Into the L.A. mix

DJ culture has gone Hollywood, if you haven’t heard.

You can hardly watch a car commercial without hearing thumping house beats (Mitsubishi, Saab and Chrysler’s PT Cruiser move to the groove, to name a few), and such electronic music luminaries as Jason Bentley and Brian Transeau have been busy compiling soundtracks and scoring films.

Now Paul Oakenfold, the world’s most popular DJ, has come breezing down the red carpet. The Brit recently bought a home in Los Angeles and plans to spend the winter here, schmoozing no doubt.

Oakey, as he’s known, is a natural fit for the industry scene. He wears his crisp collars open, sports Prada shades and can have a brash tongue (“The best thing a DJ in America could do, and I’m not dissing New York or America in any way, is come over to England and see how it’s done,” he said in 1998).

And although DJs in this town are held in about as much esteem as valets, Oakenfold has it all worked out: He concludes a 15-date tour in support of his first album of original music, “Bunkka,” on Saturday by putting on a live show at the Wiltern “with band,” as his Web site attests. He’s also in the lineup for tonight’s KIIS-FM Jingle Ball at Anaheim’s Arrowhead Pond.

He’s doing more and more studio work, has a second CD with his own compositions in the works, and more film music to come. Oakenfold’s not the most innovative music maker in the world, nor is he the most skilled club DJ, but he arguably is the best businessman dance music has ever seen.

According to SoundScan, “Bunkka” has sold more than 160,000 copies since its June debut, which makes it a Billboard dance chart Top 10 mainstay. From hip-hop to house to trance, Oakenfold has juiced wave after wave of pop culture phenomena since the mid-’80s. With “Bunkka’s” soulless but cleanly produced “nu skool” break-beats, muted vocal trance and chaotic collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson, Ice Cube and Nelly Furtado, he seems in dire need of a new wave, and L.A. isn’t a bad place to go trend surfing.

It’s a Hollywood tradition (see “The Fast and the Furious” or “Blue Crush”) -- the people who innovate and participate in youth culture aren’t necessarily the ones well-compensated. Oakenfold should feel right at home as part of a long line of musical culture marketers, from punk and new-wave visionary Malcolm McLaren to hip-hop king Russell Simmons to L.A.’s own dance radio pioneer “Swedish” Egil Aalvik.

A 1987 trip to the Spanish party mecca isle of Ibiza with future cover-jocks Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway led to Oakenfold’s Monday night Spectrum parties at the London club Heaven, which coincided with the widespread use of Ecstasy and the explosion of rave culture fueled by Chicago “acid house.” A 1995 trip to the Indian region of Goa, then frequented by Euro-travelers and buoyed by German trance, inspired Oakenfold to spin the synthetic, emotional trance genre, propelling him to rock-level stardom and making him the leader in an avalanche of trance-mix compilation albums that arguably have outsold any other form of e-music.

Oakenfold has sold more than 1.3 million records, mostly mix CDs featuring tracks by various artists, including “Tranceport,” “Global Underground: New York” and “Perfecto Presents: Ibiza.” Along with countrymen Sasha and John Digweed, he has taken the old homemade “mix tape” and made it a cheap-to-produce money-maker that simply strings together other artists’ licensed dance singles.

Most of Oakenfold’s work has relied on the worldwide popularity of trance, a driving Germanic take on Detroit techno that artists such as Transeau Jam & Spoon and Oakenfold himself later tamed with calmer piano licks and sweet girl vocals.

But trance hit a creative wall in 2000, with a furious backlash in the upper ranks of the superstar DJ circuit. Oakenfold clearly has tried to move on to the tougher “progressive” sounds of today. With “Bunkka,” he also gambled that mid-tempo break-beat songs that blend trancey synths with twisted, drum-and-bass-style rhythm production is the next thing. It certainly hasn’t hit the trendsetting bull’s-eye Oakenfold once nailed with hip-hop, house and trance.

Then again, he’s in L.A. now. People don’t care about DJs’ latest fancies, progressive this and nu skool that -- but they do eye the wallet, and so far it looks like the Guinness Book of World Records’ “most successful DJ” will be welcomed to the club, so long as he isn’t toting his DJ bag.

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Paul Oakenfold

Where: Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim

When: KIIS-FM Jingle Ball, 8 tonight

Cost: Sold out

Info: (714) 704-2500

Also

Where: The Wiltern, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

When: Saturday, 8 p.m.

Cost: $31.50

Info: (213) 380-5005