Sunday, November 18, 2007

Rappers Suffering from Deadly GDS

Question A: Why is it that when a DJ used to get a record from an artist it almost always had an engineered and radio quality sound, but now 75% of what DJs get acoustically sounds like crap? Answer: GDS

Question B: Why is it that DJs currently receive more new music submissions per day than they did per week only a few years ago? And even then, still receive fewer hit potential songs per week? Answer: GDS

Question C: Why is it that the average “Hit” album only has 2 “Hits” on it, and consumers are more interested in downloading a single versus buying an album? Answer: GDS

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m going through a stack of about 100 CDs handed to me one night (yes ONE night) at a music industry networking event. After listening to the first 20 songs or so, I’m angry at the amount of crap I’ve been handed and told that it was “that next hot shit”. Besides the fact that in twenty songs from twenty different artists they all had the same subject matter (money, cars, hoes, drugs), my biggest upset was the quality of the recordings. Now behind me is a wall of records with hits and misses from various artists ranging from the 70’s to early 2000. Of those records, I guarantee absolutely none of them sound acoustically as bad as any of the ones that I am subjected to listening to today.

What do I mean by acoustically bad? At some point the records behind me were a) recorded in a studio with quality equipment, b) mixed by someone with mixing experiences, most likely a professional, c) tweaked by an engineer, and d) mastered by a professional. The songs that I am critiquing now sound as if they were recorded on the cheapest microphones with no signs of an audio professional assisting with the mix down, engineering, or mastering. Yet somehow, these artists have created songs, pressed it (to CD) and are mass distributing it to the public by hand and over the internet. No, I’m not amazed by the process; technology is one of the greatest things that has happened to the music industry. I’m amazed at how even though artists CAN record a song and distribute it to the masses without anyone else’s opinion, that no one has told them that they shouldn’t! Sure you can debate me with a YouTube/Soulja Boy story, but even then I’ll tell you that he didn’t have commercial success until someone stepped in to make the song sound better than it did when he recorded it himself (believe me, I heard the distorted original.) OH WAIT, MAYBE I’M MISTAKEN….are all of these CDs just DEMOs? Demo, what the hell is a demo you ask? In case you forgot, the demo was the best recording that a struggling artist could make in order to give to a label executive that may possibly give them a deal and put them in a real studio. If these are all demos, fine, I ain’t mad at ya for the crappy recording. Just don’t expect major label treatment (club play, radio play, etc) when you have “demo” quality.

Which brings me to this sickness that has plagued the rap segment of the music industry; I call it GDS or Gatekeeper Deficiency Syndrome. Artist are jumping the gun and distributing their work to the world without checking with any of the Gatekeepers! Here come the lashings….don’t worry I can take it. Why do we need Gatekeepers you ask? Gatekeepers help you keep from distributing your unprofessional/rough demo to the world before you are ready to be heard. They help keep you from spending your entire budget recording and promoting an album all year that is not worthy of an old-school cassette walkman speaker, let alone a radio broadcast. I guarantee out of this stack of 100 CDs with poor recordings, 10 of the groups have wrapped promotional vehicles and thousands of dollars spent on promotional material like flyers, CDs, and posters.


To understand how this disease is ravaging the industry and why artists NEED Gatekeepers, let me give you some examples of whom some the Gatekeepers are (somewhat from the bottom up):

  • The Ears (producers, mixers, engineers that say whether or not the music “Sounds” right)
  • The DJs – People who (are supposed to) have an ear for good music and give honest opinions about bad music
  • A&R Execs – People who filter out the good to find the best. Then take those and develop them into a complete package both musically and visually
  • Executive Producers – those that make sure that the music has all of the right elements before presenting it to the public (tracks, writers, quality recording, etc)
  • Other Label Execs – whoever cuts the check when and only when all of the gatekeepers below him think that it’s time to “push the go button” on a project.
  • (Notice I did not include, your momma, your family, your smokin’ partners, your home boys, or your girlfriend/boyfriend. Trust me, they will lie to you because they care about your feelings more than your career)


I’m a professional DJ/Producer. Despite the fact that I am one of the most progressive and current DJs on the scene, I have been a DJ for a long time (I’m not however ready to admit, how long). I am a Gatekeeper. I care more about your career than your feelings; therefore I am usually labeled as Brutally Honest by my peers. By listening to all of these CDs today I will let a couple through my gate. In my case, that’s FM Radio and Mix CD exposure. The more Gatekeepers who review the music before me, the easier my job is. The more CDs that I and other DJs review, the easier the job for the Gatekeepers after us. Point being, any song that gets past any gatekeeper has proven to be a better song than those left behind and that artist will have a much more successful trip through the music industry.

Artists that suffer from GDS, choose to bypass all Gatekeepers and distribute directly to the public. If you are an artist you’re probably thinking: Yeah I have a right to skip Gatekeepers and go straight to the consumer. However if you think along the lines of being the consumer, how would you feel if you turned on the TV to watch an NBA game and all you saw were a bunch of high school kids who thought in their mind they were as good as Michael Jordon so they decided on their own that they are in the NBA. Or better yet, you go to the doctor and he says “No, I didn’t go to school and no one approved my skills as a doctor, I just got up this morning and decided that I’ve watched enough ER and Scrubs to do what doctors do…so get undressed please.” Do you get it now?


If an artist suffering from GDS does manage to earn a career, it is as short as the money they will make. Don’t get me wrong, an artist can luck up and make a hot song, maybe even without a gatekeeper, but even then, he/she won’t luck up and make a hot album. Can we say “ring tone artist” boys and girls?

Artists take your time. Develop your craft. Seek the opinions of true Gatekeepers. We are here for a reason. Consumers, the next time some new artist hands you a CD or a link to their website that has bad music, offer them this information or simply donate to the National GDS Society to save Gatekeeper Deficient musicians. Now I must go. I’ve got 80 more GDS suffers to attend to.


Written and Ranted by the Honorable Dj Judge Mental
www.DjJudgeMental.com
www.DirtLawRadio.com

Please feel free to re-post this (with proper credit of course) and please respond with your comments on the subject.

6 Comments:

Blogger Dj said...

Peace Judgemental...You have hit the nail on the head with that GDS. I am a Dj as well (Dj L-Boogie,SC's Best Kept, internet/ mixtape Dj (www.thebestjams.com) and I have the same problem. Artist sending me tracks and saying "this is that next sh*t!" Yeah, right. Keep the blogs coming.

November 19, 2007 11:56 AM  
Anonymous DJ Misbehaviour said...

wanted to post on your blog but i can't remember my password for the google account so here it is anyway

I feel you and congratulate you for managing to listen to hours of crap in the hope of finding a few tunes. I can't do it anymnore the cds are all hiding under my bed, which is great until I do yoga and see them just when I am trying to clear my mind!!!

Then of course I check my email and there are hundreds of songs to download. Most of which I know will be rubbish and they are MP3's which sound so horrible when played in a club anyway.

Shame there aren't more radio djs who are taste makers for their genres but then you would have to love music wouldn't you!

Perhaps thats why everyone drinks so much in clubs you would have to. We hear the same music that was on the radio BET MTV all day and then hear exactly the same shit in the club with generally shitty sound! Yawn who wouldn't turn to drink and drugs! LOL

ON a positve note i know there is some good music out there but its lost and i agree we need some kind of filter system so that we do get to hear the good stuff.

Just my morning rant

peace misbehaviour (dj my first party in 1984)

November 19, 2007 1:24 PM  
Anonymous Dale Edwards - Clear Channel said...

I'm not sure how I got on your e-mail list, and generally I blow unsolicited e-mails right outta my in-box. However, I have to say that I'm glad I didn't this time. I, like you, like rap when it's done well. But having worked closely with a hip-hop station for the past 7 years, I've seen my share of really bad stuff come in from really low-budget "artists". Four or five guys who show up at the door of the station without an appointment, but with a CD they burned at home, with no case, nothing written on it, wanting to know if they can borrow a pen and oh yeah, do you have something they can write on? When it's done right, it's tight. But with the advent of technology, everyone suddenly thinks that because they can, they should. So thanks for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. It's good to hear the voice of reason in this business. Keep on 'em.

Dale Thomas
ClearChannel

November 19, 2007 1:26 PM  
Anonymous DJ SouthanBred said...

Judge Mental. I feel you homie.

myspace.com/DJSouthanBred
YouTube.com/DJSouthanBred

November 19, 2007 7:30 PM  
Anonymous DJ Gary B said...

Can I get an amen? Yo judgemental you have spoken the gospel truth about this and I am glad that I am not the only one that feels that way as well. A lot of these artists think that their shit is the next hot shit when it fact it is nothing but hot shit that needs to be pooperscooped and tossed in the garbage. The music has been on a steady decline and like you I hear a lot of music and do reviews and only a few are really and truly worthy of getting by and on to the masses. Everybody it seems is now either a producer or an engineer and they are the ones who are letting this stuff come into contact with the listening public when it shouldn't. I've just about heard it all where individuals (can't call them rappers or emcees) have taken it upon themselves to rhyme just about any and everything that they think should be rhymed about. I've heard rhymes about sunglasses, cameras with clicking sound effect added for clarity as well, spiderman, superman and even a ceiling fan. I shook my head in disbelief at this and wondered what happened and where did it all go wrong. I can certainly understand why Nas said hip hop is dead because it's crap like the above mentioned that has killed hip hop. I literally get hundreds of emails with mp3's from all over some of them sound decent enough to get spins on my show and the rest I just delete but it does take time to download and listen to at least a few minutes of it just to see what the artist is all about and usually in the 1st minute if the beat or the lyrics don't hit me it gets deleted. Every song all sounds the same, the industry needs to get away from that cloning shit because if it worked for one artist it don't mean it gonna work for the next and that is the perception that every wanna be has out there that they gotta sound like the next jim jones or diplomat or the next fab or soulja boy. Nobody and I mean even the big names aren't bringing anything consistent to the table anymore, it's the producers who are shining now more than the artists so basically the producer's beats is carrying the artist now. Where are the artists who could bring that heat and have you rewinding the shit to make you say goddamnnn? Not to diss anyone but if you an old school artist you need to stay that way and keep your legacy intact and stop trying to grab that brass ring one last time the shit just ain't gonna work. Has anyone heard MC Shan's new shit? Or what is it with LL trying to be hard now and be a thug? That shit just ain't gonna work just like hammer with that shit a few years ago. Where is blackmoon, where is dead prez, where is all the real talent out there that got shit to say? I've been doing this shit for way too long now to not know what the fuck I'm talking about and I'm sure there are others like me as well who feel the same way. "Not every line an artist says should be a hip hop quoteable"

November 20, 2007 8:56 AM  
Blogger NaturallyAlise said...

That is the best breakdown I have heard regarding the subject. Back in the day not only were there gatekeepers, but there was artist development to mold that artist. Nowadays I go to live shows that are a hot mess, that with a little artist development and tweaking could make them superb. Excellent post.

January 4, 2009 1:25 PM  

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