Alan Walker released a sort of “walkthrough” on the production of his track “Alone” via Future Music Magazine last week, and he’s been getting a large amount of flak for it. It appears, in the video, that Walker knows very little about his own productions, even going so far as having his “co-producer” in the studio with him. Looking on ASCAP, it’s not uncommon for his productions to have as many as four other writers credited…
But back to the video in question, Walker and his co-producer Anders Froen, aka Mood Melodies, attempt to go over the process of creating their track “Alone,” and the word “cringe” really doesn’t quite cut it. Now, to preempt this, English is not Walker’s first language and this is likely responsible for many instances of stuttering and times when it seems like he’s “searching for a word,” so to speak.
What it doesn’t quite account for are the times at which Walker will look over to Froen as if to ask, “Is this correct?” when going over certain aspects of the production. The way that Walker navigates the project file also seems to suggest that it’s one of the first times he might even be seeing it.
At another point in the video, Froen references a section of the song that sounds like it’s been played by “someone who can’t play guitar,” as if the chords were just chopped together. At this, Walker throws his hands up, and says, “Not me.”
The original video is currently sitting with a negative ratio of thumbs down to thumbs up, and the comment section is a veritable wasteland of disparaging comments such as: “Alan Walker was one my heroes but after watching this vid im fucked” (sic) and “Alone: a song that wasn’t created alone.”
Others have noted that they’ve seen Snaps and Instagram Stories from Walker in the studio working on music, and so they are experiencing some rather heavy cognitive dissonance over the whole debacle.
The video even attracted the attention of popular YouTuber Zen World, who some refer to as the H3H3 of the electronic world; i.e., he exposes fakes and isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty or saying the wrong thing (not that that’s always a positive quality).
His video summarizes the original 51 minute tutorial in a little under 6 minutes with commentary, if you can’t stand to sit through the whole original video.
Many people have gotten flashbacks from this video to Carnage’s equally cringe-worthy Razer tutorial, or Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano’s tutorial with Future Music Magazine three years ago, both of which had to be taken down due to heavily negative comments.
For an example of a proper production tutorial, surprise surprise, we point you to Martin Garrix.