Carl Cox: “Playing the top 20 Beatport records is too easy"

Three decades into an incredible career and you still won't find Carl Cox taking the easy way out.

In an interview with inthemix, the legendary DJ said he still gets a kick out of making his sets as creative as possible, even if it upsets people trying to find the tracks he plays on Shazam.

He said: "I try not to be seen to be someone that’s just playing the top 20 Beatport records you could buy off the shelf, because that’s too easy.

"When I play, I challenge myself and say, 'Right, you lot, check this out. You haven’t heard this before and I dare you to find out what it is.' You know? And some people get pissed off with me, they kind of get their phones in the air and go, 'Oh, this is really great,' and they’re looking down [at Shazam] and it’s, 'Oh, undefined. Shit.'

"But that’s the reason why you go out: to hear music you don’t hear on MTV, your local radio, or even what’s on the charts. You don’t go to the club to hear that type of music."

Cox, who is taking his Pure parties back to Australia for a second year running in April, also used the country's lockout laws as an example of the government trying to "break down" rave music.

The new Privilege resident added: “We’ve got to fight and rise above this stuff, otherwise we’re going to be indoors by twelve-thirty, one o’clock because they say so? Hell no. There’s so much great music, good DJs and good time to be had, that we still have to fight for our rights at parties.

“This is our time, this is what we’ve bloody fought for from when we started in the early days of rave music when the government wanted to break it down.”

[*V**ia:* inthemix]

[Photo: Uli Weber]