Owning Records Is Not DJing
Selection is where everything takes off, but it does not sustain everything.
Food does not make a dish on its own. It requires assembly, preparation, and presentation to come together. Great ingredients cooked badly still taste bad.
DJing works the same way. Strong selection defines potential, not outcome. Without sequencing and execution, even the right records fail to become a DJ set. The tracks are good. Taste comes through, but momentum never builds. The room never locks in.
Choosing records is foundational. What happens after that is what ultimately makes the difference between competence and possession. It determines whether a set demonstrates expertise or simply exhibits access.
Playing records well takes time. It requires repetition, familiarity, and control. Without that investment, vinyl becomes novelty rather than craft.
Transitions matter. Not as a technical showcase, but as structural decisions. A straight cut can be the right move sometimes. A smooth blend might be unnecessary. But trainwrecks break the listening experience immediately. There is no abstraction here. Flow is fragile, and once broken, it is hard to rebuild.
Handling vinyl without practice only adds friction to already weak decisions. Everybody is a selector nowadays, buying hard-to-find records and spinning vinyl exclusively does not make you a better DJ. That idea belongs to fantasy, not reality. Format does not confer taste, judgment, and discipline.
The digital versus vinyl debate is largely performative. The medium has become a proxy for legitimacy, even though it proves very little. Playing vinyl does not make a DJ better, just as playing digital does not make one lesser. What matters is sequencing, timing, and decision-making in real time. Vinyl is often used as a shortcut to authority, especially by people who confuse collecting with performing. Owning records does not equal control, and format does not replace judgment. Skill reveals itself in execution, not in the medium used to deliver it.
Playing vinyl is harder. That part is true. Turntables demand more precision, more anticipation, and more control than digital systems. That difficulty raises the bar rather than lowering expectations. If vinyl is claimed as proof of legitimacy, it comes with responsibility. Skill has to meet the claim. Practice is not optional. Playing records publicly is not a rehearsal. The work happens beforehand, until the delivery holds up in front of a room.
The claim that mixing is “easy” misses the responsibility that comes with saying it. If it is easy, then it should be done well. Mixing is not mysterious or heroic. It is learned through time, repetition, and attention. After enough years, it stops feeling difficult, but that does not make it optional. Saying something is easy while refusing to do it is not a position, it is an avoidance. Skill is demonstrated through execution, not through dismissing the work involved.
This gap is easy to hear and harder to accept. It separates people who collect records from people who work with them. Access is no longer rare. Records, formats, and gear are available to everyone. What remains scarce is the willingness to shape, edit, and commit.
Selection opens the door. Craft decides whether anyone stays.