My review of and thoughts on deamdau5' album while(1<2)
It’s not what you’d expect. I’ll let the professionals say it, whatever it is, first. “…the world’s most unnecessary Nine Inch Nails tribute act…” harsh words from Rolling Stone. “Sprawling, ambitious and mostly well-executed, While (1<2) may confuse his fan base’s Ultra-attending electro house contingent, but deadmau5’s double album undoubtedly marks his most mature and forward-thinking release to date. ” said Billboard.com The reviews are mixed, it would seem. Makes sense, because I think this album created some confusion among the media and fans. I’ll be the first to admit that, while I appreciate deamdau5′ work on a few different levels, I’m not the type of dude who follows the hype about an upcoming album. Whatever. I pre-ordered the CD on Amazon when I heard it was coming out in a couple of weeks. Not even entirely sure how I found out about it, because it wasn’t being promoted as heavily – at least not paraded in front of my face – as some of his previous works. Anyway, I was definitely a bit surprised after sticking the first CD into my car’s probably sub-par sound system, fully expecting to be entertained with some chords and lively energy which often is heard in deadmau5′ works. What I got was pretty melancholy, relatively slow, ambitiously beautiful in its simplicity – but definitely not “EDM”. Whether that’s a good thing or not, is arguable – and honestly – I’m not going to get into whether deadmau5 “should” have gone in this direction. To me, the two-disc LP sounds like something deadmau5 wrote for himself, but really wanted us to hear. As a producer, I get it. As a producer who doesn’t like to stick to the same formula for too long, I really get it. Sometimes I just get bored of doing the same thing over and over – I know I can do more. Whether more should be done, and how it should be done is always a grey area. Obviously, many fans become fans because they like a particular track or at least a style of sound an artist is putting out there. So, to take some fans of progressive house and then suddenly offer to feed them dubstep might be a hard pill to swallow. There will be some fans who will ultimately be turned off by an experiment like this. There will be new fans found. There will be fans who listen to the album and say “It’s not for me, but I get it and I appreciate the effort.” At the end of the day, none of that really matters, in the grand scheme of things. As someone once wisely pointed out, the only constant in the world is change. deadmau5 is not the first or the last, by any measure, to make a departure from the usual formula. This is a good a time as any for deadmau5 to branch out and show he’s capable of more than just pushing play and repeating the same successful formula over and over. Like an actor, a producer is only as valuable, in the long run, as he or she is versatile. Experiments like this are required, timing is the only barrier. That all said, on to the music itself. I initially thought the first CD would be a bit more mellow, artistic, experimental, expressive, etc… and the second CD would be full of grand slam energy. Again, I was mistaken. Both discs on the double LP flow smoothly, the whole thing meticulously planned and structured – as are deadmau5′ track themselves. The “production value” if I can just throw that general term out there, is as high as always. Basically, it sounds like deadmau5 is taking all he’s learned about structure, combining various musical elements and mixing and creating a new package, saying “this is what I can bring to the table with the skills I’ve acquired from working on electronic music”. The result of this effort is a well crafted project. Perhaps like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories this album is either ahead of its time or the timing just isn’t right for this type of record. The main difference between RAM and while(1<2), aside from the name, is the distinct lack of a big single or two to help propel the album in the charts. Is while(1<2)…