David Guetta is one of the biggest DJs in the world. He has been one of the primary drivers for the EDM explosion in the United States around 2009, 2010 with tracks like "I Got A Feeling" with the Black Eyed Peas and "Sexy B*tch" with Akon. Without those, the packed stadium tours, eye-popping festivals and multi-billion dollar EDM industry might not have been possible or would have taken longer to develop. This has not been without criticism however. He has been accused of using playing "pre-recorded" DJ sets, where just stands with his hands in the air, while an hour-long pre-made mix plays. Evidence has been put forth for and against Guetta playing pre-recorded sets, but in a new interview with Beatport at Coachella, he might have admitted to performing pre-planned sets that verge on pre-recorded.
The comment stems from an incident the first weekend where his computer crashed and he was forced to take a bunch of songs last minute to his set.
"Something crazy happened to me on the [first weekend]," he says. "I'm using Rekordbox and Pioneer to play, and before I saved my playlist to my SD card, my computer crashed. So I just had to put all my music in a random order on USB sticks at the last minute, doing it really old school, scrolling to look for the records I wanted to play next."
Now we know that many of these festival sets involve a lot of pre-planning with the pyrotechnics and the visuals that all have to line up to the music. Swedish House Mafia taught us that on their One Last Tour when every single set was the same at each stop, but to consider actually choosing a random song old school is pretty bad.
He has seemingly forgotten the days when he used to DJ on vinyl for little to no money in gay clubs in Paris — real old school. As long as people continue to pay tons of money to se Guetta, the "new school" one will continue to perform his pre-planned sets.
