Distorted Noize

So there are couple songs that have been on repeat in my head the last few days. One of which is this mashup of Deadmau5’s “Ghost and Stuff” and Far East Movement’s “Like a G6” done up by Basic Physics.

Far East Movement’s track is definitely a club banger, and see why the track is as popular, but I don’t think it was anything to write home about. But I dig this mashup. A lot. Probably a little too much.

Deadmau5 has definitely produced some pretty good tracks, but I’ve seen him live probably three or four times now at various festivals, and his sets just kind of, well, suck. Most of his songs are at least 5 or 6 minutes, sometimes longer. It feels like that those same 5 or 6 minutes is exactly what we get during the live show, and thus it just feels very static. But a friend has noted that Deadmau5’s sets have gradually improved.

Well, I suppose.

Anyhow, because I’m dangerously close to tapping into my ol “film student mode” and ready to start analyzing and critiquing Deadmau5’s live sets and DJ ability, I looked up a few quotes on Deadmau5’s Wikipedia page:

“It puts me to fucking sleep, to be quite honest; I don’t really see the technical merit in playing two songs at the same speed together and it bores me to fucking tears and hopefully, with all due respect to the DJ type that will fucking go the way of the dinosaur, I’d like them to dis-a-fucking-pear! It’s so middle man, they’re like fucking lawyers! You need them, but they’re fucking cunts. God bless them, they’re my number one customer right, so I’m not gonna go dis every fucking DJ. But to say you become this massive, “up on a podium” performer by playing other peoples productions, at the same speed as someone else’s productions and fading between the two of them, I don’t get it…”

After some backlash, he clears a few things up:

“Let me start by admitting…. I did not grow up in the EDM scene. I don’t consider my career to be about “being a DJ”. I don’t have “DJ roots”. I never had any intention of becoming a DJ, and my conception of “DJ’s” in general from this standpoint has always been being forced into some nightclub when I would have rather stayed home, and watch some dude mash the “play / stop” button and occasionally move a pitch slider. Love it or hate it… that’s just been my conception of the traditional “DJ”. Mind you, I’m not a total fucking idiot, and I recognize talent when I see it… and there are many talented DJ’s out there for sure. In my eyes, those would be the individuals who utilize technology to deliver the music in ways that are both skillful and innovate, more-so than my vision of the “play/stop/pitch” DJ. To me, the club is about “the party”; the people make the night; the DJ obviously needs to use that to his advantage, it’s give and take.”

As good as I like this mashup track and a few songs here and there, Deadmau5’s music just isn’t my thing. But I must say that his clarification and such in the second quote is fine and whatever, but after reading that first quote, I think, for better or worse, I now understand why his sets are the way they are.