I’m really starting to hate this rat.

The mau5 is Dead Wrong, DJs Are Artists Too –

Edit: Deadmau5 is a hater. Fair enough.
As many of you may know, deadmau5 doesn’t like me. We had a prolonged Twitter argument over his rider and, most recently, over his claim that live performance of EDM boils down to “button pushing.” Last night, this little gem was posted on Tumblr. In it, Deadmau5 suggests that live performance of EDM is a simplistic, talentless task. I’m not sure where this little superiority complex came from. The idea is that producers are the ones with real talent, and DJs are just people who weren’t good enough to make their own music.
Let me shut that down right now. Saying that DJs are not musicians because they don’t produce their own music is like saying that a painter is not an artist because he doesn’t make his own paint. That is ridiculous. The whole point of being a DJ is to arrange music into a complete performance so that people never have to stop dancing. Truly, the hour-long set is an art form that very few have mastered, and when they do, it’s beautiful. Imagine a long rollercoaster that slowly brings you up and keeps you just before the top until you can’t stand it any more before taking you to the peak and bringing you right back down. A DJ is an architect and a tour guide: they create their own little world that they are taking you through and helping you experience. To say that it’s not a performance art is an insult to the dozens of fantastic DJs that have been able to keep us entertained for hours on end by expressing their love of EDM in a way that words never could.
Look Deadmau5, I’m sorry that you don’t understand the beauty of a DJ’s art form. I’m sorry you don’t “get it”, but that does not give you the right to say that it requires no talent. There is no reason for this arbitrary division between DJs and producers. Both types of skill are valuable. We have some doctors that do five minute office visits, and some that perform hours-long surgeries, and we need one just as much as the other. There is just as much musical beauty in a four minute floor-filler as an hour long masterpiece, and as one of the most talented musicians of our time, I thought you’d understand that.
What you did was wrong. Not only did you completely trash something you simply don’t understand, you demeaned thousands of performers that have supported you throughout your career. Seriously, how dare you?
The same logic that you used can be applied to producers: all you guys do is manipulate little pre-recorded sounds on your computers. You’re not real musicians, you’re just music nerds with expensive software and effects. Then during a live performance no one notices how bad you are at creating an experience longer than your usual four-minute song because you have pretty lights and everyone is on drugs. See how ridiculous, yet scarily real that sounds? That’s exactly what you just did to all the DJs of the world. You minimized their musical ability because it’s not the same as yours. And, funny enough, you admit the fact that you aren’t really doing anything other than pressing play when you’re performing live. If that’s true, why were you perfectly happy with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in performance fees over the years?
The truth is that deadmau5 has a bad taste in his mouth about live performances. Because, despite his status as one of the top EDM producers in the world, he has had a really rough year when it comes to high profile booking. First, he was snubbed by Ultra Music Festival, which triggered a twelve-minute Youtube rant. He was also mysteriously absent from the Electric Daisy Carnival, instead playing a gig in the UK on June 8th. It’s easy to understand why he would be sore about live shows.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that there are important roles in EDM for both producers and DJs. Some artist can do both, and they take it to the next level. Notable examples like Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, and Carl Cox put on a fantastic show because they not only have their own music to showcase, but by using their skills and knowledge as DJs, they show us how their work adds something to the body of music as a whole. The first time I saw Avicii live, I was disappointed. He opened with an extended vocal version of Levels, and the rest of the song selection just felt wrong. I didn’t feel right listening to the rest of his set. It was like when someone puts out after ten minutes on a date. When you say that being a DJ isn’t a performance art, you are ignoring the fact that sometimes timing and order of things is just as important as the content.
There are enough people ready to criticize and belittle EDM musicians without you doing it yourselves. Whether it comes from a DJ or a producer, we should support anything that makes the music better. Because when it comes down to it, all we really have is each other.
-The Snob