Electroclash: Use with Caution

As a DJ of ten years now, I've started to notice a disturbing trend in tracks I'm perusing for purchase. More and more I see download sites picking up these tracks that combine one looping lyric, chopped to shit and layered over blaring synths and tinny splash effects.

I hate to bring up the "it sounds repetitive" argument, here, but this goes beyond repetitive. This shit is redundant. One track after another, the same hard hitting descending or ascending synth patterns bores me to tears, and the DJ mixes that get put out featuring nothing but blasé electro with the occasional dance-rock song are just fucking killing me.

Guys, there's like 80 or 90 various sub-genres of dance music now. Mix it up a bit. Surprise us. One of the happiest things I bid adieu to from the 90's was genre-whoring. "Oh, I'm a hard house DJ, I ONLY play hard house, I can name every other DJ and producer in the market pushing this sound, blah blah blah..." Yeah, that. Happy to see it go.

So let's not start limiting ourselves again, shall we? I know if you really want me to freak my shit on the dancefloor layering Huey Lewis and the News over some dope prog beat is going to do it far better than something that has all the musical excitement of an AC unit turning on and off.

-Sean