Ranking is Rank

By Deanna Rilling

Thursday, May 22, 2008 | midnight

I’ve never been invited to a hot tub party with hookers,” answers DJ Lee Burridge when asked about his previous experiences in Vegas. Burridge has never lost his shirt gambling, didn’t make it to Celine Dion’s show and feels he always ends up in a “rubbish” hotel room. He’ll probably also miss out on acid-tripping his way to seeing a giant Fear and Loathing-esque lizard in a cocktail lounge unless Puff Hookah Lounge plans on bringing in reptiles for his appearance on May 23. (And while Puff does have a hot tub, it will not be filled with ladies of the night.). “Basically, I haven’t lived the Vegas dream ... yet.”

While Burridge jokes about his lack of stereotypical Vegas debauchery stories, he’s really coming to Sin City to bring electronic-music fans over 20 years of experience in DJing. Like any artist, the U.K. native is understandably hesitant to describe his work, but feels his music has “a pretty underground sound” and is neither obvious nor dramatic. “[It’s] more groovy, and trippy, deeper and has some bounce to it,” Burridge explains. “It has its feet in techno, minimal, house music. It has some melody, but at times is cold and just grooves.

“If you like familiarity on your night out it definitely isn’t for you, but if you’re the type of person who gets off on futuristic music you’ve never heard before, and don’t care about waving glow sticks around, and you dance with your hips rather than jump up and down on the spot waving your hands—then it might just be for you,” says Burridge.

Burridge believes the music he plays challenges the people who hear it and understands it isn’t exactly what the majority wants to dance to, but not having Britney Spears in his record collection certainly hasn’t hurt him. He’s been a top-ranked DJ for many years, although he admits this is no longer a fair assessment of someone’s impact on the industry. “It’s a popularity contest,” Burridge says. “Certain types of music are more popular—trance being the best example—than others. The DJs who play it are always going to be on top of the list year in year out.”

Burridge isn’t shy about expressing his opinions on the current state of electronic music or his contemporaries. “I feel the title of [DJ Magazine’s] chart is wrong. It gives out the wrong impression. ‘The World’s Top 100 DJs.’ How do you rank drum and bass against trance against minimal? What makes Tiesto No. 1? Without seeming mean, and to Tiesto’s own admittance, he isn’t actually that good a DJ, but he does play electronic music’s most popular genre. He’s always going to be hugely popular, but it has less to do with talent. That said, though, he and all the other trance DJs are hugely important as they expose a lot of young people to dance music. People grow up, and if they continue to listen to electronic music, lots of them seek out other sounds and come find us!”

At the end of the day, Burridge admits that while he’s risen to the Top 10 on the DJ lists, he still feels exactly the same at the end of the day and “stopped begging for votes,” which hasn’t seemed to hurt his career. “I made zero effort last year—I didn’t even vote for myself—and went up a few places, which made me laugh,” Burridge says. “If you read it and believe it, you’re probably a super-fan of trance, and that’s cool, but remember, it doesn’t mean your favorite DJ is better than Richie Hawtin [aka Plastikman], Roger Sanchez or your local DJ who plays badass music.”

Lists and rankings aside, Burridge refuses to remain static or capitulate to the latest trend. “New music has always been exciting to me, and that’s what I searched for when I went out clubbing before becoming a DJ,” he explains. “I don’t want to hear the music that’s on the radio … I’ve really been through so many genres, as I get bored easily and am always looking for music that’s a little more on the edge.” Burridge knows other DJs have a style that is “way further out” than his, but he still tries to mix it up.

“I’m always going to keep looking for new and different sounds, though. This has never been a job to me or even really about the money, although it is sweet not having to go to work on a Monday morning, so I shan’t complain,” he says. “It’s a cliché, but it really is all about the music.”