About 6 months ago I discovered a track that, after just a few seconds of listening, I believed to be pure gold. And as it usually goes when you find something new that you’re totally into, you overdo it. This tune was the first thing I was listening to on my morning commute. I’d make sure I got in at least a few listens during the course of my day and you better believe that before I capped off my night I was getting a final play in, just for good measure. This track was something else - bangin’, beginning to end.
I’m not ashamed to admit that occasionally, when I’m
groovin’ in class or cruising the bus to school, I like to close my eyes and
imagine myself as the DJ. There I am, dropping massive track after massive
track, all to crowds of adoring fans. The place always goes fucking nuts when
I’m the DJ…pardon my language. So, fittingly, I dropped this track in dozens of
mental sets, inciting mass pandemonium in all my imaginary audiences.
It was everything you want in a song; it had that big
room sound, that sick first drop that makes your jaw hit the floor and the
energy to keep you dancing over and over and over again. It was my tune of the
week, every week, for months.
I’m an instant gratification kind of lady and as such,
I tend to ruin a lot of great things really fast, simply because I've got
to have it all the time. My biggest weakness is of course music, and after I
find a hidden treasure that makes me instantaneously obsess, it’s almost
guaranteed I’ll have played it out by the end of next week. I just can’t
help myself sometimes. At the gym, in the shower or on the road I can guarantee
you this choon was rocking my world on the daily.
All good things come to an end though, and after a few
weeks of incessantly rattling my brains with my new favorite track, its
grandeur eventually wore off. I shuffled it into the far reaches of my musical
library, a place where all my instant favorites eventually get put to rest
after a time in the spotlight. I didn't hear that catchy melody for
months.
And then something terrible happened. This tune, this
sacred little gem of mine that made me electric slide across the kitchen floor
and fist pump mid-suds in the shower was now no longer mine alone. This
beautiful little nugget of bass, with its delicious melody and catchy
progression had found its way into the mainstream. There it was, for everyone
to hear, for everyone to judge. It was playing on the radio.
I’m not going to lie, it took me a moment to figure it
out. Get in the car, buckle up, flip the volume up, groove away. I’m thinking
to myself “wow Kamloops, good pick, I can get behind this song.” And then mid
shoulder-swagger I realize it’s my long lost love - the beauty I’d
been jamming to just months before.
How could it be that the number 1 tune on Kassie’s
dance charts was now a feature on the radio? The star of my solo rave parties
and the biggest track in my imaginary DJ sets was now just a simple, 4 minute
sound clip on your local radio station?
I was really disturbed that something I thought was so
good, so creative in sound and magnificently -- in my opinion – produced could
be casually thrown on the radio, just like that, for every Joe blow and their
dog to hear. My reaction surprised me a lot actually and it got me thinking
about music in terms of ownership. How we feel about music as it relates to
possession. More specifically, how we feel about our music in the ears of
others.
You see, just as I’m the kind of listener that has to
instantaneously gratify after hearing something I love, I’m also the kind
of listener that has to share when I hear something good too. I’ll be playing
something new on my iPod mid run at the gym, only to hear something so
absolutely remarkable that there is no other option but to stop and immediately
tell someone about it. It doesn't matter: I could be 5 kilometers
deep, mid stride with sweat beading down my face and I have to text someone and
tell them what I just heard.
I’m the person blowing up your timeline and posting on
your walls all the sounds that get me going on the daily. It’s like I've got
musical turrets or something; must, share, new, song, with, friends. And just
as a track can get my heart racing and blood rushing, sharing that track and
seeing it move someone else can have an almost identical effect. When I post a
song and someone who I never thought would ever press play messages me and says
“woh this song is good” – there’s no better feeling. For me, it mirrors how I
feel when I’m spinning my imaginary sets for the masses; complete euphoria.
So then why is it when I hear a song that I loved for
weeks play on the radio, I cringe? Is it because the radio sucks? It is because
just before my little treasure was played, some half-assed top 40 song (which
now is just really, really bad “EDM”) was premiered, subsequently followed by
Taylor Swift’s latest relationship woes in the form of a single? Do I cringe
because it’s now been put in the same category as Nicky Minaj and One Direction?
The same feeling I got hearing my golden song on the
radio is the same feeling I got all weekend watching the crowd at Ultra, via
the live feed on YouTube. 18, 19 and 20-somethings in their flashy neon
t-shirts reminding everyone that You Only Live Once. Pre-teens all-but exposed
in their furry boots and Deadmau5 ears and GTL’ing Jersey Boys waiting for a
cake slap from the number one clown himself, Steve Aoki. It was sad, really.
Lil’ Jon’s yelling “we want pussy”, Chuckie’s telling everyone to put their
fucking hands up at least a dozen times and this saturated crowd of
band-wagoners is loving every second of it. Is this what dance music has become?
I love this music, I love this culture and I love what
at its very core, it represents. And I can get past all the “bros” and
meatballs that show up at Ultra and act like idiots because I know for every 5
of them, there’s 1 beautiful soul whose entire life breathes dance music. What
I suppose I have a harder time getting past is the music I love falling on the
non-appreciative ears of some of these clowns and them not knowing the better.
Watching Armin’s set last night and hearing ‘Airport
Shivers’ sent me on an emotional journey. I lost my breath, I had chills – I
waited that whole set for that specific mash up and when it finally came, the
feeling was unmatched. I then thought to myself, how many in that crowd recognized what
just happened? How many people felt what I just felt? And how many in that
crowd were recharging their glow sticks, waiting for the next
"banger" to drop? What bothers me in the end, and it’s the same
thing that bothers me about my favorite dance songs seeing radio play is that
the majority of those hearing these songs don’t full appreciate their true
power. So much awesome being lost on so many ignorant ears.
Maybe I’m being a music snob. Maybe I’m just jealous
I’m not at Ultra doing my own personal version of the fist pump. But I really
don’t think that’s it, because I’m all about sharing. I love spreading the
love. I get giddy when I convert someone to trance. But there’s something that
really bothers me about this saturation of the radio with dance music. Most of
its garbage, but occasionally one of my picks will hit the air and I’m afraid
that those who are listening wont be able to pick it out from the rest.
There’s a much larger issue at work here. One day, most
likely in the near future, dance music as a global phenomenon will meet its
eventual demise. It will be relegated back to the underground and maybe that’s
for the best, I don’t know. I’m all about sharing, and the more people that
love the music I love, the better. But I just don’t know if I want the person
that’s raving beside me and loving my jams to be blowing on a whistle and
working on his tan…you know what I’m saying?
