DJ legend Pete Tong: It's good that Chinese electronic syllables are constantly emerging!

Wen 丨 Xu Zi Shuo

Edited by Lucy Dong

Few people in the past 20 years have made such an impact in the dance music world as Pete Tong, who is a DJ of BBC Radio 1, a partner at ims (International Music Summit), a DJ at BBC Radio 1, director of the electronic music division at William Morris Entertainment, an A&R consultant at Warner Music, and a music producer.

A legend in the DJ world, Pete Tong currently has three All Gone Pete Tong residencies in the United States. Every month, whether it's Sound Nightclub in Los Angeles, Story Nightclub in Miami, or LiFE, a nightclub owned by SLS Las Vegas Casino in Las Vegas, People can experience Pete Tong live. Through several world-class performances in Miami and Ibiza, as well as promotions at festivals such as Crewfields, TomorrowWorld and SW4, All Gone Pete Tong has become a globally renowned performance brand.

A music producer with a proven reputation and prestige in the industry, Pete Tong has released works under electronic labels such as Pets Recordings, Ministry of Sound and Toolroom Records, and received numerous critical reviews, the most notable of which was the 2013 pete Tong Collection compilation album (which contains 60 pieces). In recent years, Pete Tong has teamed up with John Monkman to release the premiere of the deep house work The Bumps at the Suara label. In addition, Pete Tong, with the help of Tensnake, released All Gone Ibiza 2014 under the Defected label, which is part of the All Gone Pete Tong collection series.

On the commercial side, Pete Tong still has an absolute authority in the field of show booking and A&R. In 2008, Tong co-founded William Morris Electronic (WME) with Joel Zimmerman, founder of New York Electronics Performance Reservations. WME is an attempt by Hollywood agency William Morris Agency (WMA) in the field of electronic music, aiming to grow into the first professional electronic dance music performance and agency in the national music industry. Working at WME led Pete Tong to move to the United States to develop her career.

Pete Tong's music career began in Kent, England, when he started as a part-time journalist and DJ on a local radio station. In 1983, he began working for London Records as an A&R broker. Pete Tong then quickly signed rap group Run DMC, a move that also laid a good foundation for his later career development. As his fame in the A&R space grew, Pete Tong founded FFRR Records, a subsidiary of London Records, and with keen insight quickly won a recording contract for Salt-n-Pepa. In addition, FFRR Records has signed a number of electronic musicians such as Orbital, Goldie, Brand New Heavies, Frankie Knuckles, Lil Louis and Armin van Helden, contributing to the development of House music and electronic dance music.

In 1987, as House music took the world by storm, Pete Tong joined Capital Radio, hosting a weekly dance music show. In 1991, Pete Tong joined BBC Radio 1, where he started a programme called Essential Selection, which has become Pete Tong's most influential and iconic radio programme to date. During the rebranding of Radio 1 in the 1990s, Tong's programming was a big influence, and the entire radio station began to embrace electronic music in the controversial but popular styles of House, Techno, and Jungle. Since then, Pete Tong has gradually become an authority figure in the electronic dance music world.

Today, the increasingly influential Pete Tong has "revived" its own FFRR label, not only signing excellent musicians such as Oliver Heldens, The Magician, Blonde and The Disciples, but also re-establishing its strong position in the A&R field. In addition, he founded The International Music Summit, which has been recognized as a bellwether for the industry in the electronic music sector and one of the world's most important music industry gatherings.

In addition to the electronic dance music industry, Pete Tong also has a lot of fame in the film industry. He has worked as a music supervisor for films such as The Beach, The Love Four, 24 Hour Party Freak and Shake Life, most notably Shake Life. Pete Tong not only had a brief cameo in the film, but also served as its executive producer. In recent years, Tong has also been invited to work as a score producer for the film Harry Brown.

Recently, at the IMS Summit, Music Finance chatted with Pete Tong about what he saw as electronic music and its development in China.

What was the idea and process of starting IMS?

Pete Tong: We started IMS at Ibiza. Originally IMS partners all worked at Ibiza, and we feel that Ibiza has made a great contribution to the development of the world and electronic music. We want to make Ibiza a representative place in the global electronic dance music scene, a core area with high-end conferences in the industry, by hosting IMS. Everyone knows that Ibiza is a great party mecca, but when IMS was first founded, people didn't know about Ibiza's huge contribution to electronic music. So we wanted to use IMS to elevate Ibiza's position and reputation in the industry, which was one of the spirits of our original creation.

We wanted to create a conference that brought together the best, most authoritative, smartest industry insiders and artists, where people could discuss the hottest topics of the moment. We never really decided whether IMS was a 2,000-plus conference, and we actually felt that a few hundred people would suffice.

From its inception to the present, the topic of discussion has been changing. Which of all the topics do you think is the most influential?

Pete Tong: Every year we pay attention to what's happening in the world, in this industry. Every year the theme of IMS is basically a discussion of the topics that people care about most. Next year IMS will celebrate its 10th anniversary, and when IMS was founded in 2007, we were talking about how to make the industry successful, and we've been talking about it for almost a decade. In some parts of the world, [the electronic music industry] has been successful, but in others it is still developing. So that's why IMS is getting out of Ibiza and going to the rest of the world.

How do you see the development of technology?

Pete Tong: I think the development of technology is amazing. When I used to be a DJ, I used vinyl records, but now, you can see that each DJ has its own set of production equipment on stage. It's a very big difference, and if you go to a rock band now, their equipment is probably the same as it was thirty or forty years ago, but if you go to DJ, you'll find that their equipment is changing every year. So I think electronic music has a high acceptance of technological progress, but it also pushes technology to the limit.

It is because of these mature recording and production techniques that we can hear the excellent works of young DJs like Skrillex and Martin Garrix. In the past, when technology was not yet developed, people had to sign a record company to release records, so that they could have the opportunity to enter the formal studio. But in this day and age, anyone can become a DJ and can create music, and basically most DJs now rely on technological progress to achieve career development, although this will more or less lose some of the real spirit of DJs.

With the development and mainstreaming of electronic music, will it be possible to create other types of musical works with electronic music in the future?

Pete Tong: Technology has been able to help us create a lot of music, but having some musical knowledge and musical literacy is the basis for creating music. If you're a good violinist or guitarist (Skrillex used to be a guitarist in a band), you'll be able to combine these techniques with your musical knowledge (music theory, instrumental playing) to take a whole new level of music creation and go further. I performed with a 65-person opera troupe last year and I felt that was the real music.

Attitudes towards music streaming?

Pete Tong: Streaming music has become the most common way people consume music right now. So streaming is helpful for us in the long run, and eventually every musician will get revenue from it. However, in the early days of streaming, musicians also faced many challenges, because the royalties from streaming media did not take more than the sale of physical records at the beginning.

But times have changed, so we have to adapt to that change. I think streaming has grown a lot in the European and American markets now, and they've been driving the music industry the same way they were on iTunes and CD records in the first place. Everyone loves music, and streaming is now the most popular way to listen to songs, so learn to accept it.

One reason for the popularity of streaming is also the increase in network connection speed. In the past, when the Internet speed was slow, it was difficult for people to share files, but with the increase in Internet speed now, people prefer to listen online rather than download music. I've seen a music blogger say before, "Why do people need 265G iPhones now, why do they need so much memory, after all, everything can be played online, whether it's TV movies or music." ”

What do you think about the form of streaming playlists?

Pete Tong: We have to admit that the role of playlists is becoming more and more important now. In the past, artists usually sent their songs to the radio to play publicity, but now more and more artists are recognized by fans through spotify and Apple Music playlists. Kygo, for example, became famous through the promotion of Spotify's playlist.

Something like this is happening every day, every week. In traditional radio shows, you can't always repeat a song, but in the playlist, you can constantly loop your favorite songs and playlists.

Platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube are not available in China, do you think this will become a problem that hinders the communication of Chinese music with the world?

Pete Tong: It's really a problem, both from the perspective of understanding the world from China and from the perspective of understanding China from the perspective of the world understanding China. This week I learned that on some streaming platforms in China, such as QQ Music, there are not many electronic music resources on them. As some Chinese companies, such as Tencent, continue to invest more around the world, it is hoped that such restrictions and obstacles will become less and less.

In the Chinese market, a large number of electronic music festivals have been pouring out in recent years, do you think this is a bubble?

Pete Tong: It's definitely a good thing for China. Festivals like Storm are growing every year and expanding their influence. For any music festival, the most important thing is to cultivate the audience and fan base, and it takes a long time to establish word of mouth and fully understand the consumption habits and tastes of the audience.

If a music festival can be held for more than five consecutive years, it can be called a good music festival, and the storm has done a good job at this point. In China, the electronic music culture is gradually taking shape, which is a good thing.