts Here by Bill Drummond
From Select, September 1990.
Warhol got it wrong. In the future not everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. What he should have said was that in the future everyone will be a DJ. To be precise, this strange but true moment will be arrived at by April 29, 2003. We have reached this conclusion based on research carried out on KLF Communications' post bag, using forecast graphs. Every week this post bag contains a continually higher amount of letters from people claiming to be DJs and requesting to be put on our mailing list. So before it is too late, we at KLF Communications feel it is our duty to save the world from the catastrophic affects of a population made up of DJs by instigating the debunking of the myth surrounding the DJ. Their status in the greater scheme of things has got way out of control. The "backlash" is well overdue. It should not be our job to do it, but it seems to be far easier for journalists to carry on saving their cutting wit for the same old sitting ducks they have been taking pot shots at for the past five years than start a DJ backlash. But first some history. When the whole "thing" kicked off two or three summers ago it was the much needed "mini revolution". Something to help dislodge all the drivel being churned out by early '80s leftovers in the white camp and all the Luther Vandross and Alexander O'Neal soulboy crap by the other side. And don't mention Prince, he was just a manufactured concept of what some 30-year-old white person thought a genius should be. Prince was no more relevant or real than Bruce Springsteen. For the summers of '88 and '89 the three rock weeklies had no handle on it at all. Those papers had waited 12 years for punk to happen again so the journalists could be the heroes of the hour; leading the charge against the old order, like back in '76 and '77. But it wasn't to be, it all happened while they were out doing an on the road piece with Blast First's latest signing. They may have patronised rap and hip hop, even putting LL Cool J on the cover, but House music was seen as the insipid offspring of disco, and as you may remember us all being told, "disco sucks". House music's very facelessness was seen to be its worst crime, proof of its lack of soul. That very facelessness meant there was nothing for the journalists to write about. In fact, House music's very facelessness - dare I day it - mindlessness - was its greatest asset. It left no room for the dark destroyer of all great music: "reference points and irony". No great music ever needed to stoop to using "reference points and irony" ("Think" J Lennon) and as the British rock journalist's bread and butter had become "reference points and irony" they somehow mistook "reference points and irony" in music to be a measure of the music's worth. It was this that encouraged some of the worst music ever made by mankind to produced in this country throughout the '80s. The most extreme offender, Morrissey, had the good fortune to abdicate his throne before he was burnt at the stake by all the unhung DJs. Let's hope the rest of these fraudulent wordsmiths are now suffocating in their own wit and wisdom. Within the right context, ie the right club, House is the greatest music this century has come up with. But House music had one great flaw. As soon as it started to cross over, pressure was put on it to be packaged for TV performances, for magazine photo shoots, even interviews where people were supposed to explain it and defend it. 'Ride on Time' by Black Box might have been the ultimate record of the '80s, but as soon as its creators were expected to build an act around their almost perfect creation and we could watch them on Top Of The Pops and read what they had to day in Smash Hits it all sank to the level of Opportunity Knocks. And this happened time and time again. For House music to have retained its power and purity it should have never stepped out from behind the mystery of the 12-inch white label. It never should have strayed from its holy trilogy: 1) The Roland 808 snare 2) The Roland 909 bass drum 3) 120 BPMs Maybe that was asking too much. We all wanted a bit of the cake. 1990 finds Adamski, 808 State and ourselves selling some of our House purity and shipping in a rapper to give us some further cross over potential. Throughout '88 and '89 I celebrated the disastrous downward spiral of the circulation figures of the UK rock press. While David Gedge's grin and Guy Chadwick's neck became less and less appealing more and more of this country's youth headed out to the orbital parties. But then something happened early this year(or late last). Two very good DJs were involved in the making of two very good records by two very good "indie" bands. Both records were hits. Deservedly so. Then suddenly there were all these redundant bands coming out with their horrible haircuts and their horrible guitars. You know the ones - each week brings in a new batch. It was like the Jam had never split. The Merton Parkas had reformed. Secret Affair had just had a name change. All these "new" bands spouting on about how they grew up listening to dance music, it's as believable as when heavy metal bands used to claim they were into classical and soul music and one always knew their tastes stretched no further than "The Ride Of The Valkyria" and "Heard It Through The Grapevine". And don't give me all that Spiritual Positive '90s versus the Cynical Materialistic '80s, you know fine well that's just a heading for another Sunday supplement article. Those "indie" bands grew up listening to Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen and other such grooveless downers. The rock weeklies are now watching their circulations soar as they cynically manipulate the money out of 17-year-old lads' pockets by sticking The Stone Roses or Happy Mondays on their front covers on the flimsiest of pretexts. Even at the height of the Sex Pisols' or the Jam's or the Smiths' popularity they never exploited a passing fad so ruthlessly. It's as if they are attempting to make up for lost time for missing out on the party of '88 and '89. Even The Sun had Acid House on the cover before the NME. Before I lose the plot completely I will get back to the DJ backlash. Throughout all this we have witnessed the rise and rise of the DJ to an almost unassailable position. Club culture, the home of the DJ, is being portrayed as something ethically, morally and spritually uplifting, all in keeping with the new dawn of the caring '90s. Club culture is no more than rampant consumerism. That The Face and i-D have spent the best part of ten years promoting it at the same time as pretending to extol "right on" anti-Thatcherite views is a contradiction pandering to our most base instincts, equivalent to The Sun with their tits on page three and their outraged moral stances on pages four, five and six, As for all the other bumbling monthly magazines, with their fawning articles on the rise and rise of the Kings of Club Culture, the Lords of the Remix, those movers, makers and shakers...one gets the feeling that these out-of-touch, youth-culture-conscious journalists are afraid they might be left off the guest list to Groovedom if they don't write at least 2,000 words on these train spotters in trainers, stamp collectors, one remix away from Nirvana, with their obscenely vast and ever-growing collection of records, secretly nursing a paranoia that very soon they will be discovered for the charlatans that they know they are. DJs are no more than middle men playing records made by other people, for other people to dance to. One may as well celebrate the people who packed the records at the pressing plant or the makers of Technics record decks. As for remixing or "DJ records", its the programmers and engineers that make and inspire those records. The DJ's name and "involvement" is there as little more than the latest in a long line of marketing ploys. The technical skills they do possess come way down the list compared to a lorry driver or car mechanic. Their intuition as to what will happen next in the ever-shifting public tastes is no sharper than a junior sales assistant in any record shop in the country. So please, journalists, we beseech you, sharpen your quills and get the DJ backlash rolling before it's all too late. But of course, I'll wake up tomorrow morning, re-read what I have written and realise I don't agree with any of it. I'll be out buying a pair of white Levi's, wondering why we are not on the cover of The Face, phoning up all the DJs I know asking them what they thing of our remix. But hey, what do you want, consistency? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com