Tempo is the de-classifier Kode9 Interview by Philip Sherburne

I've been methodically organizing and re-organizing my DJing library in iTunes for some time now. I currently have five folders of smart playlists for different tempo ranges. 110bpm, 115bpm, 120bpm, 125bpm and 130bpm. For example the 120bpm playlists only accepts tracks with tempos from 115-125. This is working great. Although I have not found the same success trying to apply more descriptive and genre based metadata to organize my record bag. Right now I'm playing around with two approaches... A controlled set of descriptive labels (sort of genre based) which I won't bother listing, they definitely wouldn't work for everyone. Thats an important distinguishing point though... descriptive labels for the purpose of personal organization and genre as a way to broadly bucket music. The other approach I am messing with is a simple binary... is it for the dance floor or the armchair? A black and white classification of dance-ability is almost laughable... but again, when personally applied it can be more helpful than genre labels in certain contexts. For example if you know you have to play a lot of big bassline floor tunes you can generally stay in the "danclfoor" smart playlist for your selected tempo. Vice versa if your in a loungey environment. If you have a malleable audience you can hop between both the dance floor and chill smart playlists for the tempo you are playing at.

In combination the tempo ranges broken down into dancey and chill are a fairly low maintenance way to work with a eclectic library of music. Checking out Philip Sherburne's interview with Kode9 I really liked what the the DJ/producer had to say about about tempo, selecting, and the fragmented state of the UK electronic music scene. Software like Serato has made tempo one of the more reliable ways to think about your selections if you've not crammed yourself into a specific genre.

"...I think UK electronic music is a bit of a mess right now and very micro-segmented, to be honest. But there are some lines of intersection that are promising. As a DJ, all I really hold onto as a unifying theme is a certain bass foundation and tempo. Right now my sets occupy a couple of tempos. From the point of view of a selector, I think it helps to subtract the specific genre designation and select my own matrix of music — so that a dubstep tune is forced into the same universe as a house tune, a hip-hop beat into the same universe as a techno tune and an '80s funk thing in the same universe as a grime track, for example. It's not that I'm interested in being eclectic. I usually don't hear any consistency in most self-proclaimed "eclectic DJs" — I actually have very narrow, intolerant tastes as a DJ. It's rather that the only way I can build a consistent vibe in all this mess is to just temporarily subtract the genre descriptor. There is nothing new about that I suppose. But I'm not doing it because I think genres are bad as such. They are, in fact, the best places for styles to be nurtured. It's just that I want to play the best music out of several styles."