not shockingly, i hate shit like this. for simple reasons like “no one type of DJ is inherently better than the other” but also more complicated reasons like “the ‘Open Format’ concept is nothing more than wedding DJ music for the adderall generation”.
i want to be inclusive, but my own biases really start to show when pretty much every interaction i’ve had with anyone who’s claimed to be “open format” seems to really like DJing a whole lot more than they like music.
not sure if this has the makings of a thread, or is just a rant.
here in the states anyway (where the term may have originated? i’m not even sure) it really means pop music (hip hop/r&b/top 40/above-ground classics) all played in a sort of technically quick, hip hop/mashup dj style. loads of blends, never more than one song for a minute or so. lots of cutting, some scratching, loads of use of those multi-colored buttons on the fancy new dj mixers.
Hmmmm… Not bad on 1st listen, but not the stuff of extended listening - at least not based on those track selections. I could imagine this sort of thing working well in a very mainstream bar environment. It’s just a sort of hip-hop inflected approach to pop, I guess.
As for that tweet in the OP, seems ludicrous to suggest that this represents some sort of ‘skill’ (programming? technique??) that house DJ’s are incapable of.
I used to do the open format style of djing (for money, not particularly for love) and i have one of those mixers with the multicoloured buttons.
Luke Una couldn’t do it, no (i don’t know why i am even bothering replying to that idiotic comment tbh) it’s more of a hip hop indebted style of djing as @deepconcentration explained above. Initially it seems to have been popular in NYC with djs like Mark Ronson, Stretch Armstrong, Roctakon, even Eli Escobar was part of that scene. They would play classic disco next to rock, 80s pop, hip hop, party breaks etc… for trendy nightclubs that had a mixed clientele. After the late 00s it became more EDM/commercial hip hop and r&b sound, with a few latin things that were popping off at the time.
Around the mid late 00s a lot of the djs decamped to Vegas to do it in the megaclubs there. DJ AM seems to have been one of the breakout stars of the “scene” if you can call it that.
These days it is more of a numbers game, with the djs trying to just post comments like that as clickbait to annoy people into responding. The “house” he is talking about isn’t going to be Theo/Moodymann, it will just be the continuation of that commercial deep house you got in the early mid 2010s.
The gigs i did in that style were a pain in the ass to prep for, the crowds were big, but bad people, the other djs often seemed vaguely like sexual predators, promoters were janky af.
Honestly as a hard rule i would just avoid anything to do with it, even engaging with the dumbass clickbait tweets like that, those people are broken on a fundamental level and can’t be fixed.
House in this discussion is the Australian fish guy and not Jamie Jones ?
Was at a wedding with a 2 hour high energy (not hi NRG) section of open format. Pro: it seemed to be the only way to get classics from 5/10/15 years ago + current stuff into a set with everyone involved, safe for the 50+ers. Con: there was no reading of the crowd and he didn’t take his foot off the gas once. The only open format mixes I liked so far are created in a studio, not in a club. It’s alsof off limits at outdoor events?
I simply can’t imagine listening to a set like that for 2 whole hours straight - a short 5-10 minute interlude to energise a dancefloor might be fun, but not a whole set, surely…?! I struggle to imagine there being an Open Format ‘scene’ (clubs, events, whatever). Does one exist? Are there particular tracks that are big Open Format spins, or is being ‘big’ a prerequisite for tracks to get played??
So, as to whether or not Luke or anyone else could play in that style, the question for me would be why they might want to (apart from the dosh, of course!). But I suspect that tweet in the OP was intended to be controversial, so perhaps I shouldn’t get drawn in…
I’m sure this is what Soulwax were doing early noughties? Mixing Iggy Pop with Salt ‘n’ Pepa? Segue into a mashup of Destiny’s Child/ 10CC? I quite enjoyed some of it but it’s a bit novelty isn’t it?
Imagine someone trying it at 3am at Lowlife…there’d be a fucking riot…
I can vaguely remember being told how many records one of the techno gods - probably Mills or Hawtin - played in a hour. Like quantity/speed was a good thing…
