Deadmau5.

This seems to be a topic that creates a lot of divisiveness in the electronic music community. I figured it was time for me to throw my hat in the ring.

So, a little bit about my musical background first. I've played guitar and bass now for over 20 years. I come from the era when grunge and thrash overthrew hair metal, when Milli Vanillia had to turn in their grammy for lip-synching, leaving Downtown Julie Brown and the Club MTV Party-To-Go massive homeless. My background was such that ALL music should be played "live" - as in every note, every word, every drum hit, performed by a human being.

An excerpt from an old Metal Church track:
"One more MIDI cable
and my band is ready to go...
...sincereity is felt much more
When the human factor shows..."

Then I saw KMFDM live. Then I saw Nine Inch Nails live. I realized you could use electronic instruments and sequencers in a live setting without compromising your artistic integrity. It was a *huge* paradigm shift for me. Then I discovered The early Warp Records IDM stuff, Aphex Twin Selected Ambient works, and then, the 4-4 beat. It was all over.

When I took up DJ-ing, I didn't realize that I was in for yet another paradigm shift. DJ-ing is not like performing in a band. There's a lot more to it than just blending two songs together. You have to know your music front to back, and you have to have a LOT of it to choose from. Using Ableton to mix together multiple scenes of music which are all warped to the same tempo seems no more "live" to me than cueing up a record, CD, or mp3 - even if the music is all yours to begin with. And beatmixing, PLUS reading the crowd, while at the same time creating a musical identity for yourself seems to require a LOT more skill. As the old saying goes, "If it were easy, everyone would be doing it."

But the bottom line for the DJ remains, "can you rock the party?" (no matter what technology you use)

The first track I ever purchased by Deadmau5 was "1981" - probably in late 2006/early 2007. It was a pretty cool little deep/chill house track with a catchy bassline. I then picked up "Not Exactly" which went into heavy rotation in my sets at the time.

Prior to that, I had noticed a lot of the drum patches being used in even the trance/progressive stuff I was hearing starting to lean more towards heavily compressed/gated 80s style drums, which I think owes a lot to the influence of electroclash. And Daft Punk had been using 70s funk/disco samples for awhile. Deadmau5's style seemed to be the logical merging of the two: one or two hooks (either in the form of an analog bassline or delayed synth stab) layered over 80s style drums; EQ-ed for new-millenium era PA systems; then filtered in and out gradually like a french house track.

Deadmau5's collaborations with Kaskade gave him enough of the vocal leanings and groove of deep house to bring his productions into the mainstream. In effect, it made Kaskade sound less like OM Records and more like Tiesto, and make Deadmau5 sound less like Detroit and more like Miami. Understand, I'm not hating on either of them, simply describing my viewpoint on the progression of their sound. And maybe a little bit of the public's perspective of their sound.

And then, he decided to make those colorful remarks about DJs and DJ culture. Wow. What a PR nightmare. I mean, try to spin "...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" all you want, it's just never going to sound any better. And you know he meant it 100% when he said it. Ouch. Way to bite the hand that feeds you.

Now, take all of this, and put yourself in my man's shoes.

Deadmau5 was in his teens when the boy bands were topping the charts. He's writing electronic music in a post-grunge, post-gangsta rap, post-electronica, post-boyband, post-Idol and (almost) post-emo world. In a matter of 3-4 years, he went from being a bedroom producer to an arena-filling "rock star" (in the truest sense of the word, complete with on-stage costume and light show). The tracks that his audiences seem to respond to most readily are almost entirely based around musical themes and rhythms, rather than lyrics and lifestyle. A far departure from when I was DJ-ing only 5 years ago and people were complaining about all the "no-words music."

Is he perfect? No. Could you remember every single word of every interview you gave, at any given moment, while at the same time keeping your inside voice in check? Doubtful. Are all of his songs great? Not exactly (pun intended). Yet somehow, he has managed to rope in audiences worldfwide almost exclusively with his *original*, theme-based electronic music - night after night.

Love him or hate him, I think he deserves a measure of respect.