Disclaimer: I adore DJed music. I listen to them on soundcloud. At a concert or a club, I vastly prefer DJs to live bands. I own several CDs that are mixes made by hip hop and EDM DJs. Anyway, on with the rant...
Once I was at a birthday party with a DJ. We were trying to talk to each other, but had to shout over the volume of the music the DJ was spinning. One of the people I was talking to was also a DJ. I asked him if he thought it was too loud.
"If I was the DJ I wouldn't think so," he said.
Loud music is fun when music is the focus of the event. The problem is that no matter what the event, the DJ tends to act like their music is what everybody's there for.
I was at an event recently that was clearly for networking with other people. The music was so loud that my voice was hurting after about an hour. I was probably the only non-Canadian in the room, so I figured nobody else was going to say anything...
"Hi. I really like the music."
The DJ smiled. "Thanks!"
"But it's too loud. Would you turn it down? We're trying to talk here."
He wasn't smiling so much after that. Sorry, dude. But
Your music is not more important that my conversation.
The event this was a part of lasted several days. There was an after-party at a restaurant. Guess what they had there to make it special? A DJ! And guess who was playing the music too loudly? I just walked out.
"You're leaving?" the organizer said as I passed her.
"Yes, it's way too loud in there. We can't talk."
"I'll ask him to turn it down."
And he did. But then the volume crept back up again. I figured that DJs have some number of decibels that they like, and every time they love the song they're playing, they inch the volume up toward that sweet spot. This is even more of a problem because the DJs, unlike you and me, sometimes have musician-quality noise-reduction earplugs. To protect their hearing, of course.
This time I complained to the DJ. Turns out the sound engineer at the restaurant kept turning it up on them. Sigh.
I left. Angry at DJs. Again.
The final party of the event had a DJ. This time the music wasn't too loud! I figured I'd be fair and pay them a compliment for it. Turns out it was the DJ from the first night. He pretty clearly was not happy to see me, and my compliment didn't go over well. I guess a DJ could take that compliment as "I like what you're doing because it's easier to ignore."
But I'm trying to network here.
Shitdog!
Pictured: A DJ, probably disturbing people's reading at a library.
