Review
Skrillex’s debut album rivals Deadmau5’s brilliance
April 21, 2011
For those of you readers out there with avid interest in the electronic music industry, you may recognize the progressive nature of this competitive field.
Not long ago, the likes of MSTRKRFT, David Guetta, and Deadmau5 were making their ways through the industry to the top of the charts. Even more so, Deadmau5 blew up on the scene like wildfire, and set the industry ablaze.
If you follow my writings for “The Student Voice,” you may recall a live music review I did last semester on Deadmau5’s October performance at Epic Theater in downtown Minneapolis. Moreover, I discussed an opener he had that evening, which at that point I knew nothing about. Boy, how just a short period of time changes things.
This opener I’m talking about was none other than the little known performer Skrillex. Fast forward just a short few months and Skrillex has found himself climbing up the proverbial ladder in the electronic industry, and looks to be the heir apparent to Deadmau5’s reign, or at the very least great competition for him. The great thing here must be the variety to be had between these performers, as both could quite possibly rule the industry in tandem so to speak, as they have unique sounds and a past history working together. Recently, Skrillex released his first studio album, which can be dubbed as electronic with great influence of the up and coming music field known as dubstep.
Now, I myself don’t fully understand the draw of most music in the dubstep genre. But with Skrillex, a listener is fascinated into learning more about this genre, on this new EP album “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” he does such a great job mixing influences of electronic music and dubstep, a listener generally finds themselves overwhelmed by this and even moreso intrigued. Upon a closer listen to the album, Skrillex seems to have carved a niche for himself by interweaving his simply outstanding self-produced songs, as well as remixing current hits in the electronic industry.
With that mentioned, this EP album release offers a closer look into his personally produced music and includes an even cooler aspect, that it has other artists remixing him (the ultimate compliment in the music industry). Despite a relatively playful vulgarity to some of his songs, Skrillex actually instills a lot of personal and emotional meaning to his music.
A few songs from this release to watch for include “Rock N Roll,” “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites,” and particularly “With Your Friends.” All of these tracks are unique, fascinating works of art and are helping contribute to his high demand by promoters amongst some of the biggest venues in the music industry.
That said, he recently released a touring schedule for summer, and for all you lucky fans out there, he’ll be making his way to Minneapolis this July. All things considered, I hope all of you avid electronic music fans out there check out the uprising performer Skrillex and potentially witness his brilliance first hand this summer.
Ryen Kleiser is a laid back biology student at UW-River Falls. He is hoping to become a well-known marine biologist and teacher.