I recently posted up the following to Facebook and got quite a response:

“For me, the vibe at a House music party can often be expressed as a ratio, which is people freely dancing/people facing the DJ.

If the ratio is anything less than one, it’s an event, but it’s not a party.

I think clubs should start putting up curtains in front of the booth and let the music speak for itself. It would stop all that wack theatrical stuff, get people focused on what’s what, and cut out the ‘celebrity DJ’ B.S.”

I’ve been thinking a little more on this, and I think a lot of what went wrong happened around the time that the “superstar DJ” came into play.

It’s a tough one because many of those DJs deserve the respect they are given. Unfortunately, we also live in a celebrity culture where people are conditioned to treat those people as “stars”. This all plays into swaths of people showing up for reasons other than to dance to music, and it puts the DJ above the party in many cases.

Ironically, it’s been good for many financially and career-wise, but I’m not sure it’s been the best thing for the culture.

What do you think?