How well do you know your music?

[Cheesypoof]

i dont have a 'collection' as such but i know pretty much everything about the music of the artists i like, such as Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison, Prince, Amy Winehouse, Billie Holiday, Pete Doherty and a few others. People can test me if they want....i am a hardcore fan of these folks...

 

[Orang Utan]

ah but that's kind of my point. As the tracks are old but well-known in soul/disco, so someone who had slightly more than a passing knowledge of the genre would be familiar with them already. perhaps what's happened in this specific case is that relatively few people listen to *just* soul, funk and disco and the genres aren't well-known beyond a few classics. But to crate dig in, say, rock, you'd have to go way more obscure because plenty of people listen exclusively to rock and we're constantly being told about how great fucking Clapton or whoever is.
.

Can't say I agree. HMD play a lot of records that the heads haven't heard before. Finding it hard to understand what point you are making.

 

[Cowley]

Looking through the music on my computer today, I realised I barely know a lot of it. This is because I have got into house and techno in a big way in the last year and so have been picking up a load of new stuff - it's crazy to discover entire worlds of new music. Plus I no longer have a lot of the stuff I know by heart from listening to as a teenager.

Am I unusual in this? It certainly makes learning to dj harder. Do you browse your collection and admire all those cherished gems or scroll through thinking 'wtf is all this?' Do I have a problem and should stop getting new music for a while?

As others have said, I think the most important part about being a Club DJ, and I would rank it above technical skills is knowing your records. If you have a good/great understanding of your records then you will be able to program a great set every single time you play out.

For me, the best Club DJ's are the ones that play a mixture of stuff, unreleased stuff, newly released stuff, stuff that has been released for a while that folks are familiar with, older stuff and obviously classics. I really don't feel it's essential for a Club DJ to break new music, that's not what it should be about.

As a radio DJ, I personally feel the emphasis is more about breaking new music and artists etc and less about knowing your records really well.

 

[porno thieving gypsy]

Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison, Prince, Amy Winehouse, Billie Holiday, Pete Doherty and a few others.

There's a collection of troubled souls!

(well except Prince - although some might argue that point)

 

[Cheesypoof]

There's a collection of troubled souls!

(well except Prince - although some might argue that point)

Yeh Prince is very complex fella. I don't think he is 'troubled' or tortured, and has never had addiction issues. He suffered a bit as a kid but wasnt particularly troubled - he was a charmer as a kid and considered a musical genius at school. He was very shy but quietly confident in his genius from a young age. The most 'troubled' of his songs is probably When Doves Cry, and the story of his parents arguing is told there. Overall he is wildly eccentric and from a different planet than the rest of us .