I've been reading Vince Aletti's Disco Files , and this passage stood out to me:



"A Rather appalling little item appeared recently about a chain of steak restaurants that were turning themselves into discotheques. The chain's headquarters in Rockland, Maryland (disco central, right?), makes up a weekly list of 30 records which are supplied to DJ's at each location, supplemented by basic collections of another 100 current "disco" records and 100 "oldie" dance cuts. The DJ's, who
are trained by the parent company, can play only those records on the lists and
are expected to program the top 30 two or three times in the course of a night.
Records by specially-spotlighted "artists of the month", also chosen in Rockland,
are programmed every 45 or 60 minutes in each of the locations in the chain.
Clearly, disco Djing is the glamor, no experience necessary profession of the year, but is this what it's coming to? The best DJ's - a number of whom were
making record-to-record collages and brilliant musical connections years before the media discovered the disco phenomenon, years before many of us were ready to hear them - are artists, tastemakers, shaping the immediate environment with their music. God knows all those people out there at their double turntables are not cruising the same heights of creativity but, until now, they haven't been reduced to playlist automatons. With discotheques becoming Big Business, the "disco" chain, run like a fast-food empire or a string of laundromats, could be the next major move. If it is, count me out."


In a world of corporate nightlife, DJ Hero, and samelist DJ's, I thought that excerpt was particularly relevant, even if its 35 years old.