Too Many DJs
A pop-rock song that comments on DJ culture from a rock album. Four years later, the title will become the name of the mashup duo — involuntary prophecy.
The device
Fourth single from Much Against Everyone’s Advice, released late 1998 on PIAS. Four-piece band: Stephen Dewaele (vocals, rhythm guitar), David Dewaele (lead guitar, keys), Stefaan Van Leuven (bass), session drummer. Classic live-band recording, Belgian studio, in-house production. The single catches on moderately — NME and Melody Maker show interest but no commercial breakthrough.
Structure of the lyrics
Standard pop-rock form: verse / pre-chorus / chorus / verse / pre-chorus / chorus / bridge / final chorus. The lyrics comment, with affectionate irony, on the DJ culture erupting across 1998 Europe (Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Cassius, Chemical Brothers). Chorus:
“What’s this, baby? / There’s too many DJ’s”
No malice in the joke. The Dewaeles love these DJs — they are their generation. But the song names a fatigue with the format: too many DJ stars, too much hype, too much pose. An affectionate elbow-nudge.
The procedure — soft friction
The song’s device is its enunciative irony. Soulwax, a rock band, write from inside rock a song on DJ culture. They speak from their side to the other side without contempt, but from their side. Four years later, they will themselves become those DJs — and the irony will reverse. The track becomes meta-prophetic: it comments on a phenomenon it will end up contributing to.
Musically, guitar-bass-drums construction very Pixies / late Sonic Youth: suspended chords, instrumental bridge, memorable riff. Nothing club in the sonics. It is a rock song about the club, not a club track.
The arrangement
Tempo ~140 BPM (fast for indie-rock). Key in E major or F major by ear [TO VERIFY]. Lead guitar moderately saturated, rhythm guitar in counter-chant, funk-rock bass, live drums on 2-4. A discreet synth in the bridge (Korg? Juno? [TO VERIFY]). Stephen Dewaele’s voice direct, unprocessed. Standard 90s mix — no excessive compression, no marked tape saturation.
Lineage and resonances
Upstream: Pixies (Surfer Rosa, 1988) for guitar-voice tension, Pavement (Slanted and Enchanted, 1992) for the ironic offhand, early Blur (Modern Life Is Rubbish, 1993) for the cultural commentary in pop form.
Downstream: on release, the track reads as an honourable pop-rock song. Its real resonance is retrospective. In 2000, Stephen and David are invited to Studio Brussel and begin playing mashup mixes live. The audience nicknames them “2 Many DJs” after the song. In October 2000, the BBC invites them to the Essential Mix under this new name. The song’s title has become the project’s identity.
Reading under the permanences
Permanence 1 — The DJ-set thinks the album: not yet, but in seed. Too Many DJs is one isolated song on an album of songs. The album-as-set format will come four years later with As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2. But the song already contains, in its enunciative irony, the awareness that the DJ-set is a form that matters — that it deserves to be spoken of from a rock album. The permanence is latent.
Permanence 2 — Friction as writing: here it is thematic friction, not sonic. The track is 100% rock in its make. But its subject is the friction between rock and club worlds. The song installs the question that will be the project: how to write from one towards the other? Two years later, the Dewaeles will swap sides of the friction — from club towards rock, via mashup.
Why this track and not another: Too Many DJs is the only Soulwax track you can say contains, in seed, everything that will come. Irony, cross-genre commentary, format awareness. A 1998 pop-rock song; also, read in 2026, the laid-down axiom of a project that will refuse every register it crosses.
Listening — key and precise machines to verify