“It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artist. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need”- Alan Moore
While that might be all very well and good for the comically hirsute Alan Moore, who spends most of his time writing vivid, comic book prose for nerdy manboys, it's unlikely that he's been faced with a brunch-drunk crowd baying for some pop pap while you're intent on discovering the point where future garage dissipates into post-dubstep territory.
But the quote raised a fair bit of debate when a friend posted it on Facebook recently, with nearly 50 DJs, music-lovers and FB addicts all pitching in to give their thoughts. Essentially, it boils down to how much credence you give DJing: can playing one song after each other be considered an artform - can a selector be placed on the same critical elevation as writers, for example?
Well, put in that context, and yes. The lexicon as we know it isn't growing (well, it is, but the annual addition of words like staycation and reggaeton isn't exactly on the same level as early caveman grunts or Shakespeare's wordplay), which means that writers simply use the existing vocabulary to paint their pictures (apologies for the mixed metaphor). So in turn, with every chord structure having been discovered (it has) and music effectively eating itself to create new genres, DJs are simply using existing songs to create their masterpieces. And if the artist is deified for their work, why not the DJ?
While doubters might argue that Tom, Dick or David Guetta could play one high octane song after another - and increasingly that's true in this pop-trodden world where DJ technology can take the skill out of your hands - it's not as simple as that. The following statements aren't cliches, they're truisms: DJs need to observe the crowd, they need to adapt the pace of the music to the night, they need to know when to drop the right tune, at the right moment create dancefloor combustion, they need to know when to step it up, and when to drop it down. A large part of that is getting the right DJ in the right venue with the right crowd, but beyond that, a good DJ has to know how to work a crowd. And they need to play good music, first and foremost, which used to mean hours trawling record stores and plundering contacts, but now means days trawling the ever-expanding internet in search of new tunes and remixes that no one else has.
Increasingly, the DJ is becoming the artist at the ground level - it's rare for DJs to be just DJs these days: to get to the upper echelons, you need to have some production and remix credits under your belt. And if making music isn't art, then I'm not sure what is.
But while good music taste is something that can be worked on, etched at and manipulated, for most people it's a life-defining passion - it's the sense to rule all senses. And being able to share that music with 2/500/10,000 like-minded people (admittedly a little giddy and boozed-up) is up there with scoring a Wembley Cup Final goal, completing your first Rubick's Cube or successfully navigating Diera for the first time.
Consider what art is though: it's something that is beautiful, or appealing, that inspires emotion. And there's no denying that when Sven Vath or the BO18 residents lead you kicking and screaming into the dawn of the next day with a beautifully judged set of house and techno, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Or when a Mambo DJ perfectly soundtracks the setting sun in Ibiza (or, equally a 360 DJ), with a funk, soul and disco journey that raises the hair on the back of your neck. Then there are those DJs who exist on the limits of the ever-evolving DJ technology, cutting and scratching, looping and live editing to create a unique soundtrack.
And it's commonly acknowledged that artists suffer for their art - and having been asked countless times to play 'something we can dance to' by a cackling harridan while the rest of the club is bouncing, I think I know the feeling.
So, DJing is an artform then. But should the DJ pander to the audience, or should we dictate the flow? By the very definition, the DJ dictates the musical flow, but the question is how you balance the audience's expectations? And as mentioned earlier, that's largely up to the planning - finding the right DJ for the right venue and attracting the right crowd. Get that holy grail right, and everyone's a winner. But get it wrong, and you then have to balance the commercial and underground, what you want to play vs what they want to hear.
At the end of the day, you DJ to make people dance, pure and simple, but how you achieve that dancefloor detonation is your call. Some might consider it slightly less fulfilling, or arty, if you dropped a Black Eyed Peas remix to work your dancefloor into a frenzy, but if that's what it takes to make it work (and let's not forget that DJing is an artform, but for a large number it's a job as well) then so be it.
Ultimately, art is in the eye of the beholder. And even if that eye is squinting through one Bullfrog too many, it's still a valid point of view, and one that's endorsed by thousands of people every weekend who go out clubbing in Dubai every weekend to hear new and old, exciting and moving music.
