Debate: You Don't Need to Download So Much New Music. You Just Need to Organise It Better!

Almost every DJ has the habit of downloading loads of new music. That's not a bad thing in itself, but organising it sensibly is the real challenge.

As one author and DJ puts it, downloading lots of new music brings plenty of benefits whenever you play gigs, especially if you're an open-format DJ. But keeping too much music on your computer without organising it properly leads to a number of problems:

• Downloading too much new music without organising your library will overload your laptop. A single track can take up around 50–100 MB depending on its quality, and downloading a big mashup pack of 1 GB or more is another story altogether.
• How much new music you can play depends on the atmosphere and the crowd's taste. For an open-format DJ, playing too many new tracks means far less interaction with the audience, because some people won't know your new tracks yet (unless a song has become a hot trend, like Sơn Tùng M-TP's Hãy Trao Cho Anh recently).
• As a DJ today, you'll need to follow the 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle). If 80% of the crowd loves Top 40, you'll need to cater to that 80% by playing Top 40 at the event or party you're playing, while the new music you own makes up just the remaining 20%. In other words, you only get to play 20% new music, depending on the moment and the vibe of the party.
• Finally, there's the problem of building setlists from a huge amount of new music. With so many new tracks on your computer, it becomes very hard to sort them by genre and put together a well-thought-out setlist for your set.

At the end of the day, quality beats quantity. You don't need to download so much new music. You just need to organise it better!