Recently in an interview with Rolling Stone, Skrillex finally responded to the criticism voiced by Deadmau5 over working with Justin Bieber, and being used as a producer. In his own words, Skrillex said, “If he was a real friend, he would come to me and be like, ‘Yo, you shouldn’t be working for Justin Bieber,’ rather than blowing it up all over the Internet and going out of his way to make people feel wrong for making a choice in their life.”
The interview was covered by more than just us or Rolling Stone, including outlets like DJ Mag, which just happened to be the one that deadmau5 responded to.
would both just shut the fuck up already. EDM isnt going anywhere, unfortunatley neither is pop. WHO FUCKIN CARES.
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) May 17, 2016
Deadmau5 was responding to another part of the interview, in which Skrillex fielded a question about the future of “EDM.”
“Are you asking me how long people are going to make EDM? […] Or are you asking how long people are going to make computer music? Because people won’t stop making music on the computer until computers go away. But as far as a certain culture and aspect of EDM, yeah, I do believe that it will go away […]”
Contrasted with Deadmau5’s adamant statement that “EDM isn’t going anywhere,” the two seem to be at idealistic ends. At its core, the issue isn’t an easy one to really grasp in 140 characters. “EDM” can unfortunately mean different things to different people depending on when you came into dance music.
For some, EDM is simply an umbrella term meaning “electronic dance music.” For others, it denotes a very specific brand of dance music that is marketed en masse to a group less interested in finding music on their own. Though it’s complete speculation, in the examples of Skrillex and deadmau5, it would seem that Skrillex is going for the latter definition, while deadmau5 is referencing the former.
As two of the most visible characters in dance music, or EDM, whatever, their opinions matter – no matter how much one of them might like to think they don’t. Just sharing those opinions, especially on a platform like Twitter, will not enact any sort of tangible change. At most, it’s just a looking glass into how their opinions might spill over into their actions at large.
Image via Rukes