A survey conducted among EDM DJs has claimed that 100% of them are purposely using garish and ostentatious lightshows to disguise that their set is pre-recorded and contains sub par pop garbage.
Observers have long suspected that “as the music gets worse and worse” that the light shows tend to get “better, more complex and interesting” but that it’s gotten to the point where the light show is the main attraction in spite of it being “garish and epileptic-fit-inducing”.
“The high watermark of amazing light shows was obviously Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 tour,” claimed the report. “But where that differs from the current crop of light shows or stage displays was that it had some of the most amazing and revolutionary electronic music to back it up – not Zedd.”
“If you go to any club in Berlin, London or any city with a dedicated underground scene, you’ll mostly observe a dark room lit sporadically by a strobe light with perhaps a small amount of lasers,” it continued. “There’s a reason for this – the lights aren’t that necessary when the music is face meltingly banging.”
The report claimed that “you can put any amount of lights onto a typical EDM show to dress it up fancy but it doesn’t address the core problem – which is the music. Shit painted gold is still shit.”
According to the survey this practice is indulged by all of the world’s top selling EDM stars including David Guetta, Calvin Harris and Steve Aoki because “the music, beyond being a spectacle for frat boy ragers with no grasp of club culture, isn’t good enough to stand on its own”.
The study recommended that instead of dressing up they music behind “lasers, ill-advised forays onto the mic, heart hands, clapping and enough smoke machines to stage a Michael Bay film” that the musicians in question should “try to push their productions forward instead of relying on the same cliched tat that can only be enjoyed when people’s eyeballs are stabbed with a million bright lights”.
Its true.. You cant polish a turd… But you sure can roll it in glitter!
Though, comparing underground nightclub lighting to stage lighting is kind of ignorant and ridiculous. Its not the same thing.