Skrillex started flirting with a move so willingly underground As the dubstepbut its global success catapulted it into other business spheres, those that fall under less strict labels such as EDM or electronic dance music. He caused an earthquake on the scene, isolated himself for a while protected by his closest circle and has returned with Quest For Fire and Don’t Get Too Closetwo LPs released one day apart that seem like a public act of artistic reaffirmation.
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Further
One of the hallmarks of Sonny Moore, the man behind the alias, is that aesthetically he has never quite seemed to fit the scene in which he has been placed. Those who knew him as Skrillex, a headliner capable of causing the ecstasy of tens of thousands of people with his hyperbolic dance tracks, were probably initially struck by his predilection for dark tones, long hair combined with a side shave and his anguished adolescent pose.
They did seem consistent with the first group recognized within their extensive career, From First to Last, an Los Angeles band from post hardcore that made its concerns clear with titles as explicit as Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Bodycount (2004). There were two albums, published with Epitaph, the label of groups like Bad Religion, Weezer or The Offspring, in which he collaborated as a singer until in 2007 he left the project to start his solo career.
He would do it first under the name of Sonny, with an epé published by Atlantic, gypsyhookwhose virtual disappearance from the platforms of streaming seems to suggest that for the artist it is a bittersweet memory. Probably because he was at an intermediate point between his two interests: guitar rock and electronic production. The last throes of the MySpace phenomenon and the emergence of mixtape They were key in his first reinvention.
His name is Skrillex
The first release under the currently popular stage moniker was My Name Is Skrillex, a self-published epé that he made available in June 2010 as a free download on his social profiles. With themes like the one that gives its name to the release or WEEKENDS!!!, where his usual collaborations with the singer and rapper Sirah began, the repercussion would not be long in coming. His success was almost immediate.
In just over a year Skrillex released three more epés, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, More Monsters and Sprites and Bangarang, which easily climbed to the top of the charts. His ability to make hits instantaneous was confirmed and in the sessions of few clubs of the time there would be no cuts as explosive as Rock ‘n’ Roll (Will Take You to The Mountain), Kill EVERYBODY, First of The Year (Equinox), ruffneck either Bangarangagain with Sirah.
The hallmarks had become clear: forceful rhythms, with drum sounds at a thousand per hour and sounds closer to the heavy metal than to traditional electronic music, sinuous and extra-serious bass lines, voices cut to the millimeter to pierce memory in the choruses, a baroque taste for production and disturbing videos. Skrillex, above all, displayed an incomparable intuition to place in his place the dropsthat epic moment where the song goes wild after a few seconds of anticipation.
Dealing with the setbacks of fame
During the next five years it would be hard to find more successful projects than his. In that period he won up to eight Grammy Awards, produced for generational talents such as rapper A $ AP Rocky (Rihanna’s current partner), in the incendiary single Wild For The Night, and collaborated with another artist just as adept at navigating between styles with skill, Diplo. On the album of his joint project Jack Ü, released in 2015, Justin Bieber sang his planetary hit Where Are You Now.
Despite packing stadiums and cleaning up their accounts with countless collaborations, their rise to the multinational Olympus has not had a consistent reflection in criticism. The first and until recently only full-length album by him, break (OWSLA/Big Beat/Atlantic, 2014), did not seem to fully convince, nor did his staunchest followers. In fact, in the Metacritic ratings aggregator the Average grade is mediocre, including those of specialized media and public users of the platform.
Interesting detail is that he opened that record with All Is Fair in Love and Brostep, an allusion to ‘step-in-law’, a free translation of the nickname with which his style was contemptuously baptized. For connoisseurs of genres like the grime or the dubsteppromoted in the United Kingdom by artists such as Dizzy Rascal or Burial, Skrillex’s proposal would have meant a commercialization of those sounds, polished until they were digestible by a massive, festival-going, majority white and proudly heterosexual audience.
Preparing the ‘mood’
It would be absurd to say that Skrillex has been “at a standstill” in recent years. In addition to collaborating with Vic Mensa or Lykke Li and remixing Travis Scott or Kendrick Lamar, his signature appears in productions of such commercial relevance as In my roomby Jhay Cortez, and in da gettoby J Balvin, both singles released in 2021. Last year his work in the studio was accredited on the subject Energyinside of the Act I: Renaissance by Beyoncé, an award-winning album as demonstrated in the last Grammys.
Although due to the absence of long-form releases, with the exception of two songs contained in the short epé Show Tracks of 2019, joined public statements like the one in which he claimed to be recovering from his addiction to alcohol, the only method with which he had known how to combat the sadness over the loss of his mother. The artist recognized that 2022 had been his worst year to date and justified his withdrawal from various festivals to protect his mental health.
Double Redemption
A publication on their networks on January 1 reassured their audience: Skrillex announced a new album (or albums, given the cryptic nature of the message) by 2023. The surprises have been speed and length: Quest for Fire and Don’t Get Too Close (OWSLA/Atlantic) seem to be the answer, twice over and within a single day of each other, to all your haters. In them, the musician once again demonstrates his rhythmic versatility, his fondness for melodies, above all else, and a neatness when it comes to producing that few rivals can match.
The first of them, Quest for Fire, is the most interesting. Full of hits potentials, there is little respite from the hectic Leave Me Like Thiswhich opens the album with Bobby Raps, jumping good space, leaving calm only in the final stretch. In the middle, he pulls the MC Flowdan to pay heartfelt tribute to the dubstepin rumble and Hydrateand boasts of friendships with the addictive RATATA, along with Missy Elliott and Mr. Oizo. excels XENAa show of talent that grows whole thanks to the strength of the Palestinian singer Nai Barghouti.
That Don’t Get Too Close arrives with the idea of showing a melancholic reverse, it is already obvious from its cover. The intention of airing their fears and weaknesses is achieved with introspective and sincere lyrics, although also somewhat adolescent, and a sound that draws on the most fashionable genres among the TikTok generation, such as mumble rap or the hyperpop. Here Skrillex also pulls from his incomparable agenda, with collaborations ranging from Justin Bieber to PinkPantheress, passing through Yung Lean or Kid Cudi.
This Amazing Article was written by – Pablo Vinuesa On – www.eldiario.es
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