[ozim]

It is not only that. For example wannabe EDM DJs think they have to be creative and find tracks that no one ever heard to be edgy or whatever… most of people pay for having cookie cutter songs played so they can dance and have a good experience and they don’t want to be surprised on EDM event - well there are big names that can do whatever they want of course but that is different expectation.

The same with software devs that they think, it must be “framework like code, extensible, reusable that will be there for 20 years” - well no if it is crud app most likely it will be trashed in 2 years stop overthinking and just do it :)

[caseyohara]

Wow, this couldn't be further from the truth. It might be true for DJs playing "main stage" style EDM (poppy mainstream music) but for most electronic subgenres – especially techno – the crowd absolutely expects the DJ to be a superb crate digger and pull out new and deep tracks they've never heard before.

No one goes to a techno club to hear rinsed tracks; they want the DJ to show them music they've never heard before. Before the digital age, people would go out to see touring DJs specifically for their collection of rare records that no one else had and you couldn't hear anywhere else. This is still true today in the more underground scenes. It's the opposite of cookie cutter.

[jrflowers]

Most DJs do not make their livings at techno clubs. The majority are hired to play bars and events that do not cater to particularly discerning audiences.

[phpnode]

Exactly. The DJs that are innovative, crate digging, slightly pretentious music nerds are almost exclusively hobbyists, with a vanishingly tiny percentage of them being able to eek out a meagre living from it. The majority of full time DJs cater to mainstream audiences who absolutely do want to hear the same 50 - 100 tracks on rotation every time they go out. They want to dance and sing along to music that they're familiar with, and if the DJ doesn't play what they know then they won't dance, they won't stay, and the DJ won't remain employed.

It's actually very similar to web design - innovation has its place, but 99% of the time people want familiarity.

Source: spent a decade as a professional DJ

[bluGill]

A typical DJ is allowed one weird song nobody has heard before. If it is a long show maybe one per hour. The rest better be songs the majority of people know and sign along with.

[phpnode]

Yes, ideally played when the dance floor has been full for a while to encourage people to go to the bar and buy another drink.

[runelk]

You might have a bit of confirmation bias based on the particular environments you've been in.

Having taken part in various types of electronic music/art scenes since the early 2000's, I've met all kinds of people. Local hobbyist bedroom producers playing for free. Semi-professional artists juggling gigs&touring with one or more side jobs. Full-time DJ's playing everything from small underground parties to some of the biggest parties/festivals at the time. They all cater to their audience to varying degrees, mainstream or not.

Granted, the scenes I've bumped into tend to be on the non-mainstream side. That's where you can actually go professional being that "innovative, crate digging music nerd" you refer to (removed "slightly pretentious" because that hasn't been my experience). It's tough, but it can be done, and it's a larger group of people than you seem to think.

I've also met some professional DJ's that fully cater to the audience in the way you describe. Many of them make statements like yours like e.g. "99% of the time", "almost exclusively hobbyists", "slightly pretentious", etc. I really don't get why, because it's just not true, and it comes across as a bit defensive or passive-aggressive to be honest.

I mean, of course there is the mainstream audience of the type you describe. But even that audience changes its opinion about which 50-100 tracks they expect you to play on a regular basis. That change has to come from somewhere, otherwise they'd still demand disco tracks from the 70's. That somewhere is the stuff that hasn't gone mainstream yet, and while the percentage of people that can make a living of it is probably not very high, it's a lot higher than what you claim it to be.

That vast overlap between underground/alternative scenes and the mainstream is super interesting, and I'm pretty sure that if you included that part into your statistics, you'd see a different picture.

NB: I might have a bit of confirmation bias based on the particular environments I've been in ;)

[CRConrad]

> with a vanishingly tiny percentage of them being able to

eke. Yeah, really: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eke_out#English

> out a meagre living from it.

[carlmr]

It's like the perfect conterexample, a good DJ needs to have really good taste and constantly listen to new tracks and think about where they can be used.

Designers everyone thinks are more creative than they are. DJs most people think are less creative than they need to be.

[brailsafe]

Sounds to me like they work out to be the same in this respect, only differing in perception. Both are solving problems with approximately similar levels of caching ideas and techniques and experience, while developing proficiency with similar quantities of tools. They're both generally making their money solving problems with all of that, only occasionally getting a chance to express themselves in some unusual artistic way that most likely won't be a viable income stream until they've really made a name for themselves; save for the rare circumstance they are Aphex Twin

[maeil]

I'm not sure how to phrase this in a way that complies with the spirit of HN (open to suggestions!) but that's a pretty American take on electronic music.

It's not necessiraly wrong, but it holds just as much for any other genre of music and the choice of "EDM" to make the point is pretty typical.

[morbicer]

I am with you, let's get bashed as Euro-snobs.

I listen to electronic music for 25+ years, different genres and I never grokked what exactly is EDM. To me it's a vague hodgepodge of mainstream pruduction spanning anything from Guetta to Skrillex.

People around me who like electronic music refer to it as techno, house, dnb, psytrance, hardcore, what have you. There are crossovers and there are multi-genre festivals. But no one says "I am going to an EDM event tonight"

There's expectation that you will hear some classic hits but people expect to hear something new as well.

Edit: Wikipedia actually shines a light on the resurfacing of EDM "brand" in USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_dance_music#Termino...

[britzkopf]

That actually points to the problem I have with it. I don't think many jazz lovers would balk at reference to a performance as a "jazz performance" without a specification of which one of its subvariants (which by the way are far less numerous than EDM - compare here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_jazz_genres, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electronic_music_genre...). But in my experience, electronic music fans quite often feel compelled to endlessly nitpick over which subgenre some (almost always) 4/4, uptempo, 4 minute track belongs to.

[maeil]

It could be that I'm just not trained enough on other genres, but I'd argue that the differences are generally bigger, and the genres being much more numerous makes perfect sense. Because "Electronic [Dance] Music" just means that electronic instruments were used more prominently than any acoustic instruments. That says extremely little about the music. Whereas Jazz means something very specific.

To name three "Electronic Music" genres, if you compare Hardstyle vs UK Dubstep vs Tropical House, I'd say the difference is much bigger between any pair than "Nu Jazz" vs "New Orleans Jazz".

You can conveniently grow an opinion on this here: https://everynoise.com/

There are genres of electronic music that are like metal (very uptempo, in-your-face, maximalist) and ones that are like jazz (smooth, free-flowing, open, not maximalist). Both being very common and huge subgenres. But where's the jazz that sounds like metal or the metal that sounds like jazz? They might exist, but would be incredibly niche.

Besides, people nitpicking over subgenres exists in many genres. Metal (or really "Music featuring heavy electric guitars") is famous for it. But in both it's only a small minority of people who spends their time doing this, mostly teens or people online, very rarely people actually visiting and enjoying shows.

"Jazz" should be compared to "Techno". And people definitely go to "Techno" festivals, even though you can further divide it into "Hard techno", "Industrial techno" and so on.

[britzkopf]

Whoa there. I've not done the polling but I suspect most EDM consumers think of themselves as music lovers the same way other people like jazz etc. I tend more to agree with your assessment that the vast majority of it is not in the same category as "real" music but I don't think attendees of a rave would go along with that.