Interesting post from Dbridge. Ive cut most of it off though cos fuck copy pasting the whole thing.
I read a post somewhere about track lists recently and it got me to thinking about how I feel about them, myself.
Obviously I speak from the perspective of not being one to give track titles away on occasion. Why? There are many reasons. For example as a culture, DJing is very much about sourcing music that others don’t have. Northern Soul Djs in the 60s would even fly across to the states to source limited run 45s to play. In some respects Northern Soul could be attributed with the concept of the playlist itself, with clubs and Dj’s being known as the only place to hear certain tracks.
Move forward to something I’m more familiar with, hardcore/jungle. What was my way to hear music as a kid? Pirate Radio and tape packs, and again, track listing wasn’t a thing. You’d have your favourite Dj’s based on their selection, record their sets and head down to the record shop with a track cued up on your walkman ready to play hoping they had it. The act of buying a record was an all-day affair too. Waiting in the shop listening to the latest white labels being played, then boom! There it is, that one you’ve been wanting. You’d also build up relationships with the staff, and they’d remember what you were after and hold it back for you.
Then I was involved in the scene and making my own tunes. It was all about dub plates and getting your music to certain DJ’s. You’d have to build your way up to being a part of Groove and Randall’s record box, but once you did, you made sure they had your music first and you knew what benefits that would bring you as a producer; knowing full well they weren’t gonna tell their rivals what a track was.
little to no name > TL would be great for both you and producers
Bit of a name > Can start being a dick and using ???
Named guy > blankety blank is fine
Lets be real here though, everyone’s doing mixes that “need” tracklists for promo even if they are fun to do, be it DJ’s to show skill/selection or Producers to show off tunes.
But 99.9% of people arnt going to jump on SC and hit a mix from a “nobody” unless its been vetted by a respected blog or atleast one with some kind of recognition, atleast from my limited experience.
Interesting bit about the friendly rivalries too. Also, surprised he didn’t mention the origin of the practice in Jamaican sound system bidness.
But tbf the internet has straight flipped a lot of things on their head, this being just another one. There are no easy answers; everything’s accelerated (except the BPM of dnb ) and not disclosing an artist’s name just for the sake of being “exclusive” seems like a disservice to the artist in a day and age where nothing can stay a secret forever, especially considering that the scene he’s referencing had an actual physical location, none of this ether-rave stuff. What he’s talking about is a bit of a throwback in many ways innit? Music is so ephemeral these days anything we can do to help fix it in history has to help…
I like this in principle. Problem is ego-trippin’ on both sides of the fence.
i get what he’s saying but he’s using the word “was” a lot. dbridge wouldn’t suddenly fall off if he started writing tracklists.
^ this has been replaced by nerds on forums, reddit, programs which ID audio, etc. it’s pretty hard to keep a tune secret in 2016 so i’m not really sure what his reasoning is other than “things used to be this way”