Top Ten Things DJs Find the Most Annoying
As a part time DJ, I love my hobby. I find a lot of fun in finding new ways to mix songs together in different fashions, and there's little that's more thrilling and euphoric than a crowd going wild when you bring a killer drop in. But when you're a DJ, you'll have to get used to multiple frustrations from the very start of your career. Drunken requests, idiots who think they can do your job, being sprayed with regurgitated vodka, it goes on. So if you're starting out as a DJ, be sure to look out for these annoyances, and meet them with the appropriate responses: either call security or strangle them with the auxiliary cord they so thoughtfully brought.Honestly, these people slowly but surely drive me insane. I had the exact same conversation with someone over this, over the course of a good few hours. I didn't have the song she wanted, and I still had to explain that entirely simple concept to her something like fifty times.
Another time, there was a girl who literally wouldn't leave my side or stop demanding until her song was on. Believe it or not, these people come up to me a lot. Trying to settle someone of this kind of stupidity is like talking to a bed. Imagine that over the course of six hours.
No matter how skilled you are as a DJ, there are some tracks that simply don't mix together without sounding like a mess. At any one time, the beats have to be running at exactly the same rate, the keys of the two tracks have to be similar, and unless you spin the track out, which doesn't always sound nice, you can't change the track instantaneously.
The majority of people don't know the technicalities and think you can put literally any song on top of another. They get impatient and demanding, but the fact is the transition is almost always as short as it needs to be or can be.
What annoys me on top of that is when they declare how much they hate the song that's playing and want you to change it right this second. I'm not going to change the song instantly just because one person in the crowd doesn't like the song, so that idiot can go away for all I care. Literally any DJ will not play every single request they get.
The solid fact is, the DJ won't have every song that's ever existed. But if you don't have a certain song, whether it's a chart-topper or an obscure piece that hasn't been listened to for years, people will go ballistic.
"Are you saying there's NO WAY you can play it?!"
"What kind of DJ are you?!"
Maybe stop treating the DJ like a jukebox, because s/he's got to please more than one person. One song is unlikely to make a difference to the entirety of the event, and sometimes the DJ has to give some of the requests a miss. That's just the way it is. At least try to show some respect.
First of all, DJing requires that the song file that is playing is of high quality, and not just downloaded from YouTube. If I were playing songs off any source, the sound quality would be going from meh to dreadful over the course of the night.
Second, I'm not playing songs just for you, one person out of hundreds that are here, so get your phone out of my face.
Third, bring that auxiliary cord you brought with you for this very purpose anywhere near me and I'll break it. Not joking, I have actually done that to some jerk's auxiliary cord. No DJ I know has ever let someone play a song from their phone. Give it up because it ain't gonna happen.
I think you'll find that your presence has absolutely no effect on the music I play, the support I get from the crowd, or the amount of money I make from this event. Therefore, I don't care if you leave. You don't have to rub that in my face.
DO NOT. CROSS THIS LINE. WITH YOUR ARM.
I can't count the number of times that some moron has come forward, heavily under the influence, and flopped his arm over my mixer. When that happens, either you hear a long and painful vinyl scratch, a sudden disappearance of the essence of the music, or an ear-splitting bang.
It shouldn't take a genius to know that if you put one thing even slightly out of place, you're potentially going to screw up the mix. For everyone.
"This is crap. Play something good." Umm...who are you to decide what's good?
"If you play that, you'll see everyone dancing." What, like they are now?
"What they payin' you for? Anyone can do it!" If you're so sure, try it yourself. Maybe not mid-gig though.
How about you all stop telling me how to do my job, and just enjoy what's playing? If you don't, you can go away, because this gig doesn't bloody revolve around you.
This list brought back memories and made me smile because it is so true. I've got a few friends who are/were DJs and was a longtime party girl myself. I witnessed most of these and can confirm that some people are real jerks, even worse when under the influence.
This one is probably the worst. It happened to my best friend, not on the decks (he was performing live acts) but a full glass of beer on the mixing table. Needless to say, the device didn't like the treatment and crashed. As it was in the context of a rave party for an association that had no insurance, they paid him a bit more than initially planned to compensate a little, but of course not the price of the new one he had to buy.
There is a difference between a mix and karaoke, people. Wake up. Oh, and I'm not letting some random idiot in the crowd make decisions over the music set. There's a DJ for a reason.