2 Many DJs - Convince Me?

2Many DJ's does stand up on its own, though. Someone on a bootleg thread way back when said that they looked on "Dreadlocked Child" as a remix rather than a bootleg, and if you look upon this as a DJing set it does work. As for recontextualising and whatnot... no more than your average mixtape does.

2. It's probably the best way to get into electro, very good track selection in that respect.

3. All your friends will love it.

4. You'll buy it and then realise how foolish you were for thinking it was a gimmick beforehand.

Um, there have been loads of super-eclectic mixes. For years. So much so that the electic mix is kind of a cliche now.

Personally, tho I love 2ManyDJs, I think there's too much electro/techno on it. Even tho I like the electro/techno stuff, it's just more mundane than the bootlegs. Oh, here comes a big acid bassline, etc. Yes, the big acid bassline still gets me excited, but I've heard it a thousand times in the last 12 years. Whereas when they go from Destiny's Child/10cc to Dolly Parton, I feel the rapture.

But there really aren't that many bootlegs on it. Aside from the bootlegs, I think what makes it more special than anything is simply the speed at which they cut up the tracks.

Whereas (to steal another thread), DJ Rupture makes connections that actually haven't been made before, at least in a mix: ragga and splatterbreaks, Timbaland and Arabic music, etc. It sounds new to me. Plus, his stuff is both more hardcore and aggressive and more mellow and atmospheric. And it has pop moments too. DJ Rupture wins.

Soulwax win. It's not so much super-eclectic as ultra-eclectic, it took me a while to get into because it seemed a bit, well, naff. If you're not convinced go for boom selection_issue 01, it's got the original, legally dodgy mix plus bags of other goodies.

Re. the eclectic thing - as I said on that other thread I like 2ManyDJ's eclecticism more for the simple reason that it dovetails exactly w/ my own, which obviously feels 'natural' to me. It feels like the mixtapes I make for myself but ACTUALLY MIXED which I wouldn't have imagined possible. I'll accept that other mixes may 'draw more connections' but 'drawing connections' isn't actually the hardest thing in the world; it's what critics do all the time.

Yes, but it sounds so much better when you actually hear it... Besides, I'm not praising DJ Rupture just for making connections per se, or for any 'concept'... it's more that the actual connections he makes are both original and natural (by which I mean that when you hear them, you think oh yes, that makes complete sense, how obvious, I wonder why no one did it before, it sounds wonderful--in the same way that you do when you hear a good bootleg)... and they happen to make my head feel like its spinning off into orbit... whereas 2ManyDJs is a good party mix; nothing wrong with that, but not quite as exciting.

To put it another way, DJ Rupture created a sound. You hear that mix and it doesn't sound like anything else. He could milk that sound through a whole bunch more mixes (let's hope he doesn't). I don't think 2ManyDJs is quite as unique.

did 2manydjs change music?

the buzzy electro middle third of that mix ended up casting a much longer shadow than the bootleg bits.

so, yes.

no they just popularised mash-ups for indie kids

they came for the mash-ups but stayed for vitalic. practically every buzzy electro-rock band since 2005, the melbourne electrohouse cottage industry, etc is the result. you might not be down with the results but i think it's pretty undeniable the way the sound of that mix has slowly seeped outwards.

wtf happened to vitalic?

What the fuck happened to 2 Many DJs/Radio Soulwax?? Thirteen FLABBERGASTINGLY good mixes over the course of three years, and then... nothing!!

Soulwax died in a plane crash in March 2007.

i like to think he has retired to a villa on the mediterranean, sternly watching passers-by from a deckchair beside the pool. (xxp)

OK for anyone out there who hasn't heard them: All of the 2 Many DJ's AS HEARD ON RADIO SOULWAX mixes are absolute masterpieces and you NEED them in your collection. Go download them right now.

"Good afternoon or good mornign actually it is early I suppose. This is us. We're back. And I thought we'd start with this one."

BBRR-BRRRR BU-BRR BRRBRRBRR BRR-BRR BU-BRRRR! BU-BRRRR!! ("Oooh baby baby! Ba-baby baby!!)

anyone go to despacio in the roundhouse? i was there last night, having heard great reports of previous gigs from basically everyone i know.

i honestly thought it was terrible. the soundsystem didn't seem out of the ordinary, with a few good moments but nothing major. however a bigger problem was the djing - i mean i say djing except this was just as shit as three of your pals fighting to play records when you're 17 or something. there was no coherency, just hopping around the place from track to track, the only cheers were when they happened upon a massive track, eg carl craig's remix of delia and gavin and just let it play for more than two minutes. it got worse and worse and culminated in someone playing "black better" for 70 seconds, which was shite, then turning it off and playing the first 2-3 minutes of jaydee's plastic dreams. and they charged 38 quid for this. literally anyone could do a better dj set.

*black betty" i mean - lol at autocorrect

it was only about half that price in Manchester (the first one they ever did too!) but yeah lots of people we knew left. i liked it but it didn't blow my mind.

38 quid!!! that's ridiculous. i don't have a soft spot for despacio but i do have a soft spot for "black betty" though.

if i was driving and black betty came on i might tap my fingers! i guess it was just the way it was flung into the mix, it really felt like someone taking the piss, and the way it was then mixed away, like basically just volume down, and plastic dreams just emerged for 2 minutes, which was criminal.

it felt like some kind of watershed of crapness that a lot of people still left and thought this was amazing - like all that matters is to have been told that this is a great soundsystem and these people are doing something that is bigger than mere clubbing, when the truth of it is that it's pathetic for a decent soundsystem to be treated like the second coming of christ - and with this soundsystem comes licence to "rediscover" massive hit records which everyone knows, minus the need to mix them. there were a few interesting tunes but the end conclusion was like, lil louis french kiss sounds good on a good soundsystem - the only sense in which it restored my faith in djing was by reminding me how even an okay dj who is trying at least has some basic skills of keeping a dancefloor going.

i think hype factor plays a huge part in how people experience / appreciate events like this.

bam a lam.