We sometimes wonder at Ears To The House – exactly what does it take for you to get coverage in the dance music press? The criteria seem to be very arbitary – and whilst there are obviously many factors that go into consideration, some do seem to have an easier time than others getting into their hallowed pages.
In the past, there was an excuse for limiting how much coverage anyone got – it was a simple lack of space. When magazines printed in a physical format, someone eventually had to declare that the edition they were working on that month was big enough. But now we’re in a digital world, new content can be uploaded every single day.
Yet we still have this problem. We’re a fairly discerning lot at Ears To The House, but we can openly admit we don’t have a clue who half of the people getting cover story status at Mixmag are. Which is why we’re finding ourselves – and not for the first time this week – having something of an issue with dance music’s biggest magazine.
Just over a fortnight ago, on July 18th, Deeon Boyd passed away. He was a Chicago based DJ who helped lead a second wave of house music from the city – whilst everyone else was doing one thing, he concentrated on a faster, newer sound. Indeed, he’d been doing this since releasing his first EP all the way back in 1994.
To commemorate his life, Mixmag published an article called “29 years of DJ Deeon: 20 of the ghetto house pioneer’s best releases”. The whole piece looks like their writer has been told to scour YouTube for links to his most popular tracks, then write a few words about each one – frankly, more thought goes into our Here’s Three They Made Earlier on Mondays.
Given that he was a “pioneer,” to use their own word, you might imagine that Mixmag wrote much about him. You’d, of course, be wrong – a quick search of their own website reveals the odd news article here and there about his health problems in recent years, alongside one or two things about what he was doing with other people.
And it turns out we’re not the only ones who feel the same way. DJ E-Clyps had this to say the other day…
He’s got a point…
