Attack of the clones: Copying a DJ's setlist is no substitute for talent

If you have so much as walked past a British nightclub in the past few months, you’re more than likely to have heard the unmistakable rolling cowbells of ‘Rectum’ by Fango. Joy Orbison’s been playing it. Ben UFO’s been playing it. Gerd Janson’s been playing it. It’s become a mainstay of countless DJs’ sets, and it’s a sure-fire way to turn the temperature of the dancefloor up a notch or two. But who played it first? And does it matter that soon every wannabe packing a USB and a black T-shirt will be on it too? Do tunes maketh the DJ?

In the era of Shazam and The Identification of Music Group, it’s becoming easier and easier to pinpoint the tracks played by your peers. What was previously a heavily guarded hidden gem can blow up and become a staple of a number of DJs’ sets at the blink of an eye. For those in the dark, the IoMG is a closed Facebook group where clubbers put up shoddily shot videos of DJs playing, and ask the nearly 50,000-strong membership to identify exactly what track they’re spinning.

It’s a problematic development for some DJs – particularly those who’ve built a reputation around playing obscure, often previously unheard music in their sets. This particular mould of selector tends to hold their battle weapons close to their chest, unleashing them when least expected and building a persona around this element of mystery. For them, the notion of these songs being publicised to the world via the IoMG, and their full set lists being disclosed on sites like MixesDB, is an alarming and unwelcome development.

One DJ who has voiced concerns over this practice is Jackmaster. The Scotsman took to social media last month to call out ‘hugely overrated, basic DJs playing tracks that they have blatantly picked up from videos of me in The Identification of Music Group’. Who exactly the post was aimed at we’re not too sure, and it was deleted a few hours later. Nevertheless, it illustrates the frustrations felt by some in the industry over how easy it is for lazy DJs to copy their tunes rather than going to the effort of finding their own.

Wanting to keep your tunes to yourself isn’t a new thing. In the heyday of Northern Soul, a DJ’s connoisseurship and unique collection were everything. Some might have the only known copy of a record, and promoters would book certain DJs just because they had that particular tune. Party ads would list not only the DJs but the rare exclusives they’d be bringing with them. But for many modern-day DJs who don’t play vinyl, the concept of physical record shopping has become obsolete, and crate-digging, if it is done, is done on eBay. Instead, they make use of the multitude of online resources, finding music through the likes of Discogs, YouTube and Spotify, and ripping tunes through file-sharing networks like Soulseek. With music that was previously restricted to a handful of vinyl copies now accessible to anyone at the mere click of a button, it’s easy to copy someone else’s set-list and pass it off as your own little bit of curation.

But for every DJ who criticises this culture, there are a larger number who have embraced it. Many have accepted that the quest for exclusivity has become increasingly fruitless, instead letting their abilities as a DJ do the talking. For an aspiring DJ, doing your homework, finding your own style and digging for interesting music will definitely make you a more exciting proposition, as opposed to simply banging out what everyone else is playing.

"You can’t become a DJ by plucking someone else’s tunes out of the air like nicking wishes,” says veryverywrongindeed legend and dance music writer Tim Sheridan. “You can’t really do it justice if it comes too easy. Being a DJ is about being an authority, and authority comes with immersion, not catching MP3 butterflies with a digital net’.

Yes, it may be easier for the plagiarists and the style thieves to nick tracks from DJs’ sets, but is this really such an issue? After all, as the old saying goes, anyone can sing ‘My Way’ but nobody sings it like Sinatra. You might have a USB full of Jackmaster’s tracks, but can you play them like he does?