The specific brand of 80s-style electro-house pumped out by Calvin Harris is tailor-made for mainstream audiences. Slant Magazine even wrote a formula that summaries practically every one of his tracks:
The Calvin Harris formula: militaristic 4/4 bass drum, tawdry lyrics about vague longing, a syncopated synthesizer melody, and the inevitable snare buildup to either a whooshing silence or a super-charged version of the chorus.
There's no doubt it works. Harris is a hit-making machine. His music plays on the emotionality and verse-chorus-verse structure of mainstream pop music, simply adding a plodding beat and powerful bassline to make his tracks suitable for rave environments. Unfortunately, it's exactly because of the fact that the style sells so well that practically every up-and-coming mainstream producer has taken it upon themselves to replicate it ad infinitum. This isn't the weird minimalism of Berlin techno. There is no extreme head-rush like in jungle. Harris avoids the aggressive angularity of grime, the insular bass swells of dubstep, the chaotic beats of Jersey club, footwork and vogue house... Those are all styles that rely upon innovation and upheaval in order to keep the dancefloor interesting. Harris is the image of a DJ that has no interest in connecting to subcultures or pushing the form in fascinating new directions. It's such a shame that DJs wielding such huge influence do so little with their position of authority. They're so desperate to stay at the top that they do little to progress their own sounds at all. That's why these superstar DJs truly suck.
