Almost a year ago in August, it was reported that Fatboy Slim declined being featured as a judge on Simon Cowell‘s X-Factor styled DJ show. While there were early setbacks in the show’s planning process, both SFX and T-Mobile partnered with Cowell’s company Syco to make this …er…dream… a reality.
Fatboy Slim, however, is still not impressed with the idea, and he doesn’t think the dance music community will be advocates either. This past weekend the DJ/producer told Digital Spy that he and a number of other DJs told Cowell to “F*ck Off” when approached about the new DJ competition television show. 
“Simon Cowell was talking about doing a show and … he kind of started approaching us, and we were like, ‘Fuck off. No – that’s a terrible idea!’ That’s the good thing about dance music; it grows organically through drunk people late at night coming up with stupid ideas. It’s not something that can be scripted or transported into a TV studio” – Fatboy Slim
Fatboy Slim went on to admit that he has been asked in the past to perform for a few minutes on various other television shows.
“I get offered loads of TV shows and they’re like, ‘Can you perform for five minutes?’ But DJing takes two hours and an audience. It’s not like you can go out there and sing your latest song. Because of that, it will always remain slightly outside the mainstream. At the end of the day, it’s about taking a big bunch of high people and trying to get them higher, which you can’t do on TV”.
The art of DJing simply cannot be captured within 5 minute intervals over a TV screen – as proved earlier this year by The Chainsmokers on American Idol (the duo are actually very talented DJs when playing more than just Selfie.)
It will be interesting to see who Cowell did end up conning into being a judge of his DJ contest show and how well it is accepted by dance music enthusiasts and others in the industry.
Source: CMU
