Open Letter Regarding The "Most Respected House DJs 2014"
UPDATE: Apparently the editor of the "Most Respected House DJs 2014" list, who by the way has still not come forward with his true identity, has taken a few points I raised in this letter to heart and modified his original post. You can now find a disclaimer that the list is "In No Particular Order" while the numeration still exists?! and added even more people (I guess he forgot some of his friends).
Dear Mr. Johnson,
I was just tagged on Facebook since I apparently made it on to your list of "Most Respected House DJs 2014".
While I, as others, appreciate to be recognized for what I do and am happy to be mentioned alongside many of my heroes, friends and peers, too many irregularities and acts of randomness stood out to me and immediately discredited this list.
I will avoid pointing out any particular DJs in the following statements but if necessary, I can back them up. I am also not going to argue who shouldn't be and who definitely should have been on this list because it is quite obviously a randomly compiled list of personal favorites and taste can't be argued but I certainly would like to raise some points.
1. Shouldn't you respect the DJs like the title suggests and make sure their names are spelled correctly and most embarrassingly, avoid that several names appear twice on the same list? How thorough could your research have been if two DJs show up on two different ends of the list, and there may be even more duplicates but I've spent enough time looking at this!
2. The word DJ should be removed from the list title as you mentioned quite a few names of people who either hardly DJ, not DJ anymore or not DJ at all.
3. "Who is Michael Johnson?", I have been quite deeply involved in the house music industry for more than 20 years, mostly as a fan but also as a producer, remixer, DJ and radio host and have never come across your name or met you before. What credentials do you exactly have to compile a list with an official title like "Most Respected House DJs 2014"? Why are you or your name nowhere to be found? It seems to me that you are just a fictional character invented by the true compiler of this list to avoid conflict and discredit this list even further based on professional involvement with a lot of names mentioned.
4. All of the criteria you mention are not criteria, they are simply a way to cover yourself and to avoid being called out for randomly going through a database of names and arranging the list anyway you saw fit.
- When you call for common sense regarding the definition of House, you call for acceptance of YOUR definition of House. A lot of the DJs you mention on the list don't even play House (in some cases not anymore, which by your given standard should disqualify them from being included).
5. Right above the first name of your list you post "Let the controversy begin" which shows me your lack of seriousness regarding this topic and that you created this list purely for your own pleasure or to draw attention to yourself (if you actually exist) or to the website which hosts your list.
I will cut this letter short at this point because I'm sure everyone had enough of this topic by now. In conclusion I would like to offer some suggestions.
- In my personal opinion a ranking is not necessary as it is useless without any empirical evidence and, more importantly, respect shouldn't be scaled.
- You should have named the list "Michael Johnson's Favorite (House) DJs 2014"
- If you have to create another list of any kind in the future, why not coordinate with industry related press, blogs, journalists and roll out a call for nomination. That in combination with the use of social media would allow 10s if not hundreds of thousands of fans to get involved by nominating their personal favorites. You could then feed the nominations into a database and have all fans vote for the end result.
Thank you for your time and attention,
Lars Behrenroth
These are screenshots of the original posted, not modified list from Friday, January 2014. Please click on the images to expand.
