We’re All DJs Now
Cuepoint is the spot where the music starts
In the course of a good conversation, when the mood feels right, I like to play a music aficionado game with my friends. I ask: if you could transport yourself back in time to a certain magical musical moment — any moment, any era—what would it be?
The answer might involve attending a legendary concert, or mixing with an iconic music scene during its golden era, or sitting in on an influential studio session with a group you’ve always loved (keep in mind, the game involves pure fantasy).
This question can be a superb segue to chat about a genre or artist, but also I get to size up the depth of a person’s music knowledge and the quality of his or her tastes. If the friend replies “Britney Spears’ wedding to K-Fed,” I know I need to be more selective about who I spend time with.
Usually people pick something just out of their age reach, an artist or a movement they’ve idolized since they were kids but were too young to experience first-hand. For example, one friend around my age is captivated by the “Madchester” music scene — Factory Records and the Hacienda, the moody rhythms of Joy Division and New Order. Recently he turned the tables on me, asking me to choose my special musical moment. It was tough to pick just one.
I thought about saying Studio 54 in the 70s, picturing myself in the balcony, a disco beat thumping, hedonistic vibes in the air and Bianca’s white horse galloping onto the dancefloor. I might have said Woodstock or the Summer of Love or Simon & Garfunkel’s concert in Central Park, conjuring that spirit of freedom and mellow expression. I’m also fairly obsessed with the raucous scene of downtown New York City around 1981, at places like CBGBs and Mudd Club, when edgy rock and uptown hip-hop briefly joined forces and hybrid groups like Talking Heads and Blondie concocted extremely satisfying uptempo songs.
I settled on Kraftwerk in 1980, granting myself imaginary access to their legendary and mysterious Kling Klang studio, watching as they tinker with primitive machines, programming other-worldly and extremely funky beats, inventing electronic pop, hip-hop, house and techno in one synthesized big boing. Someone older than I might speak with the same passion about Bob Dylan or Miles Davis or Frank Sinatra or Duke Ellington.
We were lucky, not like the young cats these days. I’m old enough to have had the opportunity to discover my meaningful moments organically, at my own pace, one record (and record cover) at a time. Buying an album was a commitment — of money, but also of time, energy and personal identity. You bought the record, you took it home, listened to it, digested it, read the credits, studied the artwork, lifted the needle and replayed the songs you loved the most. You learned how to draw the artist’s logo and scrawled it on your notebook. Your only reliable guide was local radio and retail record stores. Without real-time status updates, without even MTV, all the information available was on the record itself, the physical object you held in your hands. You were invested in that music, and as a result that music stayed with you.
That doesn’t quite describe the experience most young people today have with their favorite artists and songs. Having spent the better part of the last decade in Las Vegas, immersed in the red-hot dance music/DJ scene centered there, I’ve borne close witness to the post-modern music consumption process. Like most web content these days, music exists now in short bursts that repeat endlessly — a catchy verse or chorus or a drum pattern or just a melody is edited, replayed, remixed, re-drummed, chopped up, smoothed out or blended in. With professional production tools and quick distribution available to anyone with a computer, both the quantity of music released and the sonic quality have been pushed sky-high.
A good idea can be duplicated so often it loses its original power and value. People love a song for months without knowing the artists’ name, without owning the song at all, without investing more than a few clicks, jumping ahead on YouTube to the 15-second segment they like the most. But still, records catch on, careers take off, a hit is always the most valuable commodity. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Let me make something clear: I’m no grumpy old man. Cuepoint is not a publication focused strictly on nostalgia, not a place that will turn its nose up to our modern, technology-driven music universe. To the contrary, we embrace both the brand new and the undisputed classic, seeking quality artists, songs and stories from the future and the past.
We understand that music will evolve and change, and we embrace that evolution; music has always been that way, moving in endless cycles. To stay stuck in one era or one sound is closing the book on the never-ending story that music provides.
Music soothes the savage beast, expresses that which cannot be said, and when it hits, you feel no pain.
This will be true as long as humans can conjure a catchy tune. I swore long ago never to be that older guy scolding kids bumping a hot new track: ‘What kind of noise is this? This ain’t music!” Why? Because I was that kid once. (Actually I do kinda do that sometimes).
Around 30 years ago I saw my first real DJ — the scratchy-scratch kind — and began to understand what music selection and turntable talent and rocking a party was all about. My hometown of Philadelphia was also home to DJ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Cash Money, two undisputed masters and pioneers of the art form. Then, around 25 years ago, the concept of a DJ/producer — a person who both creates the music and plays the music — began to take shape. I was lucky to be at the center of the culture supporting this evolution, known as hip-hop.
Around 10 years ago I watched my friend Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein rise to prominence as a superstar on two turntables. He was a pop culture blender, a true master of the mix, and probably the funkiest white man I will ever have the honor of knowing. AM worked tirelessly behind the decks, embracing hip-hop, classic rock, disco, 70s, 80s, soul, reggae, pop, electronic and anything else that caught his ear, displaying tremendous technical skill, musical knowledge and imagination, endless surprises that kept the party in motion. His style became known as mash-up (also known awkwardly as “open format”) and it was widely copied, to the point of becoming the norm around the US.
Within the past five years — as I watched waves of young DJs and producers rise to prominence and the ‘EDM’ phenomenon take hold in the US — I came to realize that these contemporary artists have arrived at the optimum business model for the modern music industry. Essentially, one man with one laptop creates the music, distributes the music and performs the music, replacing whole busloads of tour support and entire floors of a traditional record label. These one-man musical armies draw fans by the tens of thousands and command massive paydays (check Forbes ). They’re thriving in a disjointed, fractured business landscape. But beyond the money, DJs have filled an essential creative role — processing all the music data faster than anyone else, affirming their rightful place as the tastemakers and music selectors for the modern music audience.
Not everyone attends nightclubs or music festivals, but the consumption experience at these venues is causing ripples throughout the music world, particularly online. There’s a lesson for all of us in the DJs’ prosperity, a new paradigm we can all take home. With streaming platforms replacing radio stations, with MTV no longer playing music videos, we’re literally left to our own devices to discover and consume music.
The act of sitting passively and having music programmed to us (as a traditional radio station does) has been supplanted by an active, personalized experience — a gargantuan selection of songs and a blinking cursor sit awaiting your instructions. What do you feel like listening to? Where do you begin? There’s no restriction on genre or format or tempo or era, it’s up to us. Our playlist is our decision now, fully in our hands. It’s an opportunity for all of us to listen, to learn, for our musical tastes to evolve. We’re all DJs now.
So why Cuepoint, and why now?
A cuepoint is a starting point in a song, a term used by DJs and producers and creative people in the studio to mark musical time. It’s the spot where the music starts. As I see it, Cuepoint can be a starting point for reading and writing and learning about music. It describes one’s point of view on a song, or an artist, or a genre (it does rhyme with viewpoint).
Technology changes, sounds evolve, but the powerful stimulation that music provides will always have a hold on humanity — the endorphin release is real. There is an essential, emotional attachment we have to our music that drives the art forward and fuels our fervor. The pleasures provided by a song we love — the unencumbered joy of quality music — is unmatched in our human experience.
It feels like music’s grip on the good people of this planet has gotten stronger, even as the process of creating and discovering and consuming it has radically changed. Having spent my career exploring the intersection of music and media, I know that Cuepoint at Medium is the ideal place for me to continue my journey — right here, right now.
I am thrilled and grateful for this opportunity, and — with the support of some incredibly talented writers, editors, designers, engineers, artists, producers, DJs and visionaries — I intend to build some enduring content on top of this innovative platform.
So tell me, what would your magical, musical moment be?
Jonathan Shecter
Editor-in-chief, Cuepoint at Medium
Follow Jonathan Shecter on Twitter @SheckyGreen
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