An Interview With POP DANTHOLOGY King DANIEL KIM!

Daniel Kim is known around the world for creating awesome Pop Danthology mixes of the years best pop music. He posts these mash-ups to YouTube. His Pop Dantology 2014 contains 66 different hits from 2014.

Here’s more about this talented music producer extraordinaire in the following interview:

Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for All Access Music! Where does this interview find you today?

This interview finds me today in my small studio in my condo that I share with my sister in Vancouver, BC., Canada.

I recently watched your Making Of Pop Danthology 2014 and it really helped me understand how it all comes together. 180 hours of work? Wow! How do you find the time for it all?

I make the time for it by blocking off the months from September to mid December to commit to only working on Pop Danthology. All other jobs and gigs that come my way I will push it away and tell people I am not available until the next year. I will starve myself of friendships and pretty much not go out and spend time with friends. I end up spending less time with my girlfriend too, she is very understanding. I will sleep less. I will work on Pop Danthology from 6:00am all the way until 9:00pm. That is when I stop so that I can begin calming myself down from listening to all of that high energy dance music.

I may then be able to fall asleep by 12:00am or 1:00am. Eating food also becomes a waste of my time so a lot of days I just eat one meal a day. During the entire process, there is so much adrenaline pumping in me and I end up involuntarily becoming very tunnel visioned and hyper focused. I hope to learn how to work on such a big project in a healthier way.

Where did you learn to use all the equipment used to make these mixes?

I taught myself through playing around with the different software programs. Growing up, I learned more from testing out what I can do with my computer and all of its software programs than I ever did going school.

Can you explain what Mixed In Key is for people that aren’t familiar with it?

Mixed In Key is a software program for harmonic music mixing, which is the next level of mixing two different songs together after rhythmic mixing. Rhythmic mixing simply involves mixing two songs that are in the same tempo (speed). Harmonic mixing involves mixing two songs that are not only in the same tempo, but also in the same key. Mixed In Key detects all the keys of all the songs in your music library for you automatically.

Do you already have a list of songs started for POP DANTHOLOGY 2015?

I’m already preparing a list of songs for Pop Danthology 2015. So far I have Pitbull and Ne-Yo’s “Time of Our Lives” in that list.

Why exactly did you start making these mixes to being with? Did you think they would be a big hit?

I started singing covers on YouTube. But there were just too many other good YouTube singers so I had to figure out a different strategy. So I did what not a lot of singers could do… produce beats. So I would produce a whole remix backing track and sing over that. But that wasn’t efficient enough because it would take me too long. So then I decided to sing a few pop songs in one production. Then I started to sing medleys of many pop songs. Then my fans requested that I make a version with the original singers voice. So I tried that and it was a big hit, so I tried again and again every year. I had no idea that my mash-ups would go viral.

Are you still currently DJing events? Would you say that is your true passion?

I do DJ live events. DJing is far from being my true passion. My true passion is helping people (I have a lot of compassion for the gifted population) out of addiction, depression, anxiety, emotional poverty. I write a self-help mental health blog (http://giftofocpd.com) that has saved quite a few people from committing suicide.

Since you work with individual songs so often, what are some of your
all-time favorite songs?

Franz Schubert – “Ave Maria” (solo by oboe and pizzicato accompaniment by string quartet – I once experienced a live performance of this particular arrangement in Munich and I felt like I was ready to die because I knew I had just heard the most beautiful sound in the world)
Koji Kondo – The Legend of Zelda (Soundtrack) – “Great Fairy’s Fountain” (Orchestral Arrangement)
Koji Kondo – Super Mario World (Soundtrack) – “Bowser’s Castle“
Larry Kusik and Nino Rota – The Godfather (Soundtrack) – “Speak Softly, Love” (David Davidson Arrangement)
Tchaikovsky – “Valse Sentimentale“
Michael Giacchino – Up (Soundtrack) – “Married Life“
Claude Debussy – “Clair de Lune“
Joe Hisaishi – Howl’s Moving Castle (Soundtrack) – “Merry-Go-Round of Life“
Andres Linetzky & Ernesto Romeo – “Sentimientos“
Astor Piazzolla – “Libertango“

What’s been a favorite experience from all the publicity that you have gotten since releasing these POP DANTHOLOGY?

My favorite experience was simply the impossible happening. Going viral was a miracle that I really needed at that time in my life that gave me so much hope for the future.

Do you plan on continuing to make these mixes for many years to come?

I do plan on continuing on with these mixes until it starts becoming something that takes my time away from my true passion. So as bigger opportunities come to me in the arena of mental health, I may begin doing less and less music.

What else is on the horizon for you? What would you like to accomplish in 2015?

I am looking into writing a self-help book. I am building my portfolio as a keynote speaker on topics of mental health, psychology, and education. I am also building up my VLOGGING YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/kimaginati0n) where I talk about these topics as well.