Recently Hardwell eclipsed the 300,000 facebook "like" mark and decided to do what most artists do when such a milestone is reached, give away free music. He released a pack of remixes he dubbed "Trilogy". In it contained some of Axwell and Swedish House mafia songs mashed up into bootlegs Hardwell had been using at his live shows.
Nevertheless, Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso didn't take to well to the free downloads. You can read hear about the original outcry of
Axwell & Ingrosso Mad at Hardwell.
I completely understand why Axwell is mad. After watching him perform twice this weekend (electric zoo and ocean club), I'd be mad too. Here's why, Axwell played the same songs at the two gigs. In fact, he opened with the same 6 songs at both gigs. (It's ok Axe we still got nothing but love for you, only because you are a great producer). Granted they were all his own originals or bootlegs, but how unique is his sound when everything is repetitive? and then to top it off everyone gets his tracks for free? not so unique anymore, especially when the remix outshines the original. In that situation the original artists really loses because instead of people buying the original track they are downloading the more popular remix which drives no revenue.
Given the hot topic of mash-ups and the copyright controversy that surrounds them, some artists weighed in. None other then, Kaskade made a big splash when he released the following spew of tweets: (read from the bottom to top)
On the other side of things, we don't think its so morally wrong to get facebook or twitter followers for music. Social media is an important part of these artists businesses and how they keep in contact with their fans. If they are going to clutter fans newsfeeds, shouldn't you be entitled to some goodies along the way?
Here's where EDMBoston sees the problem. Hardwell's remixes are null of major changes to the original tracks. If he had reworked the melodies or beats, and turned the track into something radically different then we believe that be kosher. However, we believe the morality breach comes at the lack of significant change to the tracks. As a result, this track giveaway was in essence like giving away the original tracks.
What do you think? Tell us on Facebook or twitter!