Yes, but the funny thing is that.. for a guy worried about how hard his worker bees are working / how focussed they were during COVID.. he dropped A LOT of tracks during COVID.
In fact, almost his entire track history was during COVID.. in a time that the company he runs has had some headline-grabbing losses in their consumer division.
So I think its fair to say he should focus on his own productivity here first.
You'd be surprised how often "live set" is a synonym for "USB stick."
The scene is notorious for it. It's really not hard to find vids of DJs dancing, pointing, posing, and poking uselessly at a mixer which is obviously just there for the look.
There's also a huge difference between a "live set" and a "DJ set". I'm surprised people here on HN don't realize this.
A "live set" typically involves the performer playing synths and programming the drums live. There are no record players, no pre-recorded tracks, everything is played live on the fly. Example: https://youtu.be/cVFzblT5VPE?t=4177 (a daytime one so you can see the gear)
With a "DJ set", the DJ is playing two or more tracks, beatmatching them and mixing them together, transitioning from one track to the next. This still takes a lot of skill. If you see two or more turntables or media players and a mixer in the middle, that's a DJ set. Often the DJ brings their tracks to the venue loaded on a USB stick and plugs it into the media player. Just because there's a USB stick present doesn't mean the DJ set was pre-recorded. Example: https://youtu.be/Ubyd98XV5C0?t=1018
Does he do live sets (realizing the definitions are loose but essentially creating music live with something like an Ableton) as opposed to DJ sets (basically mixing pre-recorded tracks live, what most DJ performances are)?
I've never seen him perform but a DJ set ranges from people who just hit the play button and follow a recipe (e.g. Paris Hilton) to very technical mixing (e.g. Maceo Plex). A live set is substantially more challenging (and why few do it) but would be strong support he's not having his released tracks ghost produced.
Either way, good for him in my opinion. I also like mixing as a creative outlet but am terrible at it. If I was worth 9 figures I'd probably get a ghost producer to help me out and enjoy the experience of DJing.
David Solomon only really pitches himself as a hobbyist anyway so I don't think there's anything misleading/shameful about it if he is in fact just getting everything ghost produced and doing a 'lite' mixing DJ set live. There are plenty of full-time "professional" DJs who do the same thing.
He could be pulling something like 1/2 million as a DJ. Still a side gig, but not quite as trivial especially when his CEO pay isn’t directly tied to hours worked.
“His Spotify profile has 550,000 monthly listeners with his debut single garnering 8 million listens.”
