Do you think it's still possible to "make it" in today's world?

I think from a purely media perspective and statistics the answer is no. I guess it depends on how you define making it. I still have 2010 burned into my head where every day you would wake up and blogs would be talking about the hottest new act. In 2010 alone we had the blow up of Feed Me, Porter Robinson, Avicii, Nero, Diplo, Skrillex, Dada Life, Steve Aoki, Calvin Harris and more. I list these people because they were all side acts at EDC 2010, and now they are "house hold names" with regular media exposure, top festival billings and top club circuits.

In the last several years the number of people who have burst into the top levels of media exposure and billings are few far between. The only ones I can think of that reach the same level of fame or exposure of those people who blew up in 2010 are Martin Garrix, Oliver Heldens, and Flume. The biggest new artist "hits" of the last year I think came from Louis the Child and their trajectory is rather tame in comparison to the meteoric rise of people like Avicii.

Further, fewer and fewer djs are coming up on their own and require the assistance of established djs. For example, think how many people Skrillex has broken in the last few years, people like Marshmellow or Ghastly. They get a bit of media attention but so often it's linked with skrillex, "Owsla Artist", "Skrillex Protege" etc.

The fact is, when facebook and other social media outlets started ranking posts based on social interest, blogs stopped giving a shit about any artist who isn't going to get them massive traffic. So based on a standard of fame and "making it" from 2010/11 and given far more people are trying today, and even few are reaching that stellar level of success, your statistical chances of making it are 0. Basically the same answer everyone gave to kids who started rock bands in high school in the years before EDM, it's a fools chance.

tl;dr - Don't do it to make it.

/r/edmproduction Thread