Deadmau5.The New York Times published a fun interactive video and story earlier Tuesday, explaining how Jack Ü’s “Where Are Ü Now” came to be. Interspersed with clips of the song, as well as clips of unreleased rough demos of the song, the video portion features interviews with all of the artists involved — Justin Bieber, Skrillex, and Diplo — letting everyone give their own mini oral history of what happened behind the scenes. “It’s expensive, you know what I mean?” Bieber says of the hit. “It’s like the sounds that are used are not cheap. They’re very expensive-sounding sounds.” Most of the interviews shed light on the creative process and, piece by piece, essentially re-create the song in front of your very eyes (and ears); there are also some cool fun facts presented: The flutelike sound in the song is actually Bieber’s voice, just heavily distorted. “You can almost destroy a sound so many times, it loses quality,” Skrillex notes. “People always try to avoid digital distortion, but we always like using it.”
Fun, right?
The versions of "Where Are Ü Now" that Diplo and Skrillex didn't send Justin Bieber http://t.co/PWoEETMMxK pic.twitter.com/aJz4HBocvP
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 25, 2015Wrong! Deadmau5, who is not scared of haters, appeared to hate it, especially the part where everyone is talking about how expensive the hit sounds — kind of understandable, considering the quotes are ridiculous. There was lots of shade, though:
"its expensive. the sounds we used are not cheap. theyre very expensive sounds" holy fuck. i just cant. im done. https://t.co/LpNLKCwRPE
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 25, 2015i stopped watching after that insanely stupid quote. i dont want to live here anymore.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 25, 2015SO EXPENSIVE. you dont even want to know how much my sounds cost. fucking crazy. moving air isnt fuckin cheap.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 25, 2015id like to take this opportunnity for the fans who made rich as fuck so i can make expensive expensive sounds.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 25, 2015@KallenAsh i cant even afford to watch this piece of shit.
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 25, 2015ill just fuckin, ya know, leave this here. pic.twitter.com/8SrwycIJQI
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 25, 2015what artists? brb. diabloing. https://t.co/43eozoFfKs
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) August 25, 2015He even did a brief Instagram parody, writing, “Yeah. It’s expensive allright. This fucking remix cost me 60k”:
Diplo, who is not scared of Twitter beef, didn’t look very happy about it:
@deadmau5 😓 pic.twitter.com/WDvHHNv1TL
— wes (@diplo) August 26, 2015Bieber and Skrillex haven’t responded via social media yet, either because they understand — more than anybody — that you can’t please everybody, or because they are familiar with the darkness of Deadmau5’s sometimes-very-constructive-and-insightful-and-other-times-very-depressing-and-troll-y Twitter feed. You can read the full Times story here and watch the video here.
Sources
NYT Deadmau5 Was Not Into That NYT Bieber VideoncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57kWlobmdgbXylscCdpJqtZWK3tr%2FToqVmmpmar6a%2BjKOYnKNdqnqltdJnn62lnA%3D%3D