Awesome Article here that Becky Radolf wrote on the state of where Skrillex being lame came from. She talks about how the scene has changed and largely those are the people that you now see going to skrillex shows. Since sonny has become associated with all the newbs, it has def hit his street cred.
Read On:
Article Written by Becky Radolf of Womplife for Womplife
(Womplife) "I’ll be the first to admit it: I still like Skrillex. In fact, I don’t really know when the point came when it suddenly wasn’t cool to like Skrillex anymore. It feels like a few months ago, back when he had remixed “Levels” in a non-shitty way (probably the first to do so), he was still at the pinnacle of his awesomeness. And then suddenly…he just tanked in popularity. Admittedly, this was a gradual decline for many long-time EDM fans. Now, if someone asks you what EDM artists you like, and you throw Skrillex into that mix, the other person will silently judge you, thinking, "Oh, Christ. They like Skrillex. They have no idea what they’re talking about.”
Yet, his music hasn’t really changed all that much, and he’s still the same person he was a few months ago. He’s still the shy, humble little man with the weirdo hairdo (now a trend-setter). He still cranks out the same distinctly Skrillexy music and he still clearly loves what he does. So why are we hating on him so much?
I think the problem arises when we look at
what his fan base has become. He is, essentially, responsible for the huge blow-up of EDM music in America, and therefore we must blame him mercilessly. Now, we have to put up with annoying sorority girls wearing matching pink tutus, and fratty, beefed up 19-year-olds wearing RAGE hats, who really don’t know why they’re at the show, except to be drunk and to experiment with drugs for the first or second time. I’m not saying this can’t be fun. I like to get obliterated and dance my ass off to pounding music as much as the next person. I’m just saying, when it’s crowds and crowds of the same type of people, and you can’t seem to find anyone who seems to enjoy the music the way you do, it’s a little disconcerting.
It’s amazing how much more weird hooking up and grinding I see at these shows now, as well. At some shows, it’s gotten almost to the point of extreme awkwardness when you have fucked up guy after fucked up guy stumbling over to you, practically drooling from being so out of it, trying to grab your waist and get you to dance all up on his junk. It used to be just fun-loving, wacky dancing with the people around you. If you were lucky, you’d get a light show. No, I do not want to grind up on your dick. I want to dance. Stop grabbing me. Here’s a fun tidbit, some fellow WOMPers went to a festival in Australia recently. Out of the tens of thousands of dancers and attendees, not one person was grinding. Not one. This was a bewildering and welcome sight, as you can imagine. Word of advice fellas: you no longer have an excuse to not be able to dance.
My point here is that the scene has drastically changed, and so we feel the need to place the blame on the person we think is responsible for this. That person is Sonny Moore. That asshole.
BUT, in reality, we need to stop hating him for making music that is universally liked. The dude was just doing what he loved, and happened to get big for it. The guy is actually a really talented musician. He plays guitar, sings on his tracks, and clearly has a sense of the genre that other people don’t have. He manages to put noises together that would sound god-awful on their own, and make them pleasing to the ear. That shit ain’t easy to do.
I do think Skrillex overextended himself a bit. Putting his music in movies, commercials, wherever the hell he could get it. Hell, there was even a “Cinema” medley on America Idol, where they were belting out his remix of the Benny Benassi classic. When it comes to question of whether or not Skrillex sold out a little…well, that’s a different issue. However, he didn’t change his music to do it, so you’ve got to give him that.
So, Skrillex isn’t really the lame one here, is he? It’s some of the people he tends to attract, and I am in no way generalizing to the general Skrillex-loving population, because I am undoubtedly one of them. I know some sorority girls and fraternity guys who truly love the music as well, so I’m not stereotyping them either (they’re just an easy target). I think once the scene calms down, and the initial wave of mania over this genre subsides, Skrillex will be back on the map as the cool, genre-bending artist he started out as. As long as drunk idiots keep showing up as his shows, however, the original festival and showgoers will stay angry at him.
On a side note, you can find consolation in that industry leaders are taking EDM’s future into account. Pasquale Rotella, founder of Insomniac and EDC, said at the first EDMbiz conference:
“Our strategy moving forward is we don’t want to book the [big] guys. I want to create an experience. You don’t need to book the big acts who sell out arenas."
We can’t agree more with Pasquale and think he sees this trend and changing fan base. Festivals and shows have seemingly become the act of everyone holding up their phones over dancing and enjoying the music. He is choosing improving the art and production of Insomniac events rather than depending on the Superstar names to sell tickets. We like where your head’s at, Pasquale."
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