Today DJ Shadow sent out a message on his website, responding to his apparently unhappy fans about his involvement with DJ Hero. He specifically mentioned “know-nothing blogger[s]” and talked about his fans’ reservations with the game. Since I am a fan as well as a blogger, I’d just like to address my stance on the matter.

I completely understand what’s going on, reaching out to a bigger audience with your music is understandable and I encourage it. That’s awesome. Mostly I was just pointing out the desparity between DJ Shadow’s notoriety as a collector of music, and being open to new as well as old, from all genres (a flexibility in style that I think the best DJ’s are known for) and DJ Hero’s seeming superficiality. DJ Hero, to me, seemed to skim the top of the DJing world.

But hey, what can I expect from a videogame? Guitar Hero was similar, it gave people the opportunity to rock out to the hits and had great gameplay, but skipped over the rest. I think a lot of what hip-hop represents is the exploration and removal of boundaries, not only between genres of music, but between cultures as well. I have high hopes, but I feel that DJ Hero will leave no room for that essential exploration.