This month, we’re celebrating a mammoth decade on the front-line of dance music with the inthemix 10 years main arena at Winter Sound System and We Love Sounds. With the party guest-list bursting at the seams, we asked some of our arena stars to reflect on the major changes they’ve observed from those 10 heady years.

CROOKERS

“Quite a lot of things have happened in the last 10 years. From 2000 to 2010 – except for the classic club scene with funky house and had the last wave of the French house scene – things seemed to go off in a different direction. I mean, Berlin was already minimal while the rest of Europe went for hard house, especially in Italy. Of course we all notice that change in 2004 and 2005 when the club culture got kind of contaminated with a kind of rock concert style, you know like Justice and Soulwax and Boys Noize. And I think those people who wouldn’t have gone to a club before started going to the club to see these acts.

I think right now we’re already at another turning point. It feels as though this whole thing is about to change again and there will be some new directions for dance music to go in next.

I wouldn’t say that the last decade has been really intense for dance music. I think about it and I don’t think there’s been anything that was completely original over those ten years. But I think all the little scenes and movements are going to be really important for what is coming next. I think that the club culture is opening up a bit more and letting new fans in. I don’t know what’s coming next, but probably this decade we’ll see something totally new and I’m looking forward to that.”

LAIDBACK LUKE

“There were so many changes, it’s crazy. On the technical side, it went from vinyl to people playing CDs to laptops. On the production side, I used to have a big studio, and now I just produce on a laptop, on the road or in the aeroplane. The overall scene has become a lot more business-orientated than ten years ago. Ten years ago, it was more about passion and love of music rather than being the superstar DJ with the fame and the fortune.

“Nowadays there are a lot of people who are analysing the music, for one. Then there are a lot of people who just try to look cool and not sweaty. Then there’s a lot of DJs who just try to stick with one musical genre and play for the coolness of it, and forget it’s all about releasing yourself. It’s about people coming from work after a tough week and having fun.”

JOACHIM GARRAUD

“Well, in the last 10 years many things have changed in the DJ world. 10 years ago being a DJ was not something that many people wanted to do, just because you would make more money being a barman or it was better looked upon to be a doorman than being a DJ. Many times we would be in the rooms at the back of the club and people showed very interest in our work.

So in the last 10 years the status of a DJ has evolved a lot. We are considered now like real artists, we play on stages which are just as big as rock bands or pop artists, there is an artistic treatment done towards the DJ which has really changed in the last 10 years. There is more money in it now, there are professional contracts, shows, concerts. We are lucky now to be able to perform on stage and do our own full concerts, to develop shows and stage production, which I am personally really enjoying doing right now.

Clubs used to be a place where we went to listen to music, now we go there to see an artist play onstage. The clubs themselves have changed. The DJ booth, which used to be four metres in height and stuck in the dark, has now changed into a stage with lights – almost as many lights as stage as in the club itself.”

GARETH EMERY

“Clearly, it’s all about the internet. The changes to the scene have been far and wide, but they virtually all stem from the rise of online music, and the exponential speed that music technology continues to increase at. Ten years ago when I first started DJing, I was playing vinyl that I bought in a shop; now it’s mp3s that I’ve bought or been sent digitally.

Back then, you largely communicated with fans via physical magazines; these days, social media like Facebook and Twitter are rather more important. Club promotions are more about making things happen online (although street posters and flyers are still important), and some of the world’s biggest dance music radio shows now are primarily listened to online….I could go on, but you get the gist.

Of course, there have been winners and losers over the last ten years. For instance, the winners include the kids who could have never afforded to pay tens of thousands of pounds for studios who were suddenly able to make hit records on £500 laptops (of which I’d count myself one), and the countries where dance music was virtually unheard of before the online revolution which now have healthy scenes.

Losers include vinyl pressing plants, and of course record producers who’ve been hit so hard by the proliferation of MP3 downloads that they’ve seen their income drop below that of someone flipping burgers in McDonalds. But in any case, I’ve never been into trying to work out whether things are better now than before, and you certainly couldn’t catch me grumbling that things were better in the past. Things change, they always have and they always will; that’s what keeps dance music moving forward and fresh. This is the world we’re living in right now and personally, I’m enjoying it more than ever.”

The inthemix 10 years main arena takes off at We Love Sounds and Winter Sound System this month. Head to inthemix.com.au/10years for all the developments.