Thraed of Skrillex

i mentioned it in one of the other threads but i think the key to understanding skrillex, at least for me, was finding out that he was in a mallcore screamo band before going solo as skrillex. once i viewed his music through the lens of teenage angst rock of the early 2000s, it finally made sense to me. the song 'scary monsters and nice sprites makes it most apparent imo': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSeNSzJ2-Jw

the singing style at the beginning of the song and again at the final bridge are ripped straight out of the screamo playbook. listen to the drum beat syncopation throughout the song (and especially during the wobble breakdowns): those aren't twostep beats or anything out of the electronic music styles (save for maybe some dnb), those are mall metal breakdown beats! just imagine those beats being played with a double-bass drum and the wobble bass being a chuggachugga guitar riff and you have a straight up screamo breakdown.

so i can totally understand why teenagers love this shit because it's teen rock n' roll, and seems like a logical progression from the screamo/warped tour scene. i also think he can be considered in the same ilk as those crabcore bands that we were lolling at a few years ago except maybe a bit more, dare i say, 'sophisticated'

that being said, i totally dig brostep in the same way i like paramore and can get nostalgic hearing bad screamo: it reminds me of some of the terrible music i listened to as a teen and having fun and going to shows etc

the environment of the shows is way, way more rave-y than screamo-y, though. there are tons of E'd out bros, glowsticks/bodypaint, etc

yea, im kinda pissed i didn't hear about the two shows in chicago this weekend until they were sold out, i totally wouldve gone

but the ravey environment makes sense to me, at least, cuz at the same time i was listening to these questionable rock bands, i was listening to aphex twin and watching movies like Groove and Go and wishing i could go to a rave

i think rustie's a bit overblown myself but he's still got a handle on syncopation in beats vs skrillex's beat-you-over-the-head four on the floor WITH WHOMP style. people hating just because "the kids are into it" is always an option but just not the case in here (other than that so many of the kids love him he's constantly brough up such that we can bring up the valid reasons he's so terrible).

― fauxmarc, Monday, November 14, 2011 2:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

fwiw this argument could go on down thru the ages w/ pedantic line-drawing, i'm sure lots of chicago house purists found problems w/ how the uk artists chose to interpret rave music -- im not saying your wrong, i didnt run out & buy a skrillex cd after seeing him live (although I would have paid to see him live again the next night) but its not like you can sidestep this stuff

― Creedance House Mafia (D-40), Monday, November 14, 2011 3:32 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

addendum: i totally do the same thing w/ Drake in the hip-hop threads. middle class navel gazing is the sound of now for hip-hop & i dont enjoy it & i've come up w/ perfectly reasonable reasons why, but at some level, i think we just have to admit the ground has shifted

When I listen to the Scary Monsters EP what I hear is Pendulum/Noisia dnb mixed with post Justice bloghouse with a tiny little bit of Venetian Snares style hyperactive programming chops. It appeals to the same part of me that liked Rage Against The Machine and At The Drive In when I was 16-19. There's probably also a distant relationship with Dj Distance's Korn-step in 2007-2010.

I was never really into screamo/mall punk, I'm guessing that I was too old by the time it rolled around. So what I'm saying is basically, entire thread OTM so far.

There is one other element in there, a healthy serving of Kaskade style progressive house.

I don't think Skrillex would have ever gotten the attention he has without the ability to appeal to very mainstream dance tastes at the beginning of his career, his early remixes aren't particularly dubstep sounding if I remember correctly. For everyone hating on this, just think of what a thoroughly bizarre mix of musical styles this is. This music couldn't have existed even 5 years ago, much less have received a positive welcome from the kids.

Shouldn't forward thinking music be considered completely crass and tasteless by 20-30 somethings?

fwiw this argument could go on down thru the ages w/ pedantic line-drawing, i'm sure lots of chicago house purists found problems w/ how the uk artists chose to interpret rave music -- im not saying your wrong, i didnt run out & buy a skrillex cd after seeing him live (although I would have paid to see him live again the next night) but its not like you can sidestep this stuff

― Creedance House Mafia (D-40), Monday, November 14, 2011 3:32 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

addendum: i totally do the same thing w/ Drake in the hip-hop threads. middle class navel gazing is the sound of now for hip-hop & i dont enjoy it & i've come up w/ perfectly reasonable reasons why, but at some level, i think we just have to admit the ground has shifted

― Creedance House Mafia (D-40), lunes 14 de noviembre de 2011 20:06

sounds like a suggestion to mostly just view skrillex in a live rave context instead of any critical beat-oriented nerding, which i'm fine with as i obvi don't think he can stand up to the latter. but if the ground has shifted, it's shifted from what - the tiesto/keoki/etc type rave scenes of back when? i mean those sucked too - if that was the starting point the ground may have shifted but still within a continuum of suckage.

re: the screamo angle - yeah it gets brought up frequently and i still don't buy it as an excuse of context needed to "get" skrillex, as mentioned his band was deep in the mallcore end of the pool, he was derivative to begin with - so he took his bad style and applied it elsewhere. it's still ehhhhhh.

Tell you what, to compare this to another DJ who does vocal dubstep tracks and is considered to be an impressive live act: I like this way more than James Blake.

The day that dubstep appeals solely to IDM nerds and indie people is the day its dead entirely. And I say that as someone who listened to a lot of IDM (obviously).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91bqgMkxmv0

Not arguing that James Blake doesn't have a really rowdy live act, just can't stand the sound of his voice.

You aint the only one that wish he'd stfu more often.

This music couldn't have existed even 5 years ago, much less have received a positive welcome from the kids.

Shouldn't forward thinking music be considered completely crass and tasteless by 20-30 somethings?

This is OTM. Yeah, it could have existed a few years ago but not really had the appeal. As such, Skrillex is a sort of apex point where all these disparate styles (all loved particularly by teenagers) seem to converge to make this ultimate teenage music.

Does Skrillex have a defining tune? Most big dance guys build their rep on a signature anthem but though I've read about him as a live/DJing phenomenon I've not come across an equivalent to Da Funk or Chemical Beats. Not saying he doesn't have one - purely my ignorance.

Signature anthem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSeNSzJ2-Jw&feature=player_embedded

^^^ thats his big one. the track that started this thread was one he played at the party's peak. 'i am skrillex' is big as well

I wonder if that cupstacker knows about the sample.

in the original post? its an official remix. imo the original is kind of weak tbh

the original is superior to the remix in every way i know.

Where did I read that quote about how the basslines sounded like "an angry robot having sex with a motorcycle"?

I dunno, but I wouldn't trust anyone who said that they didn't want to hear music that sounds like that.

Cheers. That one's more obviously dubstep than I expected. If someone told me it was a more critically respected UK producer I wouldn't be surprised. Cinema is more like the corny, cross-genre sound I imagined.

Oh, that'll be because it's a remix of Benny Benassi.

The funny thing for me about all of this is when I talked to a local DJ who plays some really intense grinding tracks and mixes it with a bunch of pop, he hates Skrillex so much.

Not even good enough for a brostep DJ.

Skrillex must be the lowest common denominator in a whole bunch of things. There's that Japanese ex-metal guy too, Borgore (or Boregore?), and you can tell he's heavily influenced by death metal. He has an EP/mini album called "Borgore Ruined Dubstep".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpejnx3ZBvE

http://www.deejay.de/images/xl/7/9/45579.jpg

Shouldn't forward thinking music be considered completely crass and tasteless by 20-30 somethings?

― pattern loader, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 01:23 (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

NO. JUST NO.

20-30 somethings have been traditionally cool with forward thinking music for the past 60 years if its dope. Only when it is shit and teenager-y like Skrillex or hair metal idk have 20-30 somethings found it to be crass and tasteless. (Also, this isn't even innovative music - we are fucking discussing afx twin more in this thread than we are the rapey looking hipster.)

i totally didn't get that skrillex was being referred to as "forward-thinking"

xpost When punk came along the music press was inundated with letters from jaded hard rock fans moaning about a lack of Deep Purple and Quo. When grunge kicked off, all I remember hearing from the older crowd on TV/radio was how "it just sounds like a guy whimpering in a corner until someone whacks him round the head with a frying pan for the chorus". And I'm sure rave music pissed off a fair few 20-30 somethings ("it's not even proper music - just bosh bosh bosh and kid's TV samples"

X-post : Well, I did make a list of the people he was ripping off.

Yeah, jazz hipster's were not down with early rock and roll either.

those are completely fair assessments of grunge & rave music

My point, if I have one, is that if you compress layers upon layers of trash culture one onto the other sometimes what you get isn't just pure shit.

Sometimes you get White Zombie or Pitchshifter though. Not really sure where this all going.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0E0ynyIUsg

Shouldn't forward thinking music be considered completely crass and tasteless by 20-30 somethings?

I remember a variant on this discussion at Mixmag in the late 90s re: happy hardcore, like, "This sounds fucking horrible and crass but I guess people thought that about rave 10 years ago so maybe this is actually great because the kids love it?" But no, it really was just horrible and crass. Sometimes the stuff that certain kids like and older critics don't isn't secretly avant-garde and radical after all. Not saying that Skrillex is as bad as happy hardcore but there's no blanket rule here and "I don't get it so I guess it must be great on some level" critical cringe isn't always helpful.

theres a middle ground too tho werent zep and black sabbath shitted on by critics at the time

Loved More Human Than Human when I was about 15, but nothing else Rob Zombie's ever done.

Pitchshifter, Senser and all those acts who tried to mix hard rock/metal and electronica failed terribly as they never managed to achieve the best of either element. Skrillex is interesting because it's the first purely electronic dance music (discounting industrial/EBM) that appeals directly to a traditionally rock-oriented market, and in doing so has managed that task considerably well.

"More Human Than Human" is on my short-list of entrance music should I ever need any (see also Deneice Williams' "Let's Hear It For The Boy").

im gonna say that his live show was a whole lot better than plenty of live shows ive been to by more 'respected' bands & that ppl def undersell a great live artist at their own peril esp in the post paying-for-cds world

I heard enough bizarre distorted noise when I was deejaying lowest common denominator electrohouse and dubstep to be pretty well immune to the affect, but the thing that I've found interesting about Skrillex is that he managed to shoehorn all that side chain compression/bitcrushed FM synth/ video game noise into fairly well written songs. I'm curious if he's going to try to be a songwriter or a musician who makes dance tracks, because its hard to do both. Particularly when you're the figurehead of the "new rave scene" in America.

Not looking forward to "proper songs" tbh. Pendulum were harmless enough until they added that horrible emo-lite singer to the mix. Skrillex is just left of mallcore for me not to mind his schtick too much.

it's the first purely electronic dance music (discounting industrial/EBM) that appeals directly to a traditionally rock-oriented market

You're joking, right?

Wouldn't that be Gary Numan? Or something roughly around the same time period?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBGNlTPgQII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0WNbm1jz6A

gary numan doesn't really strike me as dance music tbh

True enough.

The Prodigy would be the first really big crossover of an electronic act into rock?

you're forgetting about the UK, dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyoDbX1EkPQ

Well if we're talking about the difference between American and European markets, you just add something like 15 years onto the timeline for America.

Kraftwerk, Numan and New Order all started as rock bands and slowly went electronic, I was trying to think of someone who took the opposite route.

Moby.

Fatboy Slim