As the end of NGDJ’s first round draws nearer, one trend is obvious among the mixes that are currently in the qualifiers: An overwhelming majority feature house, tech house, techno or trance.
You could almost talk of a “house barrier” in NGDJ, but it should come as little surprise. House, tech house, techno and trance are dance music’s biggest genres. If club world were a temple, it would be built on solid bricks of four-to-the-floor.
But there are also mixes in the competition focusing on other genres. Two dj:s that have made it past the 200 vote limit with mixes featuring breakbeat centered music are Brussels’s BeNoize and Manchester born, London based ScallyDanDan. Was their digging into breaks, bassline, dubstep, grime and generally ”sick” music a deliberate step to stand out in the competition? We spoke to ScallyDanDan and BeNoize to find out more.
Most of the mixes in NGDJ are house, tech house, techno or trance mixes. How come you did a breaks and, in ScallyDanDan’s case, a dubstep/fidget mix?
BeNoize: I didn’t set out with the intention of playing breaks. I just do and think it’s fantastic. I love to play something that is a little less well known amongst the masses, but still is attainable for almost everyone and it can attract a larger public.
ScallyDanDan: The mix I made is simply the music I love and what I’m into. My sets are mostly heavy bass, unusual rhythms, urban feel, upbeat but not fluffy – as my mate says: ”sick”. Ha ha! I’m really excited about Balinese music at the moment, and I’m about to start making my own productions, which will have this sort of flavour to it. In an ideal world I’d love to create a whole new genre. Maybe call it ScallyStep!
ScallyDanDan, photo by Matthew Brindle/Megamegamega.com.
Do you think that choosing an “odd” genre makes the mix stand out among the competitors?
ScallyDanDan: I guess for me, whilst I know it’s a competition, I think people should be making and uploading the mixes they are passionate about rather than what they think will be popular and win a competition. If it comes from the heart it speaks to the heart. If people love what you do, and rate it, see it as a bonus, but ultimately turn yourself on first with your mixtapes.
BeNoize: I just try to get people on the dance floor and let them enjoy themselves. It may have been my intention to introduce something different but that’s because it’s a style that you can play at parties and everyone can go wild to! I don’t really think that it matters which genre you play. The essence is how you bring the music and how you choose your songs and put your whole energy into your mix.
BeNoize.
How have you promoted your mix?
BeNoize: I used different channels to promote mu mix. The obvious Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, but I also emailed all my friends and relatives and handed out demo CD mixes with a NGDJ link at gigs or parties that I was playing or where I was with friends.
ScallyDanDan: It was a lot more difficult than I thought actually getting 200 votes. I basically posted it on my personal Facebook, on my Facebook fan page and my Twitter. I messaged all my friends and asked if they would vote for me, and post it on their walls too. People who were leaving comments for me on my Let’s mix page I interacted with and made some cool friends from the site. But yeah, just persistence.
There’s a lot of talk about voting in the NGDJ threads on Facebook and in forums. What’s your take, do you vote for competing mixes?
ScallyDanDan: Yeah, I vote on other peoples mixes, but only if I like them to give them a positive rating. There seems to be a general mood on Let’s mix that once you’ve qualified your overall rating start to drastically drop. Mine went from 4.8 down to 3.0 just after qualifying, and this seems to be happening to all the qualifiers. I suspect it’s people engaging themselves in ‘tactical voting’. I really don’t understand that. Just do your best mix, get people to vote for you, and be a nice person.
– I believe in the idea of karma. If you do good things and try and to help fellow people they will in turn help you. I really think it works the other way around too: If you’re constantly voting people 1’s to help yourself win, you’re just creating a void within yourself. If you won by such means, would you feel like a real DJ, or just a real good scammer? Ultimately negative voting is fuelled by peoples’ insecurity, and the act of being negative just creates further insecurity for them. Sorry if that was a bit deep! On a positive note, listen to my mix, if you like it please vote and leave some comments so I can listen to yours too!
Do as ScallyDanDan says. Listen to his Dubstep Fidget mixtape and BeNoize’s Ghetto Blaster mix below – then have your say by rating them!
ScallyDanDan’s Dubstep Fidget Mixtape from scallydandan at Letsmix.com.
Ghetto Blaster from BeNoize at Letsmix.com.
Tags: BeNoize, Mix, NGDJ, NGDJ qualifiers, ScallyDanDan
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I really like his attitude about the whole thing. Seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders, especially the “good karma” stuff regarding downvoting.
Click the Pic to listen and vote on my mix.
Comment by Inertia — January 18, 2010 @ 15:02
Doh…guess no HTML in the comments. Here’s the link to my mix.
http://www.letsmix.com/mix/21350/old_school_rave_anthems_vol_i
Comment by Inertia — January 18, 2010 @ 15:04
I am so glad someone stepped up & said what was needed to be said. You have our support from South Africa on this. Thanks for putting it out there ScallyDanDan. I’ve also put a spin on the normal genre’s to, have a listen out here http://www.letsmix.com/mix/24770/assistant_to_musician
Comment by DJ Brandon BurnOut — January 18, 2010 @ 19:08
ScallyDanDan!!!!!!!! Ur the man brotha! This has been bothering me like MAD. I promote DAY AND NIGHT and had a lot of people bend over backwards to spread the word, only to have my average shattered just after I qualified. Thank you for bringing this up in a public setting. I have a fear of not qualifying to the next round because of this. Has anyone noticed that the NEW qualifiers DONT have this problem? Of course they dont, that “insecurity” wave past in the first round. Sad times! We should all be working super hard, and hopefully that wave didnt kick us out of the race. Thanks again homie! Love the vibe! back at cha!
Comment by DJ Rayne-One "REO3" — January 19, 2010 @ 00:40
I thought I was all alone with this issue.. I literally qualified yesterday evening to my obvious delight with a really good rating thinking that I have hopefully made it through to the next stage; However, I came into work this morning noticing that I’d had another 40 odd votes but only 20 or so listens which is strange, how can you vote on a mix you’ve never heard??? and to my horror my average vote had gone down from 4.9 to 4.3 and I expect by the end of Jan I’ll be down to 3.0; I have emailed Letsmix about this issue as I’m sure a lot of people have to raise my concerns, will give you an update on it
Comment by Steve Toombs — January 20, 2010 @ 12:24
I totally agree with the House predomination. Is a fantastic sound on every variant, but the representation on this contest is massive. I chose one of my favorite lines, mixing electronic with breaks and Indie/electro pop all blend/smash trying to create something new. I tough that this kind of mixing will show more skills that just a plain session of house. But I’m a bit worried about it, after how influence by house music the djs of this contest are.
I wish the best for you all,
best regards,
Dare.
Comment by Dare — January 21, 2010 @ 16:18
Letsmix will do nothing about this. They said in todays newsletter that Scally said it best when he talked about Karma. Unfortunately KARMA will not win you this competition, or even assist in qualifying you in the top 100. Total and complete Bullshit if you ask me. They know a problem exists but refuse to do anything about it. The results here will be that all of you who qualified early better figure something out. Because the guys who qualify with 200 votes in the 23′rd hour of the last day, are guaranteed a spot in the top 100.
I’m pretty sure letsmix loves all the promotion you did for their site by begging for votes from your friends, and on message boards and websites across the globe. But they don’t love it enough to actually take 2 minutes and FIX the voting problem.
Comment by DJRudeboy — January 21, 2010 @ 19:05
I’m always looking for something surprising in the qualifying mixes… cause hearing house mixes all the time, it gets boring at some point.
http://www.letsmix.com/#/mix/23222/ngdj_breaknbass
Comment by goshaptichka — January 22, 2010 @ 22:16
Well well AT LAST some kind of discussion ’bout the voting system. Although as I see from the comments [except DJRudeboy's] above people think the contest is all good. IT’S NOT!
I’m really pissed off ’bout all kinds of contests that are ’bout voting. I’m a professional graphic designer and I’ve been fucked up a score of times in such contests. I may not be the best but and I dont want to be if I’ll have to do such stuff, come on, It’s obviously not ’bout the skills It’s just about blindly and impudently popularizing shitty and not so shitty mixes and mostly the letsmix site by adding tons of people daily on social networks and here on the site, SPAMMING THEM and writing specious comments and ratings on their mixes walls and profiles. You can’t even download mixes from here, wtf?! But that’s ok in a way, letsmix team arent idiots they’re just cheap as well as the ambitious N1 DJs.
I even wrote a comment on my own mix saying “pls dont write me comments such as ‘Great mix, 5 stars from me – vote for mine here’ without even hearing mine” but I got bout 20 similar comments afterwards. WTF?
The proper thing to do is to disqualify the spammers. It just doesnt feel right and this contest as many other Isn’t building a strong community It’s building a horde of non-targeted users that wont last that long after the contest. So good luck with your marketing strategy.
Cheers,
Mikael
Comment by AEON — January 31, 2010 @ 12:58