Or body odour.
There are some great DJs.
i think the talking to the crowd thing got me with the clip, but then realised i have seen some big names do this, in frustration, having a go at the sound guy etc. never saw jeff mills have a crowd check in during one of his sets. maybe it happened!
Oscar once had to stop his set in Seattle, and hop on the mic to ask whoever brought a girl who was a bit out of her depth on Acid home or to a hospital. There was a large tiger bounce house bouncing around in the background too at the time, and then once whoever it was went and retrieved the girl, he spun back up his set with Fuse Overdose. All the while the tiger bounced away. (until later in the set, someone popped it, and it slowly deflated) It was a really strange and interesting time. 
I agree generally about speaking to the crowd. Except in the case of a drum and bass MC. 
So, I guess in summary, MCs and medical emergencies only.
Side note:
I was posting this in the Banginā Techno thread, but itās got a good portion banginā and a good portion minimal, and a lot of good energy.
How about āschool of Millsā yet no actual Mills?
And something different:
This one is nice too!
As people have told OP by now, the further up you get to the very top of a scene the less intricate the music becomes. You want an as broad appeal as possible, if you lose 90% of potential listeners 1min through a track because itās too busy or whatnot, youāll never get enough momentum
IMHO itās wrong to mix these parts of a scene anyways, as the DJ stuff going in the more mainstream parts of any scene these days is closer to pop music and pop culture. You get people longing for pop star level fame but think they can go about getting there by being really technically skilled. Then they get pissed when some blandly ghost produced pre-recorded super massive but ultimately unskilled DJ gets all the bookings 
Itās just not meant to be
Always suspected Iām a high-functioning ADD diagnose waiting to happen. I can code when thereās pressure, like i have a deadline, or at work. Also if thereās a problem Iāve been trying to find a solution to itās hard not to sit down and keep chasing that solution.
But if I have something i kinda want to do, Iāll spend all day thinking about how to go about it but it can be hard to actually get started and get somewhere. Like now. I want to do some Logue SDK plugins but ā¦ omggg
What happened is that sheās not a self made artist, she pays people to do art for her, and looks like all the artists that used to do the work have split so she can spend more time cuddling with specific Neonazi accounts on Twitter.
I may have opinions on slick EDM types that do the miming I loathe for large festivals, but even they have some skills when not hotknobbing. Any of the few songs I liked when she first emerged I assume were ghostwritten by a paid team seeing as sheās been a void of creativity ever since.
Sheās said that she ātrollsā her audience by playing Christmas songs āfor the lulzā and honestly itās impossible to tell whether sheās being intentionally stupid, pushed away / failed to pay more competent artists, or whether something on purpose fucked up.
All I know is that since she became rich from whatever eugenics breeding arrangement and, conning people into buying NFTs and moving into āAI contentā as an āinfluencerā her brain has long been cooked and nothing that person says is worth listening to.
Like, the level of disdain she has for any remaining āfansā is massive, itās all low energy swill down to the lazy AI video backdrop, just shitting on everyone.
Edit lol
Totally understandable, who doesnāt āoutsource the bpmā, doesnāt have an intern to make sure āplay1stā is in the right folder.
Like when people tell me im underground, well its always been like that. Who cares man.
Exactly. Embrace the underground. It can be very good for many. But if one is an underground type of artist trying to reach the mainstream level of fame then things just get f-ky
It is not to the detriment of the music, like doing what you like, how is that bad? And this will come up more then once.
Mills was around from before day 1, as The Wizard on Detroit radio:
He had a huge influence in the Detroit area for years before getting known in Europe through UR etc.
Sad to say it but you may be right. I was going to post a video of DJ Stingray doing his thing to disprove your statement but the most recent one I found has him DJing off CDJs and its pretty boring. Itās all over.
RIP the wheels of steel.
Respectfully disagree. Raving is my Celtic rite and with that the [good] DJ will always command my respect.
Source for Celtic rite: it was revealed to me on the dancefloor.
donāt know who grimes is but my main takeaway from reading about this is that Coachella is actually live performance and not pre-recorded-air-dj stuff, so, thumbs up to Coachella!
The irony is that the pre-recorded sets at Coachella go off without a hitch and everybody loves it! They probably have the best lighting and pyrotechnic setups, all kinds of crazy production perfectly timed with the music. The only way to deliver that kind of show is with sufficient preparation.
I watched Grimesā set on YouTube as it was happening. I hope she figures something out for next week. Literally just trawl Current Sounds, stitch it together in Garage Band and hit play. Job done.
then I must wonder how and why she was allowed to play āliveā?
is she not that important? I thought every single artists is really cherry picked, cannot imagine how that mess to be allowed, looking at the prices for tickets $500-$1200 not including camping/parking - Iām baffled.
ok looked at her wikipedia page and now I get it:
Partner Elon Musk (2018ā2021)
yep yep yep, makes sense now 
Billy Nasty still uses the mighty 1200s. And in Germany there seems to be a small group of performers using vinyl with cdjs. Not sure how many do it exclusively though. I know having a dope store like Hardwax in your area helps to encourage people to dig.
Canāt forget Carl Coxās trademark āO yes o yes!ā.
Well Iām not an expert with any special insider information, but when I think of pre-recorded sets, I think of main stage headliners or similar ā for a massive scale show, it probably makes sense to use a pre-recorded mix that you know will play out the right way in front of a massive crowd vs. accounting for whatever improvisation might be possible.
Grimes wasnāt in a headliner or main stage position, so maybe her situation was more free-form. Maybe itās more of a norm for folks in that spot to mix live or do whatever their normal show is. In any case, I think itās fair to expect her to be more prepared (and again, maybe weekend 2 she redeems herself).
well, she is on the same row as Gesaffelstein, which I imagine pretty high ranked, so pretty up thereā¦ Orbital is way lowerā¦ even Charlotte De Witte whoās veeery popular mainstream techno dj is under herā¦
Gesaffelstein is so good.
I feel bad that weāve hijacked this thread so much ā Iām definitely not trying to defend Grimes, my original point was that thereās some virtue in pre-recorded sets because the show is guaranteed to go well. I think people would take a seamless pre-recorded show over a botched live mix. Probably we all should have a backup plan ready in our pocket for playing live.
Grimes totally biffed. Boggles my mind that youād get a gig at Coachella, have someone else run your tracks through Recordbox, and then not even check to see if theyāre good to go before the show. Itās not like this is the first time sheās Djed. Supposedly sheās been doing it since 2011, and some even say her set was more or less the same set she played back then. Sheās not alone. I swear 2/3rds of the acts that played were lip singing. Even saw a āliveā house band play that had a drummer and two keyboard players, and they were totally pretending to play. It blew my mind. Does no one remember what happened to Millie Vanillie, or Ashley Simpson? Standards have become so low. People donāt want the show, they want the spectacle with the music being the album they listen to on Spotify. Props to those who kept it real, and played/sang live. Christ it makes me feel old.
this is exactly what this thread is about though, why ultra popular techno artists are that popular when their music/performance is mediocre, or in this case with grimes, ultra failā¦
looked at her stats and she has 6.6m monthly listeners on spotify, while speedy j has ~80kā¦ thatās x100 listenersā¦
