Hot on the heels of Stalwart honcho Olivier Velay, another view from another man with another perspective – the one of spiritofhouse.com supremo Michael Fossati – but the same devotion to House Music and nearly the same view as far as this Miami 2006 is concerned as shown thereafter…
MIAMI 2006: DON’T TAKE MY MIND ON A TRIP!
Those of you who’ve been following my daily Miami Diary on IDMW.Com (now also archived here on Spirit Of House), should then know about my mixed emotions of this year’s Winter Music Conference (WMC) and M3 Summit...
Everytime the dates for the Conference get announced, I can't wait to pack up my things and leave the winter season here in Switzerland and come to a nice and sunny place that is known to the world as Miami Beach - even though I'm getting more and more sceptic every year about the need of going there. For me, as a journalist, it is all about meeting my existing contacts and friends, making new contacts, checking out new talents and parties - and of course, I always look for new music to be featured on SpiritofHouse.
As far as this year is concerned, I would say overall that there where way too many parties, a hard time for the industry with the drastic change from vinyl to digital formats (CD and MP3), and lack of interest and enthusiasm as compared to the previous years. All of this and the surprisingly bad weather having a big effect on how I will remember this years participation.
I know how I'm not the only one that feels that in general the conferences are getting worse from year to year - some reminisce about the old days when the WMC was taking place at the Hilton Hotel, when you could meet everybody - and I mean everybody!!! - at the pool of that said hotel.
Nowadays, you gotta choose the 'right' party where you expect to meet most of the industry people. But what party is this gonna be? In the previous years, the Defected Party prooved to be such a place, but this year, it was different. Still, lots of industry people where there, but in comparison to last year, significantly less - of course, this might be caused (or at least be affected) by the fact it was raining that day, but I strongly believe that the real reason is the lack of interest and enthusiasm.
Gladly, I met lots of people that didn't came to the Defected party elsewhere, at King Street, Deep gets Salted or other festivities - but again, there’s been many people that were in Miami I did not see at all! Now if that doesn't proove that something is going the wrong way with the conferences...
The massive amount of parties made it hard to choose where to go. As I don't see a real reason for regular parties being taken down to Miami (as mentioned in my daily diary), I've chosen some smaller parties to be checked out, with the result that most of the times I ended up being in sparely crowded places. This makes me feel sad because I could feel the enthusiasm these smaller labels and DJs brought over there, without getting the recognition they truly deserve. At least, I couldn’t complain about the price increase (explosion as other people reported) at the club doors as I got in everywhere for free... But I cannot leave the daily festivities issue without mentioning the fact that some parties were rescheduled or relocated to some other venue at the last minute. This added to the already existing confusion and chaotic schedule of the conference!!!
What had a great impact on my general impression is the way music got treated. With the dramatic change to digital, where the taste makers almost solely use CD's nowadays, there is no longer the need to invest in an expensive promotion for the music in Miami - in fact, more and more people get the music before the conference (either on CD or sent as MP3 files). Also with digital download stores now available in various formats, the costs for putting out music dramatically dropped, with the result that there is too much music around, and that music in many occasions is missing inspiration and creativity.
Remember that a couple of years ago we were talking about the tunes of the Conference? Can I name the tunes of Miami 2006? No, I can't. Of course I have my favorites, but I simply don't feel able to judge what tunes defined this year’s Miami. Would it be the tunes that got most played? The ones with the greatest reaction from the crowd? In my opinion, it would be those that everybody talks about in the streets, but they mostly seemed to be overhelmed by all the confusing/ed noise around.
You should also read the review by the likes of Olivier Velay (Stalwart Records) about his last Miami experience. We share quite some thoughts about this year’s Miami conferences... and I absolutely agree with his concluding statement. In fact, I couldn't have found any better words:
House Music has almost lost its essence on the way to democratisation. On one side, the most commercial one, the music and the artists are now moving on to become (almost) part of Pop Music and the artists being Pop Icons for the new generation of clubbers and listeners. And on the other, the purveyors of fine underground stuff, only heard by a more mature audience, might unfortunately well stay very underground, a bit like in the Jazz community. So, is it worth it ? Is it worth spending time & money to go to Miami for all this hassle ? Is it worth continuing to support and promote House Music ? Is it worth continuing to feel like being Don Quichotte trying to fight against windmills ? If this all carries on like that, House Music will definitely loose itself (if it’s not done yet…). All good stuff will remain very underground for a while, until maybe in a few years it comes back to the surface and explodes for a new musical revolution, wipping out all the crap from the surface of the planet. I have a dream…. Michael Fossati (spiritofhouse.com)
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