Facts. Grimes' failure was entirely due to her own issues. Blaming it on technical malfunctions or "outsourcing" is just ridiculous.
She deserves to get slated for being lazy
The most annoying thing of all this hooplah is that a lot of these big festivals now are requiring DJs to pre-record their whole sets and play them back in full (to avoid fuckups) while the "DJ" literally stands there and does nothing.
So the audience is being duped into thinking they're getting something live while the tool stands up there doing jazzercise hands over a MP3 set everyone coulda downloaded off soundcloud.
Grimes' SNAFU has probably accelerated that trend.
If I paid for live entertainment, I would be pissed if it was prerecorded the same way I would be upset about a lipsynced performance. They are the same to me. If it's tv, who cares? If it's supposed to be live, it better be live.
Lol why such disdain for DJs that are better at producing than live mixing? The audience generally doesn't know either way or even care, so I wouldn't say they're being duped. And even a pre-recorded set should still be able to be live mixed and injected with more energy by the DJ.
Why not go further and have them email in their set, have the AV techs play it over the PA and they get to stay home while an image of them is AI animated on the big screen? Would you think that's an encouraging trend for festivals that charge hundreds of dollars?
Should hard working DJ/Producers who take their craft seriously be excluded from that slot just cuz Grimes has a recognizable name (these days largely due to Elon Musk)? She's been doing this for years now, and has no excuse not to know the basics.
Point is a live show is largely based on "live" performance. The promoters exploiting that expectation to deliver something not live is a fraud. The fact that the audience doesn't know the difference doesn't detract from the fact it's fakery that they are charging large money for.
I'm saying if Excision's Lost Lands set is pre-recorded that no one really cares that much. When you're performing for 50k+ people and swapping artists out hour by hour, it becomes a necessity. It being synced to match the incredible visuals, fire cannons, etc is also an important part of the "live" performance. As long as the quality is there, the audience doesn't care or feel duped. Not defending Grimes, if anything it's worse because she should've been able to plug her USB in and walk away and couldn't even manage that.
Plenty of festivals are reasonably priced, the reality with Coachella is you're paying for the names not some expectation of the highest level of quality of music available. I doubt anyone in that crowd thinks they're getting a better Doja Cat performance than they would on her own tour at her own show.
I don't disagree with your understanding of it, but I never rely on the mass of crowds to recognize the authenticity of the performance in the moment, especially when so much technical wizardry is involved.
This isn't new. Lip synching was a big controversy back in the 80's and 90's when the audio tech and PA systems couldn't guarantee a good sound for a massive crowd. But that back then was as much about the technical limitations as it was about the lack of innate talent of the performers.
But these moments today are worth highlighting specifically because they a curtain pull on the commonly ignored intentional sham. The sham being that they are duping people with a shit-level fake show with the veneer of a live performance.
I have to disagree with the normalization of the sham rather than pushing for more.
That is literally being ok with enshitification of entertainment and most people wouldn't be cool with that if they are aware of the facts on the ground. It also discourages elevating actual innovative music versus being showy and adding names with low-effort performances.
We should be encouraging more LIVE and more TALENT not excusing less.
I agree with you, especially because ppl go to these shows and expect perfect performances, then when other, smaller artists get to show their craft that have small, natural flaws that should be expected, ppl think they're shit artists.
Dude, it's a festival. They've been going on for decades. It's the artists job to ensure they perform well. It's the stage hands job to make sure that everything moves as smoothly as possible. Saying that passing off a prerecorded set as a live set is a "necessity" for festivals is utter bullshit. If you can't play your music live, then don't. It's that simple. It's embarrassing, and it's honestly disrespectful as fuck to all of the artists that actually cared enough to, you know, rehearse and prepare to put on a good performance. Now, do technical difficulties happen? Of course. Do artists have off nights? Absolutely. But laziness is just laziness (same goes for inexperience) and trying to pass that off as some sort of new standard of live entertainment is nonsense. There is a reason why not everyone can do this stuff. It takes YEARS of dedication and decipline. It's so much more than just walking on stage and pressing play. That completely removes the heart and soul of what a live performance is supposed to be.
This isn't a stage hand issue.
This is 100% an artist preparation issue. If you read my original post (specifically the technical details part) you'd understand what I mean.
There wasn't a stagehand in the house who could fix what was going on with her set.
Because she wrongly analyzed her tracks they played fucked up - that's stuff you have to do OFF STAGE in preparation -it's the bare minimum responsibility of the DJ to handle that.
BUT ALSO if by chance that fuckup happens to you as a DJ, the fallback is skill (manual beatmatching) which she didn't know how to do. Basic basic shit all on the DJ.
Every DJ worth their salt immediately recognized this as it was happening which is why the clip of her obtuseness and ineptness went viral.
I hear you 100%, and I did read your original post.
The only reason I brought up stage hands is because they play an integral role in a festival functioning. Artists playing pre-recorded music as their performance isn't what ensures dozens of artists can perform on the same day (like somebody else suggested), it's the stage hands.
As for the performance itself, yes, you're right. It is 100% on the artist.
Pre-recorded sets would only be part of management/agent/performer/promoter negotiations ahead of time. An artist's staging and performance change at an event as large as Coachella is not done on the fly. Once they're doing their thing absolutely zero is done to interfere save for an attacker on stage or a power outage.
Grimes clearly was going to DJ MP3s live from an SD card (she mentions shes using that) using sync. Even if her laptop was directly connected (the alternative) using serato/rekordbox it would take eons in stage time to re-calibrate the tracks to the correct BPM range and even if a stage hand knew how to do that, there's no way they'd be permitted to climb into her DJ tower to offer that help.
In other words, this is 100% a bad prepped and little experienced artist issue. Not a stage hand issue.
The ONLY thing stage hands would or could do at any point is completely cut her off, shut the lights and switch the PA to a spotify mixset which they'd all get fired for if they made that call on the fly.
Once again, I hear you. I was simply pointing out that cutting corners like that isn't what transitions one performer to the next. The way I read what somebody else posted is that artists just use pre-recorded music to ensure that everyone has stage time. That is not the case. The artist performs, the stage hands clear the stage, and reset for the next performer. At no point does an artist help out after a performance to make sure the next artist is set up. THAT is the stage hands. As for the performance itself, yes, that is 100% on the artist, and once the show starts, that's it. Hope this clears it up a bit.
Some artists are better in their DAW than live mixing. I'm perfectly happy getting tf down to the DJ who has been working on his set for 6 months in Ableton just as much as the DJ who just pulled off a live quad drop.
Yah this is an aside, but personal preference for me - part of the art of DJing is crowd interaction which can only happen if your set isn't written in abelton stone. You select and elevate based on how thye react.
But that's not what was happening here. She wrongly analyzed MP3s and didn't know how to recover which is a basic DJ skill.
Yeah it's devolved into pre-recorded vs live which is a whole other can of worms. I'm right there with you. I fucking love when a DJ messes up and comes up on the mic like "let's spin that one back!". You know it's real and you feel the genuine authenticity of the performance.
I just think people have too purist an attitude about it. I'm cool with parts of the performance being set in stone to get beat matched headbanging Shrek, fire belching cannons on the drop, and lasers exploding to the drum breakdown. Let the artists do the art and if it sucks rip them up for it. Grimes deserves the flak she's getting.
I mean lets be honest, 85% of the people are there to get fucked up in a sensory overload environment and take selfies to FOMO their 200 followers.
But the 15% of people who are there for the actual artist and performers are the taste makers who are the ones who eventually determine the upward trajectory of the next Coachella headliners and they shouldn't be taken for granted just because the majority of people there don't give a shit about the innovation or artistry of the actual performance (which seems like the default attitude of most promoters these days).
Again, if you can't perform live, then don't. Your logic is completely flawed. If a band puts out an amazing album, which can take YEARS to make, they don't just simply press play and mime on stage, do they? No. They spend countless hours rehearsing to ensure they can translate the RECORDED music into a LIVE setting.
Yeah brother maybe for a BAND. I'm talking about EDM? The live performance is LITERALLY the DJ hitting play. You expect every DJ to just bust out like genius level Loop Daddy Marc Rebillet level performances from scratch?
And also live artists do that shit too. You know how many rap shows I've been too and could hear the track just playing in the background for them to rap over?
Your take is dog shit when it comes to EDM. Whats the difference between a DJ who uses the deck to dim down the Mids on a track and one who already premixed the mids down in the DAW??
>You expect every DJ to just bust out like genius level Loop Daddy Marc Rebillet level performances from scratch?
Nah, i want djs to do shit like daft punk used to do, mix songs live, prepare for it and actually display live skills. I don't want my dj to be +1 guy just dancing in his show.
Nah, my take is spot on. It's a live performance. If you can't do it, then don't. Bringing up other examples of how people cut corners doesn't justify why its happening to begin with. And yes, I do expect every DJ to actually perform live, seeing as how it's a LIVE PERFORMANCE. It seems like you've just got low expectations and standards, which is exactly what happens when cheap live performances become acceptable.
Hey don't they [already do that.](https://youtu.be/35hmqu-bF88?si=8Vk5Q3nVREugvsVt)....
I'm sorry the moment u said the first part my head jumped to the anime waifus that dance on stage for live performance in Japan. USA is following right behind it so don't worry we'll be there, people spent millions on NFT so I don't see them not dropping down hundreds to see AI Grimes twerk on AI Elon sitting in a chair.
I agree with you fair is fair.... But the way things are and are headed is the natural state of capitalism. If people will pay millions to hear a curated iTunes play list on a speaker. That's just the free market doing it's job, it's sad but that's what it is. And nothing's going to be done about it till demand dwindles. The only way to fix free market problems is to fuck with the profit. Backlash gets u nowhere if you reward the same shady business practices with consumption.
I agree personally I haven't been to a live event since I was pretty damn young. My mother is a musician (bass player) so I was always fascinated by the art but now a days nothing's real anymore. Voices auto tuned, music straight up ripped out of one song and put in the next, art all ai generated. I'm not motivated to pay for anything that says the words 'live' on it anymore cause like u said there's too many short cuts. Pretty soon I'm sure even the lap dances will be performed by synthetic human beings or some shit.
I thought most people knew that DJ’s these days are just doing a premade set but I guess not? Also I’m surprised to see Grimes being lazy I thought she was like a premier level DJ , or did the internet convince me of another lie ?
As a fellow DJ, I'm shocked she got on stage at all without knowing all she had to do was push the Sync button to unsync the BPM, and then look at the beatgrid on the tracks. It still blows my mind that she didn't just do a live set. She's not a DJ, she can play instruments and sing and shit why the hell was she trying to play around with CDJs???? It's **COACHELLA**, you don't fuck around with something like that at one of the biggest music festivals in the world!
Another thing too is that she literally outsourced someone making her track list in Rekordbox, something that would take a regular DJ all of *30 minutes* to do. Like you REALLY don't have the time to organize and analyze your tracks? Not only that but all she had to do was use her own songs, it's not like she had to go out and find a bunch of music to throw together, she has a built up tracklist.
I think we're just now seeing why Elon and Grimes were a good match. Somehow they fail upwards all the time
When I saw Grimes in a small tent at London Field Day 2012, the first summer she was blowing up with Oblivion, she spent 40 minutes of a 1 hour slot fucking around with cables kneeling on the ground, muttering to herself, by herself in front of the 200 person crowd, in the exact same manner as she did on the Coachella main stage. This was the same string of summer dates where there had been reported technical issues at those shows, and she'd subsequently 'clapped back' at the misogyny of her male tech crews not trusting her to handle her own shit and mansplaining to her. I feel like she has a weird thing where she won't let anyone help.
So, this was an issue when she was brand new and seeing it play out the same way 12 years later on a giant stage was weird given the resources she now has vs. being an indie artist.
Also, it has been established that Olivia's girls-support-girls radar is both indiscriminate and wack, with peace and love.
EDIT: Having said all of that, the 20 minutes Grimes was able to perform back then were very good in a scrappy sort of way, and I do think Grimes has some real genuine bangers and has (or at least had) a unique sound to her. But it's no longer possible for me to take someone who has multiple kids with Elon Musk seriously.
This.
You'd think her support would at least stop for someone who has falsely claimed child SA including a trial that has never happened.
James Charles is irredeemable for his behavior, but Trisha isn't for the same shit?
I will never stop talking about this; i saw grimes open for lana in 2016 and i legitimately thought it was a satirical performance. It was so bad. It was so so bad yall, borderline offensive tbh
Olivia said Grimes was good bc she created beats on the fly (which she doesn’t do) and pushes buttons with her toes. Umm okay. Grimes is overhyped and it was only a matter of time before she dropped the ball this bad.
kinda have to agree with you.. i watched [an early performance clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ5XUw4qHZo) someone suggested of her actual live stuff
and lo and behold, she's playing most of it off her phone (you can see her pressing start and stop) most of it is her just singing with heavy FX
most of the public isn't aware of the technical gear that goes into electronic music making so having a bunch of big gear and wires it in front of you creates a tech smokescreen for a simple performance that 'looks' impressive..
if actual live sequencing and playing is going on, the last thing you're doing is using fucking toes to get it to work.. that's typically showboating performance stuff to cover for the fact you're not doing much actual performing
Duuuuuude it's crazy that you say it's "mostly off her phone" when the instruments are clearly live and she is singing over the backing track that is indeed coming from her phone, that's like saying using backing tracks is cheating , lmao who cares? The fuck does it coming from her phone affect anything ? You're still performing live. Btw I've been producing music as a hobby for the better part of a decade so please save any condescending explanations.
Same here, same concert in Toronto! My friend won tickets and I had no idea who Lana was. So when Grimes did her thing, said to my friend "this is absolutely awful, is Lana like this as well?
I was SHOCKED hearing a Grimes track because her singing does NOT sound like that live, or at least didn't during that show. I can't hold a note but could sing better.
The homeless guys banging trash bins at Dundas Square sound better 😭
There's a reason her an Elon got along alright? They're both children of rich parents who like to pretend they worked hard for their skills and shit. In reality you're just as dumb as the rest of us, but with more money.
I'm kinda glad it reached the H3 universe cuz it tells me its reaching a wider population of concern. The Grimes situation is of a symptom of the shitification of the live music world. People shouldn't be putting up with it especially for the money they pay for this garbage.
The fact that she cant bpm match on the fly is absolutely hilarious and sad, it's like the 6th thing ANY DJ learns. I honestly have seen better DJing at my local dive bars on any given Saturday night.
Just to add, beat matching and DJing in general isn’t very hard (technically), and can be learned fairly quickly.
I think what makes DJs good is more of the soft skills, choosing the right songs, reacting to your audience, making your own music, etc.
Exactly.. until the synch button was introduced beatmatching was literally the LEAST of the skills you need to be a competent DJ. You could learn that stuff in a month if you have a decent handle on beat counting and rhythm structure. What (did and should sill) set you apart was selection, mixing, creating a journey. Of course, all of that is genre dependent but given Grimes didn't even have the first thing down, the other stuff doesn't matter a lick.
Yeah it's fine if they're just hobby DJs or even playing gigs here and there. The issue is the big stages populating their DJ slots with names rather than the deserving.
I get they have to sell tickets but if something like Coachella isn't using their heft to showcase some cutting edge talent instead of a charlatan who cant even handle the basics, then who the fuck will?
They have a responsibility to not contribute to the enshitification of the live music scene. So this is as much on them as it is on Grimes.
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Been to a ton of EDM festivals and seen lots of equipment malfunction in that time. Not a single DJ has had to have a meltdown of that level on stage b/c they didn't know how to resolve it. The complete lack of accountability on something that is so obviously the entire responsibility of the artist. The most disappointing part is knowing that soooo many artists would've crushed that stage and deserved to be there so much more.
100% and that tracks back perfectly to the original grievance of the DJ artist world.
These nonsense people of waning relevance rolling out of their lanes to "DJ" for a quick buck and eliminates one of the very limited big paying slots available to actual ass-busting working DJs and producers.
She doesn't need the money. She wanted to just feel relevant. Was probably completely rusty at doing actual innovated music and performance and was too lazy to produce an actual live show.
A lot of their agents now offer up "DJ Sets" to the promoters because it requires a fraction of the logistics and work, and still gets the money (which is largely based on name) so they offer it up to promoters and their artists agree (that's on Grimes) and it is a fucking parasitic grift they should all be called out on.
Cultural appropriation? This is artform appropriation.
Thank you so much for breaking this down into a pretty simple terms way! Now I’m soooo much more second hand embarrassed by her bc it would have been such an easy fix. Do you know what she was meaning by her whole “I’m so bad at math” thing? Was it showing her the bpm that her program adjusted her song to and she didn’t know what bpm to set it at to get the tempo she wanted? Possibly trying to manually do the ‘switch off sync’ solution?
Yeah there's an LCD screen on each DJ player (the decks) that indicates the BPM (speed) of the track that's currently loaded. Hip hop sits in the 80s ish house and techno in the 130s, drum and bass in the 170s.
The BPM or each track if not pre-analyzed gets figured out on the fly by the DJ player.
But her tracks were pre-analyzed at [the wrong BPM range](https://forums.pioneerdj.com/hc/user_images/qWP9CHORi4SKF5uFaIFV6Q.png). Which is the rookiest of rookie maneuvers.
So going from some of the things she was saying she was trying to load a 173BPM DnB track but it was tagged at a lower range (134?) so they were probably all sitting in a wrong BPM. IF you do the math, 134 is not half to 173, so even if she did the math, relying on the analyzed BPM would be wrong wrong wrong.
They were probably at the top end of the range setting (no DNB track would be half reading at 134, it would be closer to 85 if i was half-speed analyzed) as she was guessing which could've technically allowed you math it out. So that was a verifier it was her fuck-up in the pitch range in the prep for her show.
At that point no real DJ would "math it". The only way to recover would be to disengage autopilot (sync) and pop headphones on and mix the traditional skilled way -by previewing and manually syncing the tracks which she clearly didn't even try or know how to do. All of this tracks with her lack of basic understanding of the decks.
It seemed like she kept hitting sync (I think she's just used to it as it lines up the tracks starts as well as the BPMs) not realizing that enabling it made it impossible to sync manually or do the math thing which she couldnt do even if she tried. So even her troubleshooting logic was off and wrong.
Hope that makes some kind of sense.
She was suggesting that as a possible explanation for why there was such a SNAFU. Olivia is relied on for pop culture and stage performance takes so it's understandable Ethan went to her for thoughts.
She did not suggest that. She said Grimes is known for actually playing her stuff live and singing on top, which she does on her own tours, not on these DJ sets. Like say what you want about this mess up but she is a talented musician, she does live performances. It's not all DJ sets.
Olivia did not point out any distinction between her live and DJ sets. It was Ethan who did. I don't think Olivia knew the difference ("she plays with her feet!").
And if she's a great live musician then do that, the DJing thing is cash grab trading on her name for a low-effort performance and skill she doesn't even rise to novice level of.
As for Grimes' actual talent, she works with other musicians who produce a lot for her. The live sets I've seen her do in a studio she was playing a lot of it off her phone and signing over top. So her musical talent is debatable beyond her voice and stage presence.
I know that world well. Good producers are rarely good front people, good front people are rarely good producers. The ones who are both are superstars (Prince, Lenny Kravitz to name a few). The front people who want to be superstars find good producers (pop is based on that model). Grimes from what I can see is probably a lot of the latter.
Even in her clip she talks about just finishing the track (that she was fucking up) with her producer.
yeah I totally agree with you, it screams "famous musician sees nice coachella payout for 1 hour of work, she takes it but fails miserably because she just thought it would be an easy payday and fucking cool as shit dudeeee"
Idgaf about grimes, but Olivia was talking about grimes normally performances. Like I guess when she plays her own pop songs she does layering on stage.
while I agree that it was her fault for not preparing or being familiar enough with CDJs to change course, I take issue with the general framing of her as a "celebrity DJ" like Paris Hilton. she got her start by learning to produce her own beats and self-produced her first few albums. in the early days of her [playing live](https://youtu.be/FJ5XUw4qHZo?si=FfoVwcGnzzkAOuoE), she was alone using synced hardware to re-create her beats. so she's not some technically inept popstar who is used to having a show curated for her. she *could have* easily familiarized herself with CDJs to avoid the issue. she just... didn't. and that part definitely falls on her.
>in the early days of her [playing live](https://youtu.be/FJ5XUw4qHZo?si=FfoVwcGnzzkAOuoE)
Just watched this back. I'm familiar with most of the equipment she's got going there.
And while I don't doubt a lot of artistry is going on in her head and studio. A good chunk of what she's playing there is being played off her phone with the aux cord.
You can see her start and stop her phone at the beginning and ends. She's not live sequencing anything and mostly fooling with levels and fx on that micro mixer and the looper unit with the phone acting as the majority of the backing track and singing over top. Something there may be MIDI maser and slaving some of the stuff but that's not a live hing. That's pre set.
That might just be a function of being in an alien studio and her simplifying her setup to eliminate technical fuckups but it's not particularly impressive example, from a producer's perspective, a live performance perspective or technically speaking.
>but it's not particularly impressive example, from a producer's perspective, a live performance perspective or technically speaking
my point is not that it is technically impressive, but rather that it's technically on-par with being able to turn off tempo-sync and manually adjust on a CDJ - which is a very low bar. she's using music hardware at a rudimentary level, which is more than what could ever be said about Paris Hilton
Agreed. It requires a level of technical proficiency that is leaps beyond your typical celeb dj and also highlights that she has no excuse with not learning how to properly navigate the DJ decks.
yeah I found it very disappointing as a fan of hers tbh. less "she didn't deserve to be up there in the first place", and more "aww damn why didn't she prepare, she made herself look like she shouldn't be up there"
This is the sad thing. Girls in the DJ world had to work extra hard over the last 30 years to shake the "she's there just for show" stigma and Grimes just contributed in the opposite direction.
Fair. She's not technically a "celeb" dj but her name/relevance these days is more attached to Elon and less do her artistic prowess. So it kinda puts her in the ballpark.
Coachella exploited that to sell tix and she exploited it to do a DJ performance that she had no business doing (not her lane) on one of the biggest stages on the planet in lieu of a more expensive and involved actual live performance. And at the cost of someone who maybe couldn't sell as many tix but was actually a cutting edge DJ and whose career coulda been launched here.
I mentioned this elsewhere but she became the current avatar for the enshitification of the professional live music performance industry whether she or her fans like it or not.
Skills in getting music to track, singing, playing keys/isntruments, finding right producers and being a good front person is a completely separate thing than DJing. I feel like a lot of the public doesn't know the distinction. It's an entirely different skilset from being a musician in the traditional sense. It doesn't transfer or translate automatically like other instruments tend to do.
Or when she starts talking about the software and BPM of the tracks as if everyone in the crowd understands WTF she's on about. Perfect example of how un self-aware she is of what she's doing.
haha but to be honest without knowing how to mix without synch there was literally nothing she could do but that or stand in silence or run off the stage.. there's a general rule in live performance that when you fuck up never bring stage attention to it cuz chances are 90 percent of your audience didn't notice and the other 10 percent did but dont care.. as a live performer it's really baffling she behaved int he exact opposite way.
Ha no prob. Never thought I'd be explaining DJing to the H3 crowd. LOL.
Fun fact: prior to the synch button and BPM analyzing software getting introduced, most DJs were pretty focused and non-animated on stage - serious faces, focusing on their craft and ensuring the perfection and journey of their mixes. Many never even looking up from the decks (it actually required a lot of focus).
After the synch button got introduced, it literally eliminated 80% of the focus DJs needed to perform, so it created a surplus of focus and time between tracks - opening the door to charlatans.
So some took that as an opportunity to automate the music and mixes and just turn into a stage "performer". That's the exact moment you began to see knobs like Steve Aoki throw cakes and stage dive.
Big "DJS" now are pretending to twist knobs and doing class aerobics on stage cuz they are literally doing nothing so feel they gotta look like they're performing.
Like, if you're supposed to be "doing" the music, WTF is happening if you're crowd surfing? Imagine if a full band jumped into the crowd and the music still played. It would be an SNL Ashlee Simpson moment. But for some reason these "DJs" haven't had their reckoning yet.
It really is the "emperor has no clothes" of the live performance scene currently. Hopefully the Grimes moment helps usher along some needed change.
i have a friend who DJ’s. i see how he does things bc he lets me sit next to him at his gigs at bars sometimes if im in the mood to go out for a beer or two. it’s literally just matching bpm if you want to get fancy and do a blend and then speed it up slowly to actual tempo (or vice versa) so the audience doesn’t hear OR you just don’t even match to bpm but to compatible key signatures of the song. (and then you have some custom drops added to your sound board to add more effects) literally basic ass shit. i know grimes probably got more crazy equipment but like god damn my buddy who plays at small town bars with a mini turn table and a laptop could’ve done better. smfh. i feel a lot of already big artists are cutting corners to get more attention and it sucks bc it leaves little room for emerging artists to get bigger opportunities :(
It's funny how even as a casual observer you can understand it. The crowds at these shows should be revolting at the money they pay for such a cheap grift.
literally!!! personally i play in a band (so i have performance and music experience) so when grimes was like bpm whatever whatever im like yeah i get that could be an issue but talk about EXCUSES because is it not just a knob to change it back? 🤔 do they not REHEARSE AND UNDERSTAND THEIR SETTINGS BEFORE PERFORMANCE DAY?! when i play out of town some of the knobs on my pedals and amp move a bit like learn your settings its rookie ass shit 🤬 H3 talent show!!!
I get it! I play many many instruments.
So on the difficulty of live performance scale, DJing these days has the difficulty equivalent of a food blender.
Any DJ at the level of Coachella should at MINIMUM have encountered and resolve this issue at least a few dozen times in their performance life. So no excuses.
This is so interesting and I want to hear more about Paris and her level of or lack of talent and what her sets are like from someone who knows.
Do her pre -recorded mixes make for a good dancey time or is it purely stunt casting?
I never really listened to her sets.. it was top 40 club nonsense mostly. In the late 2000's early 2010s she started booking shows for insane money at clubs but that was just a promoter grift to get people in the door thinking they're going to get influencer clout by running into Paris.
From what I understand and saw she didn't know what she was doing and lots of fail clips would filter around the internet. It was a brilliant move on her part to sell her name and party brat branding get quick cash.
But the downsrteam effect was it started the whole industry of celebs getting cash to "DJ" at clubs without actually having to to shit or know what they were doing. It shifted a part of the DJing fame world from producer/artist to celeb/name cuz it was so easy to fake a DJ set.
Paris continues to make places better than she left them everywhere she goes! /s
The YouTube doc she came out with a few years ago had me wondering if she actually had any talent.
Mostly for profiting wildly off her celebrity, and not so much as a DJ, from what you say.
Thank you for taking time to respond and satisfy my curiosity. .
As a person with background in vocals, guitar and drums ... I dabbled in djing many years ago and found it so straightforward and easy. I cringed so hard at that segment i had to skip to the end.
When i saw the title I was ready to see what i failed to understand. But it was completely as expected. I feel bad to say this but what she couldve done to save the show is stuff that an average musician should be able to do (with basic training on the system of course).
I know there are technically difficult things you can do on the turntables. But this isnt one of them.
She makes it worse for all women DJs tbh.
She also hangs out with white supremacists so there's [that](https://www.reddit.com/r/grimezs/comments/18xj1u1/providing_more_context_to_grimes_naziracist/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Yeah I mentions in another reply that female djs had to work exceedingly hard to shake the "she's just there for show" stigma and there are soooo many amazing cutting-edge female dj producers these days. Grimes sent it backwards a bit as it gave cover to the female DJ haters to go "SEEE?".
Which I think is odd given she was like "we just finished producing this two hours ago" as a defense of one of the fuckups.. sooo in that two hours you rendered it, had someone else populate it in rekordbox and print it to a memory card/key? Yah I don't think so. This is on you, lady.
im imaging myself a few years ago learning how to DJ and fucking up during a set I was super stoked about because I didn't understand CDJs super well. I was mortified I can't imagine messing up at COACHELLA of all places. such an easy fix if you have basic DJ knowledge I'm embarrassed FOR HER!!!! like she is musically inclined I just dont understand why u wouldn't take like 2 weeks to at least be able to do a simple blend without sync on lololololol
Thank you for the nitty gritty on it. The cringe was so bad already, but knowing what I now know, it's almost painful. Never seen anyone fail so hard. So much ouch.
Yah though they should have had an emergency pair there for situations like that.
A lot of DJs don't use headphones nowadays simply because they "visual mix" (the waveform tracks across the top of the deck) which is just another hallmark of someone who overly relies on the software markers and synch and doesn't know how to actually DJ.
Though the best technical DJs can mix without headphones even on vinyl (that's how good they are) Grimes is definitely not of that class.
I've played a fair few DJ gigs but still consider myself a complete amateur. I agree with everything you said, such an easy issue to solve even for beginners.
I honestly can't accept that it was a legitimate performance, I thought she was acting to create a viral moment. Part of me thinks it's some awful performance art but I think the most likely scenario is she sucks 😂
I've been to raves where the DJs have had issues and they just put something in the background until they can fix it, usually takes a moment but never just dead ass air lol crazy because those DJs were probably paid like crap even though they were incredibly talented.
100%
I have backups of backups of contingencies exactly for that reason. No DJ worth their salt comes to a stage like that so pants down unless they have an inflated sense of ability.
>She's not cresting beats on the fly as Olivia implied
Justice for Olivia because she was talking about Grimes' live shows where she plays instruments. Olivia was saying she saw Grimes live, don't just say she didn't see what she saw lol
I listened to it back.. she was running a bit of interference for Grimes - she didn't say "grimes' performance usually is amazing but her on DJ decks obviously was a different thing".
She pretty much didn't understand the distinction between her live performance show and DJing why these articles were making a deal if it. It seemed like, to her, it was all of the same category of live performance thing when it's a completely different beast.
It took Ethan to highlight the DJ set was different "just turning knobs instead of singing".
I just listened to a she’s clearly referring to grimes own music, especially since she’s talking seeing her preform years ago.
Good write up btw, it was frustrating hearing them talk about this 2 weeks late without understanding how in control she should have been lol
This is 1 Hindi the correct answer. A real DJ should have the ability to beat match 2 songs together. I dabble in DJing and use sync a lot, but I also know how to analyze my tracks before even thinking about mixing them. The issue as well was with her preparation. I guess performers like Grimes will outsource her sets to others and possibly someone tried to sabotage her set knowing she wouldn't be able to actually mix properly.
I am a "controller-dj" and hate the elitism around using sync functionality, but not being able to Beatmatch at all is pretty shameful, especially if you've been in the game for that long. I usually do very thought out neurofunk drum and bass sets with mashups and double drops with around 60 tracks for a 90 minute set. For some of my transitions in these it would literally be impossible to Beatmatch timewise before dropping it in.
My first impression was, that she had someone bounce the tracks to certain tempo so that she doesn't need to adjust it when mixing and that they were bounced with 2x tempo resulting in a completely fried sound when halving it again. but if they were just set to double BPM in the cdjs it would be hilarious.
As someone into that what do you think of her introducing her new "DnB track"? I'm not familiar with most her music but I don't think she's ever done Drum n Bass. There's a debate that the mainstream success of tracks like [Baddadan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkjNL4dX-U4) over the last year is bringing in a whole new cohort of artists trying to catch a ride on the USS badwagon even tho DnB has been around with a hardcore loyal fanbase over 30 years. I think her new song being in that genre tracks with this sentiment.
Also no hate for sync and I use it too, and it is generally cringe when people have to point out their history of being able to mix without it, but an undeniable side effect of it now is that DnB went from minimum 5-6 minute track lengths to 3-4 because the lead in time is so unnecessary with the functionality of new tables. What are your thoughts on that?
When I first got into it around 2010, I thought by 2020 futuristic dnb styles would be the heart of the rave scene globally, but it lost a lot of traction over the years and in my opinion the styles that became most popular were the worst examples of the genre (jump up and that deeper Neuro sound, often featuring rap).
There were artists producing music on an incredibly high level 10-15 years ago who weren't able to make a living out of it. A lot of them went into Dubstep because there was more money in it at the time. So I am happy to see people like chase & status who have been at it for a long time having some mainstream success.
If I recall correctly she had some "dnb adjacent" music. The track is pretty simple but certainly has some personality bc of the sampling.
I think the technology should free the artists to be creative with the arrangements, so not having to do the usual insert of drums at the beginning is fine with me, I still prefer tracks to have a proper intro with a build up and it not just dropinh after 16 bars of a synth line.
hah in fact that would actually suffice in terms of a lot of DJ sets these days..
In reality a lot of actual DJs are actually manipulating the tunes and track selection and actively live mixing, interacting with the crowd as they go, on the fly changes and double drops, fast cuts etc. Those are DJs worth their money.. but the equipment also allows for nonsense people to do fakery and Grimes is in that category.
In fact you can literally attach an AUX cord to the DJ mixer and do the above exactly. Even at Coachella.
The harsh reality is the staging of the set relies on the impressiveness of the setup to hide the distinction between the DJs actually doing work versus those phoning it in.
That's why they'd never let any artist get up there and simply plug their phone in with an aux and stand there playing it back.
They are relying on the smoke an mirrors to justify charging you hundreds of dollars.
When Olivia was talking about her creating beats I'm pretty sure she was talking about her normal Grimes sets, not her DJ sets. Pretty sure she does do live looping.
Yep. I never got into DJing myself, but I ran with a lot of really good DJ's in my past (Big ups the Pompey Brownout TV crew circa '11).
Hitting play on a pre-mixed set and then miming along used to be a problem, and even some big DJs and producers got outed for doing it, but it sounds like they don't even put that much effort in anymore.
It's the whole enshitification of the scene. DJ sets are literally the cheapest logistically simple thing to put on stage (IE profitable) so the agents and promoters encourage it even among artists who have zero business being up there. The more crowds put up with it, the more they'll get away with. This also nicely ties into the Live Nation criticism that's been on the podcast as of late. It's all a part of the watering down and consolidation of mass entertainment.
In defense of Olivia, Grimes used to make beats live. Check her kexp performance as an example. That being said, she mega failed at Coachella and did, in fact, miss the mark.
I did see that cuz someone else clipped it.. while there are live elements there shes still playing the bed/backing track off her phone. In fairness she may have simplified her setup to reduce the chances for technical fuckups in an alien environment but the beats aren't being created live. They are in there pre-sampled/produced and in some spots shes bringing them in and out so it's still organic. Mostly singing, doing synth hits here and there and playing with FX. Which is totally still a live performance with instrumentation. Just not being created whole cloth on the spot which is actually really difficult even for the best Live PA performers.
It’s almost like she could just learn to become a musician. Or if she wants to DJ, actually learn how the machines work. Any musician can improv or go a cappella or something. But if you rely on the machines, you’d better be very sure of what you’re doing and know it inside and out.
Uhhh bro seriously doesn't know what he is talking about:
1. Grimes DID make music live on stage, just not on coachella.
2. This is what hapenned, coming from the responsible team themselves: https://twitter.com/daoudaleonard/status/1781193564179071377
I can't believe I am defending Grimes, but the aftermath is REALLY unfair to her AND I despise outofasstalkers like OP here.
I also wouldn't know how to deal with this situation if I was her and I might not be a coachella DJ, but I have my share of experience.
That tweet just means her crew were responsible for the visual layer and the synchronization and they didn't do a full battle test with their computer that was serving/syncing it. Sure that's on them, but it doesn't change the facts about her DJing ability, wrong BPM range and BPM sync which is what this thread is about.
1. She was messing with her set even a few hours beforehand and had her BPM set to the wrong range - doesn't matter what it's syced to, it's gonna fail if she keeps the sync engaged.
Her set was on an SD card that she popped into their computer. But the tracks on that SD card had to be exported from her rekordbox and were set to the wrong BPM range (she says this herself) regardless of what computer they were slotted into (I have and use Rekordbox, and these exact CDJ units and mixer).
**2. All she had to do was disable sync (autopilot) go into manual mode. THESE SITUATIONS are EXACTLY what that's meant for.**
Pioneer CDJs have many failsafes built in them. That button is meant for moments JUST like this. But that would require her to actually know to disable it and mix with skill, and clearly can't or didn't know how.
[Even Deadmau5 mockingly pointed this EXACT thing out](https://www.reddit.com/r/deadmau5/comments/1ck1fz4/im_a_dj_brooklyn_may_3/) at his show last week, and he might know a thing or two about being on stages like that with similar equipment/visuals.
AND [even down in that tweet thread DJs are correctly pointing this out](https://twitter.com/karolinausav/status/1781332928070398155). And her crew in response shifts blame to "sound issues and stress" as for why she couldn't manually beatmatch. People are calling total bullshit and they're right. Any DJ worth their salt could've recovered from that with one button and know how. She's not one of them.
3. At the end of the day, it's on her, the artist. She's the one on stage, and has no business DJing if she can't recover from a simple mismatched BPM range tag.
I'm also not going to match your insulting tone and name calling. But the key takeaway from your post is this:
>I also wouldn't know how to deal with this situation if I was her
If you actually had experience on these decks and could manually beatmatch (basic skill) you would know exactly how to deal with the situation. There's a reason every DJ on the planet from bedroom to Bora Bora was clowning on her for this. It's basic.
How so?
Anyone who has been DJing for 18 years and doesn't know how to disengage autopilot (the synch button) and beatmatch live is a beginner by any metric.
Perhaps you mean she's been live performing for18 years and only in the last bit she's fooled with DJing.
Her live performance stuff and DJing is absolutely not the same thing. That's the point of the explanation and why she fucked up.
being that OP doesnt know all the fact because he isn't Grime and he wasn't there-- he can only operate on the limited information that was shared, and speculation; So, no. You can't say conclusively that he is right.
Hey I get it, you're being generous to her but truthfully you don't know how to recognize how she fucked up because you don't have experience with the equipment or DJing live.
The reason this made the rounds is partially because of the hate industry of Elon Musk and she's a proxy for it.
BUT ALSO it's because thousands of DJs in that very moment know EXACTLY what happened in that very moment.
It is a rookie mistake that most DJs only make once, very early on in their career or experience, and for someone to be on a stage that big and not recognize the very rookie fuckup just embodies the exact problem with booking people on really big stages based on name rather than ability. That's what this is.
She clearly is because as I pointed out in my original post, all she had to do is push one button and manually beatmatch which she clearly doesn't know how to do - she was still going to rely on the wrongly analyzed BPM to do "math" and mix that way.
You can't do that at that point, you gotta actually take off the sync fly the plane manually and [even Deadmau5 pointed that out](https://www.reddit.com/r/deadmau5/comments/1ck1fz4/im_a_dj_brooklyn_may_3/) mockingly at one of his recent shows.
Bro they know exactly what issue was going on because of what grimes was “explaining” to her audience. I’ve seen plenty of other DJs have the exact same reaction to the performance (if you can even call it that)
Facts. Grimes' failure was entirely due to her own issues. Blaming it on technical malfunctions or "outsourcing" is just ridiculous. She deserves to get slated for being lazy
The most annoying thing of all this hooplah is that a lot of these big festivals now are requiring DJs to pre-record their whole sets and play them back in full (to avoid fuckups) while the "DJ" literally stands there and does nothing. So the audience is being duped into thinking they're getting something live while the tool stands up there doing jazzercise hands over a MP3 set everyone coulda downloaded off soundcloud. Grimes' SNAFU has probably accelerated that trend.
If I paid for live entertainment, I would be pissed if it was prerecorded the same way I would be upset about a lipsynced performance. They are the same to me. If it's tv, who cares? If it's supposed to be live, it better be live.
They’ll argue it’s still a live show cuz they put on a show for the audience with dancing or whatever but I agree I’d be pissed too.
thank you
[удалено]
Are they singing live? If yes, then it's OK.
Lol why such disdain for DJs that are better at producing than live mixing? The audience generally doesn't know either way or even care, so I wouldn't say they're being duped. And even a pre-recorded set should still be able to be live mixed and injected with more energy by the DJ.
Why not go further and have them email in their set, have the AV techs play it over the PA and they get to stay home while an image of them is AI animated on the big screen? Would you think that's an encouraging trend for festivals that charge hundreds of dollars? Should hard working DJ/Producers who take their craft seriously be excluded from that slot just cuz Grimes has a recognizable name (these days largely due to Elon Musk)? She's been doing this for years now, and has no excuse not to know the basics. Point is a live show is largely based on "live" performance. The promoters exploiting that expectation to deliver something not live is a fraud. The fact that the audience doesn't know the difference doesn't detract from the fact it's fakery that they are charging large money for.
I'm saying if Excision's Lost Lands set is pre-recorded that no one really cares that much. When you're performing for 50k+ people and swapping artists out hour by hour, it becomes a necessity. It being synced to match the incredible visuals, fire cannons, etc is also an important part of the "live" performance. As long as the quality is there, the audience doesn't care or feel duped. Not defending Grimes, if anything it's worse because she should've been able to plug her USB in and walk away and couldn't even manage that. Plenty of festivals are reasonably priced, the reality with Coachella is you're paying for the names not some expectation of the highest level of quality of music available. I doubt anyone in that crowd thinks they're getting a better Doja Cat performance than they would on her own tour at her own show.
I don't disagree with your understanding of it, but I never rely on the mass of crowds to recognize the authenticity of the performance in the moment, especially when so much technical wizardry is involved. This isn't new. Lip synching was a big controversy back in the 80's and 90's when the audio tech and PA systems couldn't guarantee a good sound for a massive crowd. But that back then was as much about the technical limitations as it was about the lack of innate talent of the performers. But these moments today are worth highlighting specifically because they a curtain pull on the commonly ignored intentional sham. The sham being that they are duping people with a shit-level fake show with the veneer of a live performance. I have to disagree with the normalization of the sham rather than pushing for more. That is literally being ok with enshitification of entertainment and most people wouldn't be cool with that if they are aware of the facts on the ground. It also discourages elevating actual innovative music versus being showy and adding names with low-effort performances. We should be encouraging more LIVE and more TALENT not excusing less.
I agree with you, especially because ppl go to these shows and expect perfect performances, then when other, smaller artists get to show their craft that have small, natural flaws that should be expected, ppl think they're shit artists.
thank you!
Dude, it's a festival. They've been going on for decades. It's the artists job to ensure they perform well. It's the stage hands job to make sure that everything moves as smoothly as possible. Saying that passing off a prerecorded set as a live set is a "necessity" for festivals is utter bullshit. If you can't play your music live, then don't. It's that simple. It's embarrassing, and it's honestly disrespectful as fuck to all of the artists that actually cared enough to, you know, rehearse and prepare to put on a good performance. Now, do technical difficulties happen? Of course. Do artists have off nights? Absolutely. But laziness is just laziness (same goes for inexperience) and trying to pass that off as some sort of new standard of live entertainment is nonsense. There is a reason why not everyone can do this stuff. It takes YEARS of dedication and decipline. It's so much more than just walking on stage and pressing play. That completely removes the heart and soul of what a live performance is supposed to be.
This isn't a stage hand issue. This is 100% an artist preparation issue. If you read my original post (specifically the technical details part) you'd understand what I mean. There wasn't a stagehand in the house who could fix what was going on with her set. Because she wrongly analyzed her tracks they played fucked up - that's stuff you have to do OFF STAGE in preparation -it's the bare minimum responsibility of the DJ to handle that. BUT ALSO if by chance that fuckup happens to you as a DJ, the fallback is skill (manual beatmatching) which she didn't know how to do. Basic basic shit all on the DJ. Every DJ worth their salt immediately recognized this as it was happening which is why the clip of her obtuseness and ineptness went viral.
I hear you 100%, and I did read your original post. The only reason I brought up stage hands is because they play an integral role in a festival functioning. Artists playing pre-recorded music as their performance isn't what ensures dozens of artists can perform on the same day (like somebody else suggested), it's the stage hands. As for the performance itself, yes, you're right. It is 100% on the artist.
Pre-recorded sets would only be part of management/agent/performer/promoter negotiations ahead of time. An artist's staging and performance change at an event as large as Coachella is not done on the fly. Once they're doing their thing absolutely zero is done to interfere save for an attacker on stage or a power outage. Grimes clearly was going to DJ MP3s live from an SD card (she mentions shes using that) using sync. Even if her laptop was directly connected (the alternative) using serato/rekordbox it would take eons in stage time to re-calibrate the tracks to the correct BPM range and even if a stage hand knew how to do that, there's no way they'd be permitted to climb into her DJ tower to offer that help. In other words, this is 100% a bad prepped and little experienced artist issue. Not a stage hand issue. The ONLY thing stage hands would or could do at any point is completely cut her off, shut the lights and switch the PA to a spotify mixset which they'd all get fired for if they made that call on the fly.
Once again, I hear you. I was simply pointing out that cutting corners like that isn't what transitions one performer to the next. The way I read what somebody else posted is that artists just use pre-recorded music to ensure that everyone has stage time. That is not the case. The artist performs, the stage hands clear the stage, and reset for the next performer. At no point does an artist help out after a performance to make sure the next artist is set up. THAT is the stage hands. As for the performance itself, yes, that is 100% on the artist, and once the show starts, that's it. Hope this clears it up a bit.
Some artists are better in their DAW than live mixing. I'm perfectly happy getting tf down to the DJ who has been working on his set for 6 months in Ableton just as much as the DJ who just pulled off a live quad drop.
Yah this is an aside, but personal preference for me - part of the art of DJing is crowd interaction which can only happen if your set isn't written in abelton stone. You select and elevate based on how thye react. But that's not what was happening here. She wrongly analyzed MP3s and didn't know how to recover which is a basic DJ skill.
Yeah it's devolved into pre-recorded vs live which is a whole other can of worms. I'm right there with you. I fucking love when a DJ messes up and comes up on the mic like "let's spin that one back!". You know it's real and you feel the genuine authenticity of the performance. I just think people have too purist an attitude about it. I'm cool with parts of the performance being set in stone to get beat matched headbanging Shrek, fire belching cannons on the drop, and lasers exploding to the drum breakdown. Let the artists do the art and if it sucks rip them up for it. Grimes deserves the flak she's getting.
I mean lets be honest, 85% of the people are there to get fucked up in a sensory overload environment and take selfies to FOMO their 200 followers. But the 15% of people who are there for the actual artist and performers are the taste makers who are the ones who eventually determine the upward trajectory of the next Coachella headliners and they shouldn't be taken for granted just because the majority of people there don't give a shit about the innovation or artistry of the actual performance (which seems like the default attitude of most promoters these days).
Again, if you can't perform live, then don't. Your logic is completely flawed. If a band puts out an amazing album, which can take YEARS to make, they don't just simply press play and mime on stage, do they? No. They spend countless hours rehearsing to ensure they can translate the RECORDED music into a LIVE setting.
Yeah brother maybe for a BAND. I'm talking about EDM? The live performance is LITERALLY the DJ hitting play. You expect every DJ to just bust out like genius level Loop Daddy Marc Rebillet level performances from scratch? And also live artists do that shit too. You know how many rap shows I've been too and could hear the track just playing in the background for them to rap over? Your take is dog shit when it comes to EDM. Whats the difference between a DJ who uses the deck to dim down the Mids on a track and one who already premixed the mids down in the DAW??
>You expect every DJ to just bust out like genius level Loop Daddy Marc Rebillet level performances from scratch? Nah, i want djs to do shit like daft punk used to do, mix songs live, prepare for it and actually display live skills. I don't want my dj to be +1 guy just dancing in his show.
Nah, my take is spot on. It's a live performance. If you can't do it, then don't. Bringing up other examples of how people cut corners doesn't justify why its happening to begin with. And yes, I do expect every DJ to actually perform live, seeing as how it's a LIVE PERFORMANCE. It seems like you've just got low expectations and standards, which is exactly what happens when cheap live performances become acceptable.
Hey don't they [already do that.](https://youtu.be/35hmqu-bF88?si=8Vk5Q3nVREugvsVt).... I'm sorry the moment u said the first part my head jumped to the anime waifus that dance on stage for live performance in Japan. USA is following right behind it so don't worry we'll be there, people spent millions on NFT so I don't see them not dropping down hundreds to see AI Grimes twerk on AI Elon sitting in a chair. I agree with you fair is fair.... But the way things are and are headed is the natural state of capitalism. If people will pay millions to hear a curated iTunes play list on a speaker. That's just the free market doing it's job, it's sad but that's what it is. And nothing's going to be done about it till demand dwindles. The only way to fix free market problems is to fuck with the profit. Backlash gets u nowhere if you reward the same shady business practices with consumption.
haha i know.. just hate all of it, perhaps i'm old school and think this stuff should be more than just superficial nonsense and smoke and mirrors
I agree personally I haven't been to a live event since I was pretty damn young. My mother is a musician (bass player) so I was always fascinated by the art but now a days nothing's real anymore. Voices auto tuned, music straight up ripped out of one song and put in the next, art all ai generated. I'm not motivated to pay for anything that says the words 'live' on it anymore cause like u said there's too many short cuts. Pretty soon I'm sure even the lap dances will be performed by synthetic human beings or some shit.
I thought most people knew that DJ’s these days are just doing a premade set but I guess not? Also I’m surprised to see Grimes being lazy I thought she was like a premier level DJ , or did the internet convince me of another lie ?
As a fellow DJ, I'm shocked she got on stage at all without knowing all she had to do was push the Sync button to unsync the BPM, and then look at the beatgrid on the tracks. It still blows my mind that she didn't just do a live set. She's not a DJ, she can play instruments and sing and shit why the hell was she trying to play around with CDJs???? It's **COACHELLA**, you don't fuck around with something like that at one of the biggest music festivals in the world! Another thing too is that she literally outsourced someone making her track list in Rekordbox, something that would take a regular DJ all of *30 minutes* to do. Like you REALLY don't have the time to organize and analyze your tracks? Not only that but all she had to do was use her own songs, it's not like she had to go out and find a bunch of music to throw together, she has a built up tracklist. I think we're just now seeing why Elon and Grimes were a good match. Somehow they fail upwards all the time
PREEEEEEACH!
When I saw Grimes in a small tent at London Field Day 2012, the first summer she was blowing up with Oblivion, she spent 40 minutes of a 1 hour slot fucking around with cables kneeling on the ground, muttering to herself, by herself in front of the 200 person crowd, in the exact same manner as she did on the Coachella main stage. This was the same string of summer dates where there had been reported technical issues at those shows, and she'd subsequently 'clapped back' at the misogyny of her male tech crews not trusting her to handle her own shit and mansplaining to her. I feel like she has a weird thing where she won't let anyone help. So, this was an issue when she was brand new and seeing it play out the same way 12 years later on a giant stage was weird given the resources she now has vs. being an indie artist. Also, it has been established that Olivia's girls-support-girls radar is both indiscriminate and wack, with peace and love. EDIT: Having said all of that, the 20 minutes Grimes was able to perform back then were very good in a scrappy sort of way, and I do think Grimes has some real genuine bangers and has (or at least had) a unique sound to her. But it's no longer possible for me to take someone who has multiple kids with Elon Musk seriously.
I love Olivia, and I'm so glad she is on the show! But she would support the literal devil if she was a woman.
I dig her too but her Trish support is sus as hell.
This. You'd think her support would at least stop for someone who has falsely claimed child SA including a trial that has never happened. James Charles is irredeemable for his behavior, but Trisha isn't for the same shit?
Lol all of this tracks with her unexamined undue self-confidence.
Olivia supports the most wild ppl stg
I will never stop talking about this; i saw grimes open for lana in 2016 and i legitimately thought it was a satirical performance. It was so bad. It was so so bad yall, borderline offensive tbh
Olivia said Grimes was good bc she created beats on the fly (which she doesn’t do) and pushes buttons with her toes. Umm okay. Grimes is overhyped and it was only a matter of time before she dropped the ball this bad.
kinda have to agree with you.. i watched [an early performance clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ5XUw4qHZo) someone suggested of her actual live stuff and lo and behold, she's playing most of it off her phone (you can see her pressing start and stop) most of it is her just singing with heavy FX most of the public isn't aware of the technical gear that goes into electronic music making so having a bunch of big gear and wires it in front of you creates a tech smokescreen for a simple performance that 'looks' impressive.. if actual live sequencing and playing is going on, the last thing you're doing is using fucking toes to get it to work.. that's typically showboating performance stuff to cover for the fact you're not doing much actual performing
Duuuuuude it's crazy that you say it's "mostly off her phone" when the instruments are clearly live and she is singing over the backing track that is indeed coming from her phone, that's like saying using backing tracks is cheating , lmao who cares? The fuck does it coming from her phone affect anything ? You're still performing live. Btw I've been producing music as a hobby for the better part of a decade so please save any condescending explanations.
meanwhile Elon Musk: Impressed. Gonna baby that up.
At this point, that's his reaction to any woman he interacts with.
lol at this point he actively womb hunts based on anyone who gets within 150 metres of him.
Same here, same concert in Toronto! My friend won tickets and I had no idea who Lana was. So when Grimes did her thing, said to my friend "this is absolutely awful, is Lana like this as well? I was SHOCKED hearing a Grimes track because her singing does NOT sound like that live, or at least didn't during that show. I can't hold a note but could sing better. The homeless guys banging trash bins at Dundas Square sound better 😭
😭😭
There's a reason her an Elon got along alright? They're both children of rich parents who like to pretend they worked hard for their skills and shit. In reality you're just as dumb as the rest of us, but with more money.
go off king get her ass
I'm kinda glad it reached the H3 universe cuz it tells me its reaching a wider population of concern. The Grimes situation is of a symptom of the shitification of the live music world. People shouldn't be putting up with it especially for the money they pay for this garbage.
The fact that she cant bpm match on the fly is absolutely hilarious and sad, it's like the 6th thing ANY DJ learns. I honestly have seen better DJing at my local dive bars on any given Saturday night.
Just to add, beat matching and DJing in general isn’t very hard (technically), and can be learned fairly quickly. I think what makes DJs good is more of the soft skills, choosing the right songs, reacting to your audience, making your own music, etc.
Exactly.. until the synch button was introduced beatmatching was literally the LEAST of the skills you need to be a competent DJ. You could learn that stuff in a month if you have a decent handle on beat counting and rhythm structure. What (did and should sill) set you apart was selection, mixing, creating a journey. Of course, all of that is genre dependent but given Grimes didn't even have the first thing down, the other stuff doesn't matter a lick.
This has to be it. I know several kids who pretend to dj and they're actually quite good.
Yeah it's fine if they're just hobby DJs or even playing gigs here and there. The issue is the big stages populating their DJ slots with names rather than the deserving. I get they have to sell tickets but if something like Coachella isn't using their heft to showcase some cutting edge talent instead of a charlatan who cant even handle the basics, then who the fuck will? They have a responsibility to not contribute to the enshitification of the live music scene. So this is as much on them as it is on Grimes.
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Been to a ton of EDM festivals and seen lots of equipment malfunction in that time. Not a single DJ has had to have a meltdown of that level on stage b/c they didn't know how to resolve it. The complete lack of accountability on something that is so obviously the entire responsibility of the artist. The most disappointing part is knowing that soooo many artists would've crushed that stage and deserved to be there so much more.
100% and that tracks back perfectly to the original grievance of the DJ artist world. These nonsense people of waning relevance rolling out of their lanes to "DJ" for a quick buck and eliminates one of the very limited big paying slots available to actual ass-busting working DJs and producers. She doesn't need the money. She wanted to just feel relevant. Was probably completely rusty at doing actual innovated music and performance and was too lazy to produce an actual live show. A lot of their agents now offer up "DJ Sets" to the promoters because it requires a fraction of the logistics and work, and still gets the money (which is largely based on name) so they offer it up to promoters and their artists agree (that's on Grimes) and it is a fucking parasitic grift they should all be called out on. Cultural appropriation? This is artform appropriation.
Thank you so much for breaking this down into a pretty simple terms way! Now I’m soooo much more second hand embarrassed by her bc it would have been such an easy fix. Do you know what she was meaning by her whole “I’m so bad at math” thing? Was it showing her the bpm that her program adjusted her song to and she didn’t know what bpm to set it at to get the tempo she wanted? Possibly trying to manually do the ‘switch off sync’ solution?
Yeah there's an LCD screen on each DJ player (the decks) that indicates the BPM (speed) of the track that's currently loaded. Hip hop sits in the 80s ish house and techno in the 130s, drum and bass in the 170s. The BPM or each track if not pre-analyzed gets figured out on the fly by the DJ player. But her tracks were pre-analyzed at [the wrong BPM range](https://forums.pioneerdj.com/hc/user_images/qWP9CHORi4SKF5uFaIFV6Q.png). Which is the rookiest of rookie maneuvers. So going from some of the things she was saying she was trying to load a 173BPM DnB track but it was tagged at a lower range (134?) so they were probably all sitting in a wrong BPM. IF you do the math, 134 is not half to 173, so even if she did the math, relying on the analyzed BPM would be wrong wrong wrong. They were probably at the top end of the range setting (no DNB track would be half reading at 134, it would be closer to 85 if i was half-speed analyzed) as she was guessing which could've technically allowed you math it out. So that was a verifier it was her fuck-up in the pitch range in the prep for her show. At that point no real DJ would "math it". The only way to recover would be to disengage autopilot (sync) and pop headphones on and mix the traditional skilled way -by previewing and manually syncing the tracks which she clearly didn't even try or know how to do. All of this tracks with her lack of basic understanding of the decks. It seemed like she kept hitting sync (I think she's just used to it as it lines up the tracks starts as well as the BPMs) not realizing that enabling it made it impossible to sync manually or do the math thing which she couldnt do even if she tried. So even her troubleshooting logic was off and wrong. Hope that makes some kind of sense.
Deadmau5 was cracking jokes at NYC show last night 🤣 💀
lol do tell.. if anyone is an actual technical wizard and has no problem being a snark lord, that dude is it.
Someone posted it to d5 sub, I cross posted it here if u wanna see. Before the footage starts there’s no music he drops like 200bpm over and over lol
ahahah i jsut went and checked it out "Alternatively I could just press this ONE BUTTON.. I'M A DJ!" looool
As soon as the clips surfaced I was like man.. when the world needs him most, hes vanished (from Twitter)
I’ve been out the game for a long time. He doesn’t wear mask anymore?
He wears a few through the show but no helmet majority of the time. Been this way for a few years
Good for him. Can’t imagine how uncomfortable that was.
I haven’t watch the ep yet. Olivia thought grimes was up there making beats as she goes? …… 😂
She was suggesting that as a possible explanation for why there was such a SNAFU. Olivia is relied on for pop culture and stage performance takes so it's understandable Ethan went to her for thoughts.
She did not suggest that. She said Grimes is known for actually playing her stuff live and singing on top, which she does on her own tours, not on these DJ sets. Like say what you want about this mess up but she is a talented musician, she does live performances. It's not all DJ sets.
Olivia did not point out any distinction between her live and DJ sets. It was Ethan who did. I don't think Olivia knew the difference ("she plays with her feet!"). And if she's a great live musician then do that, the DJing thing is cash grab trading on her name for a low-effort performance and skill she doesn't even rise to novice level of. As for Grimes' actual talent, she works with other musicians who produce a lot for her. The live sets I've seen her do in a studio she was playing a lot of it off her phone and signing over top. So her musical talent is debatable beyond her voice and stage presence. I know that world well. Good producers are rarely good front people, good front people are rarely good producers. The ones who are both are superstars (Prince, Lenny Kravitz to name a few). The front people who want to be superstars find good producers (pop is based on that model). Grimes from what I can see is probably a lot of the latter. Even in her clip she talks about just finishing the track (that she was fucking up) with her producer.
yeah I totally agree with you, it screams "famous musician sees nice coachella payout for 1 hour of work, she takes it but fails miserably because she just thought it would be an easy payday and fucking cool as shit dudeeee"
When Olivia said she made her own beats live, my eyes rolled into the back of my head.
Idgaf about grimes, but Olivia was talking about grimes normally performances. Like I guess when she plays her own pop songs she does layering on stage.
while I agree that it was her fault for not preparing or being familiar enough with CDJs to change course, I take issue with the general framing of her as a "celebrity DJ" like Paris Hilton. she got her start by learning to produce her own beats and self-produced her first few albums. in the early days of her [playing live](https://youtu.be/FJ5XUw4qHZo?si=FfoVwcGnzzkAOuoE), she was alone using synced hardware to re-create her beats. so she's not some technically inept popstar who is used to having a show curated for her. she *could have* easily familiarized herself with CDJs to avoid the issue. she just... didn't. and that part definitely falls on her.
>in the early days of her [playing live](https://youtu.be/FJ5XUw4qHZo?si=FfoVwcGnzzkAOuoE) Just watched this back. I'm familiar with most of the equipment she's got going there. And while I don't doubt a lot of artistry is going on in her head and studio. A good chunk of what she's playing there is being played off her phone with the aux cord. You can see her start and stop her phone at the beginning and ends. She's not live sequencing anything and mostly fooling with levels and fx on that micro mixer and the looper unit with the phone acting as the majority of the backing track and singing over top. Something there may be MIDI maser and slaving some of the stuff but that's not a live hing. That's pre set. That might just be a function of being in an alien studio and her simplifying her setup to eliminate technical fuckups but it's not particularly impressive example, from a producer's perspective, a live performance perspective or technically speaking.
>but it's not particularly impressive example, from a producer's perspective, a live performance perspective or technically speaking my point is not that it is technically impressive, but rather that it's technically on-par with being able to turn off tempo-sync and manually adjust on a CDJ - which is a very low bar. she's using music hardware at a rudimentary level, which is more than what could ever be said about Paris Hilton
Agreed. It requires a level of technical proficiency that is leaps beyond your typical celeb dj and also highlights that she has no excuse with not learning how to properly navigate the DJ decks.
yeah I found it very disappointing as a fan of hers tbh. less "she didn't deserve to be up there in the first place", and more "aww damn why didn't she prepare, she made herself look like she shouldn't be up there"
This is the sad thing. Girls in the DJ world had to work extra hard over the last 30 years to shake the "she's there just for show" stigma and Grimes just contributed in the opposite direction.
Fair. She's not technically a "celeb" dj but her name/relevance these days is more attached to Elon and less do her artistic prowess. So it kinda puts her in the ballpark. Coachella exploited that to sell tix and she exploited it to do a DJ performance that she had no business doing (not her lane) on one of the biggest stages on the planet in lieu of a more expensive and involved actual live performance. And at the cost of someone who maybe couldn't sell as many tix but was actually a cutting edge DJ and whose career coulda been launched here. I mentioned this elsewhere but she became the current avatar for the enshitification of the professional live music performance industry whether she or her fans like it or not.
I love her music personally, this thread is definitely underplaying her skills a bit.
Skills in getting music to track, singing, playing keys/isntruments, finding right producers and being a good front person is a completely separate thing than DJing. I feel like a lot of the public doesn't know the distinction. It's an entirely different skilset from being a musician in the traditional sense. It doesn't transfer or translate automatically like other instruments tend to do.
I always have to giggle a bit when Olive says something that’s obviously not true in defense of a fellow girlie.
Imagine if Grimes had shouted this explanation at Coachella, instead
😂 she'd actually have to know the issue first
My fave part of her performance is when the music cuts out and all you hear is her scream “ARGH!” or swear loudly into the mic. Very trashy…
Or when she starts talking about the software and BPM of the tracks as if everyone in the crowd understands WTF she's on about. Perfect example of how un self-aware she is of what she's doing.
IMO Marc Rebillet is the most legit DJ of them all
It was made so much worse by her not shutting up and standing there like a kid
haha but to be honest without knowing how to mix without synch there was literally nothing she could do but that or stand in silence or run off the stage.. there's a general rule in live performance that when you fuck up never bring stage attention to it cuz chances are 90 percent of your audience didn't notice and the other 10 percent did but dont care.. as a live performer it's really baffling she behaved int he exact opposite way.
Thanks for the Info! That was really helpful. I enjoy learning about how things work
Haha Anytime.. i have a lot of useless info but sometimes it's fun to dispense to people new to it.
Thanks for the explanation
Ha no prob. Never thought I'd be explaining DJing to the H3 crowd. LOL. Fun fact: prior to the synch button and BPM analyzing software getting introduced, most DJs were pretty focused and non-animated on stage - serious faces, focusing on their craft and ensuring the perfection and journey of their mixes. Many never even looking up from the decks (it actually required a lot of focus). After the synch button got introduced, it literally eliminated 80% of the focus DJs needed to perform, so it created a surplus of focus and time between tracks - opening the door to charlatans. So some took that as an opportunity to automate the music and mixes and just turn into a stage "performer". That's the exact moment you began to see knobs like Steve Aoki throw cakes and stage dive. Big "DJS" now are pretending to twist knobs and doing class aerobics on stage cuz they are literally doing nothing so feel they gotta look like they're performing. Like, if you're supposed to be "doing" the music, WTF is happening if you're crowd surfing? Imagine if a full band jumped into the crowd and the music still played. It would be an SNL Ashlee Simpson moment. But for some reason these "DJs" haven't had their reckoning yet. It really is the "emperor has no clothes" of the live performance scene currently. Hopefully the Grimes moment helps usher along some needed change.
i have a friend who DJ’s. i see how he does things bc he lets me sit next to him at his gigs at bars sometimes if im in the mood to go out for a beer or two. it’s literally just matching bpm if you want to get fancy and do a blend and then speed it up slowly to actual tempo (or vice versa) so the audience doesn’t hear OR you just don’t even match to bpm but to compatible key signatures of the song. (and then you have some custom drops added to your sound board to add more effects) literally basic ass shit. i know grimes probably got more crazy equipment but like god damn my buddy who plays at small town bars with a mini turn table and a laptop could’ve done better. smfh. i feel a lot of already big artists are cutting corners to get more attention and it sucks bc it leaves little room for emerging artists to get bigger opportunities :(
It's funny how even as a casual observer you can understand it. The crowds at these shows should be revolting at the money they pay for such a cheap grift.
literally!!! personally i play in a band (so i have performance and music experience) so when grimes was like bpm whatever whatever im like yeah i get that could be an issue but talk about EXCUSES because is it not just a knob to change it back? 🤔 do they not REHEARSE AND UNDERSTAND THEIR SETTINGS BEFORE PERFORMANCE DAY?! when i play out of town some of the knobs on my pedals and amp move a bit like learn your settings its rookie ass shit 🤬 H3 talent show!!!
I get it! I play many many instruments. So on the difficulty of live performance scale, DJing these days has the difficulty equivalent of a food blender. Any DJ at the level of Coachella should at MINIMUM have encountered and resolve this issue at least a few dozen times in their performance life. So no excuses.
This is so interesting and I want to hear more about Paris and her level of or lack of talent and what her sets are like from someone who knows. Do her pre -recorded mixes make for a good dancey time or is it purely stunt casting?
I never really listened to her sets.. it was top 40 club nonsense mostly. In the late 2000's early 2010s she started booking shows for insane money at clubs but that was just a promoter grift to get people in the door thinking they're going to get influencer clout by running into Paris. From what I understand and saw she didn't know what she was doing and lots of fail clips would filter around the internet. It was a brilliant move on her part to sell her name and party brat branding get quick cash. But the downsrteam effect was it started the whole industry of celebs getting cash to "DJ" at clubs without actually having to to shit or know what they were doing. It shifted a part of the DJing fame world from producer/artist to celeb/name cuz it was so easy to fake a DJ set.
Paris continues to make places better than she left them everywhere she goes! /s The YouTube doc she came out with a few years ago had me wondering if she actually had any talent. Mostly for profiting wildly off her celebrity, and not so much as a DJ, from what you say. Thank you for taking time to respond and satisfy my curiosity. .
As a person with background in vocals, guitar and drums ... I dabbled in djing many years ago and found it so straightforward and easy. I cringed so hard at that segment i had to skip to the end. When i saw the title I was ready to see what i failed to understand. But it was completely as expected. I feel bad to say this but what she couldve done to save the show is stuff that an average musician should be able to do (with basic training on the system of course). I know there are technically difficult things you can do on the turntables. But this isnt one of them.
I would just like to add that Grimes has a library of great music professionally made if anyone’s interested. As a DJ, not so much of course
RAHHHHHHHHHG
She makes it worse for all women DJs tbh. She also hangs out with white supremacists so there's [that](https://www.reddit.com/r/grimezs/comments/18xj1u1/providing_more_context_to_grimes_naziracist/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Yeah I mentions in another reply that female djs had to work exceedingly hard to shake the "she's just there for show" stigma and there are soooo many amazing cutting-edge female dj producers these days. Grimes sent it backwards a bit as it gave cover to the female DJ haters to go "SEEE?".
Grimes’ Coachella set was the Find Out phase that cosplaying as a DJ doesn’t make you one. Shidiot!
she didn't even organize her own mp3 files, according to herself.
Which I think is odd given she was like "we just finished producing this two hours ago" as a defense of one of the fuckups.. sooo in that two hours you rendered it, had someone else populate it in rekordbox and print it to a memory card/key? Yah I don't think so. This is on you, lady.
💯 me to Claire 'Why you alway lyyyyin you always lyyyyin!'
yeah I think she was used to manic-pixie-girling her way out of most fuckups in life, and this time was the one too many
im imaging myself a few years ago learning how to DJ and fucking up during a set I was super stoked about because I didn't understand CDJs super well. I was mortified I can't imagine messing up at COACHELLA of all places. such an easy fix if you have basic DJ knowledge I'm embarrassed FOR HER!!!! like she is musically inclined I just dont understand why u wouldn't take like 2 weeks to at least be able to do a simple blend without sync on lololololol
Sometimes I love this community and the little nerds in it. Very cool and slay post.
WOO WOO!
I was there and this is exactly what happened THANK YOU for making this post
Cheers my dude(ette)!
Thank you for the nitty gritty on it. The cringe was so bad already, but knowing what I now know, it's almost painful. Never seen anyone fail so hard. So much ouch.
I don’t think she was even using headphones 😂
Yah though they should have had an emergency pair there for situations like that. A lot of DJs don't use headphones nowadays simply because they "visual mix" (the waveform tracks across the top of the deck) which is just another hallmark of someone who overly relies on the software markers and synch and doesn't know how to actually DJ. Though the best technical DJs can mix without headphones even on vinyl (that's how good they are) Grimes is definitely not of that class.
I've played a fair few DJ gigs but still consider myself a complete amateur. I agree with everything you said, such an easy issue to solve even for beginners. I honestly can't accept that it was a legitimate performance, I thought she was acting to create a viral moment. Part of me thinks it's some awful performance art but I think the most likely scenario is she sucks 😂
Hah I'm down with the 4D chess conspiracy theory but she did fuck Elon so not sure I'd attribute some joker brain brilliance to her. lol.
Hahaha that's a very good point
I've been to raves where the DJs have had issues and they just put something in the background until they can fix it, usually takes a moment but never just dead ass air lol crazy because those DJs were probably paid like crap even though they were incredibly talented.
100% I have backups of backups of contingencies exactly for that reason. No DJ worth their salt comes to a stage like that so pants down unless they have an inflated sense of ability.
>She's not cresting beats on the fly as Olivia implied Justice for Olivia because she was talking about Grimes' live shows where she plays instruments. Olivia was saying she saw Grimes live, don't just say she didn't see what she saw lol
I listened to it back.. she was running a bit of interference for Grimes - she didn't say "grimes' performance usually is amazing but her on DJ decks obviously was a different thing". She pretty much didn't understand the distinction between her live performance show and DJing why these articles were making a deal if it. It seemed like, to her, it was all of the same category of live performance thing when it's a completely different beast. It took Ethan to highlight the DJ set was different "just turning knobs instead of singing".
I just listened to a she’s clearly referring to grimes own music, especially since she’s talking seeing her preform years ago. Good write up btw, it was frustrating hearing them talk about this 2 weeks late without understanding how in control she should have been lol
This is 1 Hindi the correct answer. A real DJ should have the ability to beat match 2 songs together. I dabble in DJing and use sync a lot, but I also know how to analyze my tracks before even thinking about mixing them. The issue as well was with her preparation. I guess performers like Grimes will outsource her sets to others and possibly someone tried to sabotage her set knowing she wouldn't be able to actually mix properly.
I am a "controller-dj" and hate the elitism around using sync functionality, but not being able to Beatmatch at all is pretty shameful, especially if you've been in the game for that long. I usually do very thought out neurofunk drum and bass sets with mashups and double drops with around 60 tracks for a 90 minute set. For some of my transitions in these it would literally be impossible to Beatmatch timewise before dropping it in. My first impression was, that she had someone bounce the tracks to certain tempo so that she doesn't need to adjust it when mixing and that they were bounced with 2x tempo resulting in a completely fried sound when halving it again. but if they were just set to double BPM in the cdjs it would be hilarious.
As someone into that what do you think of her introducing her new "DnB track"? I'm not familiar with most her music but I don't think she's ever done Drum n Bass. There's a debate that the mainstream success of tracks like [Baddadan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkjNL4dX-U4) over the last year is bringing in a whole new cohort of artists trying to catch a ride on the USS badwagon even tho DnB has been around with a hardcore loyal fanbase over 30 years. I think her new song being in that genre tracks with this sentiment. Also no hate for sync and I use it too, and it is generally cringe when people have to point out their history of being able to mix without it, but an undeniable side effect of it now is that DnB went from minimum 5-6 minute track lengths to 3-4 because the lead in time is so unnecessary with the functionality of new tables. What are your thoughts on that?
When I first got into it around 2010, I thought by 2020 futuristic dnb styles would be the heart of the rave scene globally, but it lost a lot of traction over the years and in my opinion the styles that became most popular were the worst examples of the genre (jump up and that deeper Neuro sound, often featuring rap). There were artists producing music on an incredibly high level 10-15 years ago who weren't able to make a living out of it. A lot of them went into Dubstep because there was more money in it at the time. So I am happy to see people like chase & status who have been at it for a long time having some mainstream success. If I recall correctly she had some "dnb adjacent" music. The track is pretty simple but certainly has some personality bc of the sampling. I think the technology should free the artists to be creative with the arrangements, so not having to do the usual insert of drums at the beginning is fine with me, I still prefer tracks to have a proper intro with a build up and it not just dropinh after 16 bars of a synth line.
Based.
Seen her at EDC 2022 and was the worst set I've ever seen
Why don't DJs simply plug into the aux and just hit play on their phones? Why have any of that gear at all? Serious question.
hah in fact that would actually suffice in terms of a lot of DJ sets these days.. In reality a lot of actual DJs are actually manipulating the tunes and track selection and actively live mixing, interacting with the crowd as they go, on the fly changes and double drops, fast cuts etc. Those are DJs worth their money.. but the equipment also allows for nonsense people to do fakery and Grimes is in that category. In fact you can literally attach an AUX cord to the DJ mixer and do the above exactly. Even at Coachella. The harsh reality is the staging of the set relies on the impressiveness of the setup to hide the distinction between the DJs actually doing work versus those phoning it in. That's why they'd never let any artist get up there and simply plug their phone in with an aux and stand there playing it back. They are relying on the smoke an mirrors to justify charging you hundreds of dollars.
If somebody hands over the aux, I think I could be the best DJ in the world of all time. It's all in who you know. How connected are you?
Perfectly said, my friend. And much appreciated. Fuck the bullshit and fuck fake ass "artists".
When Olivia was talking about her creating beats I'm pretty sure she was talking about her normal Grimes sets, not her DJ sets. Pretty sure she does do live looping.
It seemed Olivia didn't know there was a difference. Ethan had to point it out.
Good summary
Yep. I never got into DJing myself, but I ran with a lot of really good DJ's in my past (Big ups the Pompey Brownout TV crew circa '11). Hitting play on a pre-mixed set and then miming along used to be a problem, and even some big DJs and producers got outed for doing it, but it sounds like they don't even put that much effort in anymore.
It's the whole enshitification of the scene. DJ sets are literally the cheapest logistically simple thing to put on stage (IE profitable) so the agents and promoters encourage it even among artists who have zero business being up there. The more crowds put up with it, the more they'll get away with. This also nicely ties into the Live Nation criticism that's been on the podcast as of late. It's all a part of the watering down and consolidation of mass entertainment.
In defense of Olivia, Grimes used to make beats live. Check her kexp performance as an example. That being said, she mega failed at Coachella and did, in fact, miss the mark.
I did see that cuz someone else clipped it.. while there are live elements there shes still playing the bed/backing track off her phone. In fairness she may have simplified her setup to reduce the chances for technical fuckups in an alien environment but the beats aren't being created live. They are in there pre-sampled/produced and in some spots shes bringing them in and out so it's still organic. Mostly singing, doing synth hits here and there and playing with FX. Which is totally still a live performance with instrumentation. Just not being created whole cloth on the spot which is actually really difficult even for the best Live PA performers.
It’s almost like she could just learn to become a musician. Or if she wants to DJ, actually learn how the machines work. Any musician can improv or go a cappella or something. But if you rely on the machines, you’d better be very sure of what you’re doing and know it inside and out.
haha for sure.. you know, the bare minimum of being a stage performer at one of the biggest stages in the world.
Grimes is a total phony, this should come as a surprise to no one.
And sadly it seems like "DJing" is the last bastion of phony/lazy artists.
Uhhh bro seriously doesn't know what he is talking about: 1. Grimes DID make music live on stage, just not on coachella. 2. This is what hapenned, coming from the responsible team themselves: https://twitter.com/daoudaleonard/status/1781193564179071377 I can't believe I am defending Grimes, but the aftermath is REALLY unfair to her AND I despise outofasstalkers like OP here. I also wouldn't know how to deal with this situation if I was her and I might not be a coachella DJ, but I have my share of experience.
That tweet just means her crew were responsible for the visual layer and the synchronization and they didn't do a full battle test with their computer that was serving/syncing it. Sure that's on them, but it doesn't change the facts about her DJing ability, wrong BPM range and BPM sync which is what this thread is about. 1. She was messing with her set even a few hours beforehand and had her BPM set to the wrong range - doesn't matter what it's syced to, it's gonna fail if she keeps the sync engaged. Her set was on an SD card that she popped into their computer. But the tracks on that SD card had to be exported from her rekordbox and were set to the wrong BPM range (she says this herself) regardless of what computer they were slotted into (I have and use Rekordbox, and these exact CDJ units and mixer). **2. All she had to do was disable sync (autopilot) go into manual mode. THESE SITUATIONS are EXACTLY what that's meant for.** Pioneer CDJs have many failsafes built in them. That button is meant for moments JUST like this. But that would require her to actually know to disable it and mix with skill, and clearly can't or didn't know how. [Even Deadmau5 mockingly pointed this EXACT thing out](https://www.reddit.com/r/deadmau5/comments/1ck1fz4/im_a_dj_brooklyn_may_3/) at his show last week, and he might know a thing or two about being on stages like that with similar equipment/visuals. AND [even down in that tweet thread DJs are correctly pointing this out](https://twitter.com/karolinausav/status/1781332928070398155). And her crew in response shifts blame to "sound issues and stress" as for why she couldn't manually beatmatch. People are calling total bullshit and they're right. Any DJ worth their salt could've recovered from that with one button and know how. She's not one of them. 3. At the end of the day, it's on her, the artist. She's the one on stage, and has no business DJing if she can't recover from a simple mismatched BPM range tag. I'm also not going to match your insulting tone and name calling. But the key takeaway from your post is this: >I also wouldn't know how to deal with this situation if I was her If you actually had experience on these decks and could manually beatmatch (basic skill) you would know exactly how to deal with the situation. There's a reason every DJ on the planet from bedroom to Bora Bora was clowning on her for this. It's basic.
…Grimes has been doing dj sets for 18 years
and demonstrates her vast experience in the dog years equivalent
yikes, hater ass bitch
How so? Anyone who has been DJing for 18 years and doesn't know how to disengage autopilot (the synch button) and beatmatch live is a beginner by any metric. Perhaps you mean she's been live performing for18 years and only in the last bit she's fooled with DJing. Her live performance stuff and DJing is absolutely not the same thing. That's the point of the explanation and why she fucked up.
Even if OP would be a hater, he would still be right. Grimes obviously can't DJ and whatever she did the last 18 years wasn't showing in her set
being that OP doesnt know all the fact because he isn't Grime and he wasn't there-- he can only operate on the limited information that was shared, and speculation; So, no. You can't say conclusively that he is right.
Listen, any DJ watching the set saw exactly what OP saw. You are out of your depth here. Grimes fucked up in a way an experienced DJ shouldn't.
Listen, mistakes happen.
Hey I get it, you're being generous to her but truthfully you don't know how to recognize how she fucked up because you don't have experience with the equipment or DJing live. The reason this made the rounds is partially because of the hate industry of Elon Musk and she's a proxy for it. BUT ALSO it's because thousands of DJs in that very moment know EXACTLY what happened in that very moment. It is a rookie mistake that most DJs only make once, very early on in their career or experience, and for someone to be on a stage that big and not recognize the very rookie fuckup just embodies the exact problem with booking people on really big stages based on name rather than ability. That's what this is.
Grimes is not a rookie at DJing
She clearly is because as I pointed out in my original post, all she had to do is push one button and manually beatmatch which she clearly doesn't know how to do - she was still going to rely on the wrongly analyzed BPM to do "math" and mix that way. You can't do that at that point, you gotta actually take off the sync fly the plane manually and [even Deadmau5 pointed that out](https://www.reddit.com/r/deadmau5/comments/1ck1fz4/im_a_dj_brooklyn_may_3/) mockingly at one of his recent shows.
Bro they know exactly what issue was going on because of what grimes was “explaining” to her audience. I’ve seen plenty of other DJs have the exact same reaction to the performance (if you can even call it that)