Skrillex - My Novice's View of Electronic Music

My knowledge of electronic music, particularly more elusive sub-genres like dubstep, fidget and breakbeat, is extremely limited. While there are people out there who can differentiate between the bajillion different styles, I'm still to new to really pin it down with any sort of authority. This is in no small part due to the fact that I had the unfortunate experience of being subjected to exactly the kind of electronic stuff that I would never like in a million years, so I was immediately turned off.

I didn't mind listening to Daft Punk when somebody threw it on, but I wasn't going to rush out and buy a record; I liked Aphex Twin, but mainly because I'm such a huge fan of Chris Cunningham music videos. See where I'm going with this? When I wasn't hating it as a whole, I was ambivalent about it at best. Ignorant to the point that it was all "techno" to me. Don't forget, I grew up in the generation of Napster-spread techno remixes, which didn't sit well on my aural palette.

Speaking of Daft Punk, it wasn't until they released Alive 2007 that I began to take an interest in electronic music. Two things I wasn't particularly fond of at the time: Daft Punk and live albums. Who would have thought that this would be the album to wow me into a world of which I had barely even scratched the upper crust. Still, a love-hate relationship with said world persisted for quite a while. The stuff I was more inclined to like was repetitive and not very sophisticated. Not to say that it has to be, but it seemed to be better DJ food than something that stands well on it's own (suddenly, liking Alive makes a lot more sense.) I've been told that I just don't get it, which is entirely possible, and naturally there were exceptions (among them, Danger Mouse, Justice, or whatever electronic stuff Mike Patton ever worked on.)

In any case, I'm getting extremely tangential. The point I'm trying to get to is that, after much frustration, I accidentally came across work from a guy by the name of Sonny Moore, better known as Skrillex. I almost passed over him without a second glance, after seeing the word "dubstep" attached, but I listened nonetheless.

"Yeah... ok, we've been here before. Doesn't sound too different from anyth--h...holy fuck."

To be fair, he's not just a dubstep artist. I have it on the word of somebody with a lot more authority on the subject of this type of thing that he defies classification but that dubstep is certainly a major part. We'll probably figure out something to call it sooner or later, but just let it be known for now that it's in the "FUCKING AWESOME," section of my musical library.

The beats are steady and simple, the drops are heavy, distorted and down-tempo, but the production and compositions are, to these untrained ears, flawless and sophisticated.

As a friend put it. He has the Midas Touch.

When I plug in to his album, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, I feel a hundred feet tall. It's infectious stuff, and fortunately he's been getting some good exposure in the last two years. Signed on to Mau5trap in 2010, and just recently had one of his songs used in a trailer for the video game, Uncharted 3, was the DJ for the Woodie Awards, had a song used for a commercial for the new Mortal Kombat game, and released a song with KoRn.

Mortal Kombat track (duhr), and a personal fav

His stuff was good to start with, and has only become more pristine and fleshed out. Very excited to see what he does next. Unfortunately, that might take a while longer than everybody originally thought, due to the unfortunate theft of his laptops and hard drives. That equipment had his next album on it. Whoever you are, I hope you die in a fire.