Deadmau5 4 X 4 = 12 | Album Review

Story by Mitch McCann 

| Published Dec 7, 2010

Ever since Daft Punk broke down the doors of what a techno group could do with their late 2000 single “One More Time”, technology’s place in music has increased exponentially. Their epic tapestries of music forced techno into the mainstream and not only presented themselves to the world, but paved the way for others to do so as well.

However, not all press is good press and sometimes just because you can produce music, doesn’t mean you should. Joel Zimmerman, better known by his stage name “deadmau5,” may be hot shit where he comes from, but to those who are able to listen to his music while not under the influence and away from the glamour and stigma of the genre are able to see that these trance, Tech-House, electro, dance, dubstep (or whatever the fuck you want to call them) beats belong alongside Ke$ha in some trashy club, not on your iTunes.

For a genre that has and will continue to gain considerable ground and no doubt continue to inch its way into the mainstream, “performers” like deadmau5 will soon be idolized, the Springsteen in a genre that will one day be king, and that makes me terribly, terribly sad.

These derivative beats are solely for hipsters that consider themselves too hip to be hipsters to bump in their car or in their over-priced, over-sized headphones. Everything about this album has been done before and better elsewhere. I almost pity Zimmerman, because the tough thing about techno is you’re either “it” or you’re nothing, and when your contemporaries are the likes of Daft Punk, Justice and LCD Soundsystem, it’s hard not to look like just another guy with a gigantic foam mousehead and a laptop.