Chapter 3 - Deadmau5
In the year 2007 there was suddenly a certain song. DJs of different House Music genres played it a lot in their sets. The track was progressive, it had a cool melody, a good groove and a pushing atmosphere. I liked it right away. I searched for the song quite a time and finally I found out, it is "Arguru" from an artist called "Deadmau5". "Dead Mouse?" Never heard before, but I knew immediately, a guy who calls himself like this and writes the name like he does is very creative.
I made some research: the name comes from an incident where a mouse crawled into his computer and died. "Dead Mouse" was too long for an IRC login name, so he abbreviated it to be the “leet speak” spelling “Deadmau5”. His real name is Joel Zimmerman, he is from Canada and during that time 26 years old.
Aha! I wanted to have "Arguru" as my profile song in my myspace page - during that time a still very important social network. But Deadmau5 had the track not online. So I wrote to him… and Joel answered very nice! He will put the track online. Oh yeah, I love Social Media!
From this moment on I had an eye on his releases, and he produced a lot! And all the tracks were remarkable. All main melodies are played in a certain style. Beautiful compositions with high recognition, but still having an underground touch! Pure innovation! I loved releases like "Not Exactly" or "Jaded" - and especially "Faxing Berlin", the best track of the year. Is he the Mozart of our time?
Now Deadmau5 went off like a rocket! He made for sure one of the fastest careers in the electronic music biz. It rained down awards for him, he was everybody's darling! But only because of his good productions? No!
First: Joel is a master of Social Media. He knows how to speak to fans and how to use the different available free channels for excellent self-promotion.
Second: he invents a huge marketing gag. Suddenly he wears a gigantic mouse head during his gigs (originally he created the shape while learning to use a 3D program). It is said one head is worth more than 10.000$, equipped with a headphone and ventilation system. Everybody speaks about it, and everybody wants to see him live. And yes, fans wear Mickey Mouse ears like there is a Disney Parade going on. What do you want more!?
Suddenly Deadmau5 changes his new songs a bit. His famous style of playing the melodies is gone. OK, an artist has to develop, especially when you want to stay on the top. The track is still good though, so don't worry...
But the releases are getting with the time more and more worse, more and more towards Electro. For those who do not know: horrible cheap aggressive tones, which you heard already at least 1000 times before, combined with zero innovation - this is Electro. Or "stabbing in the back" music like I call it.
In the past I played every new track from him on our internet radio. Now: not even one. He was the greatest producer of our time, now he is a cheap ripoff. But why? I heard from promoters who book him for a gig that he is now very arrogant. If its true, I don't know. Maybe the success was too fast for him, maybe he wants to make even more money. Cheap Electro sounds are played in every small village club, the target group who likes it is much bigger. He completely changed for getting more audience - but they are no music lovers. A huge pity - for those who know: we lost one of the best composers of all time.
Read also:
Chapter 2 - Erick MorilloPhoto: Deadmau5
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