Steve Aoki commands a large number of artists on Dim Mak records, a label devoted to the image of electro, as much as the music.

The fashion and the bravado of Aoki form the backbone of his show, a highly charged exhibition where the music is almost forgotten amidst the thunderous stamp of every reveler’s feet. $40 a ticket and a packed night club were evidence enough of avid fans, but their sheer numbers had Roxanne Parlor popping at the seams.

The set began with an equipment malfunction in the main room after which the cattle were herded into the back room, pushed into every nook and cranny of the smaller space.

The more conservative (or tame) of us, on the outer limits of the dance floor watched, wishing for a little more freedom to move. After all, what is dance music when you can’t dance? The club, turned concert hall, was packed beyond comfort; the dance floor trampled by the jumping crowd.

No matter where anyone stood though, you could see Aoki jumping on the decks, yelling at the crowd – it was a strange mix of screamo and electro and for the hour and a half that he played the energy never wavered.

Much to my puzzlement, shout-outs like ‘We love you, Melllllbourne!’ or ‘Steve Aoki in da’ houuuse’ seemed to get the crowd into a frenzy. It made a little bit of sense knowing Aoki was on the I’m in the House Tour and that his new single release is also called I’m in the House, but still the cleverness was a little unimpressive. Surely the only person who gets turned on by something like that would be an attention-seeking egomaniac (like Steve Aoki?), but for me it only seemed condescending. I wasn’t a child anymore (though I couldn’t speak for the rest of the audience).

The music was not spared from the same outrageous energy; songs became undistinguishable from the constant drone of thumping bass. Warp feat. Steve Aoki by The Bloody Beetroots was a live performance with lyrics MC’d to the crowd from behind the decks, while tracks like The Prodigy’s Invaders Must Die were enjoyable because the bass line occurred naturally, rather than being forcefully injected into a song or sample.

Electro, for all its hard and dirty sound, is best when it is peaks and troughs – it needs a certain amount of subtlety to prevent boredom, otherwise its constant driving bass can only take you so far before it starts going around in circles. When an electro beat breaks or drops, it creates a stadium or concert-like effect without effort – Steve Aoki’s stadium was too artificial.

It’s also to my dismay that I routinely hear Daft Punk’s One More Time at gigs (or perhaps two or three more times per night, if I’m unlucky) – it seems to be the surefire way to get a whole club onside. Special songs like this can get dragged into mediocrity, losing their charm for each time it is flogged. But poor song selection, or even repetitive song selection, is a symptom of the commercial success electro has had in the last few years. When electro DJs play a remix or sound they know audiences like, electro ends up with very little difference or depth between DJs, both local and international.

I don’t wish to condemn a genre that I love with a righteous generalization, but the little things that irritate me most about electro seemed to come to a head in Steve Aoki’s set.

Indulging in a little speculation, you may say that ‘label executive’ or even ‘label founder’ are not titles that inspire enough glory for Steve Aoki. It goes without saying that the head of Dim Mak has impeccable taste – his label and its signings would suggest nothing else, releasing albums by MSTRKRFT, Felix Cartal and the Bloody Beetroots. Taste is only one part of a whole that makes a great DJ and Steve Aoki appears to act more like a rock star than a DJ. It seems, though, that he is well aware of his unique multi-musical identities, admitting in an interview with ITM that he doesn’t mind the coming together of rock, rap and pop with electro.

Whatever you or I may think, Dim Mak is creating a small empire within the electro-world. The image, the fashion and the brand have solid foundation and fan base, so if I could offer some humble (and perhaps humbling) advice for Mr. Aoki – take a back seat at let your signings and their releases do the talking. And get a haircut.