Quote Originally Posted by SummerOfSam
smooth long mixes show more skill
I disagree. Both long, smooth mixes, and mixes that involve chopping, cutting and scratching are skills in their own right. I don't think you can say, for example, that Sasha is a better DJ than Jeff Mills, as both are huge superstars that made their names in their own way. I agree that transferring your mixing from studio to club involves massive differences, and in that sense I'd say that a DJ that performs long, smooth mixes all the time is probably well experienced with loud systems and different booth setups, but I would be cautious about calling them "more skillful."

"Back in the day" DJ's didn't even have the equipment available to perform smooth mixes, the set ups were crude, but the DJ's were not, they manipulated, chopped, cut and dropped tracks in such a skillful way as to make the performance as seamless as possible - making the music smooth and progressive could only be done by messing with the music so much as to confuse the audience as to what just started, and what just finished. That's a skill in it's own right, and the smoothest DJ in the world may struggle to perform the same way, thus their skills may be said to be lacking.

It all boils down to personal taste at the end of the day - I know people that cannot stand (even a good DJ) chopping the music up - they just want the music to play.

As for the initial post, I can kind of understand why crowds prefer the manipulation - it's a pretty common thing now. But at the end of the day, it makes things more exciting when done well - I always used to love the whole "unnatural sonic discordancy" with DJ's such as Mills and May chopping and generally animalistcially pogoing through music in a way that just didn't make any sense at all, and it's those dark messy moments that have the greatest effect on the dancefloor - the crowd just simply don't know what's going on.

Overall, I think it's just representative of how the scene has changed over the years, and a good DJ is a good DJ regardless of their style - so long as the music is good, nothing else matters really (except soundsystem, crowd, venue, how easy it is to get home etc etc :lol: )