When Skrillex, a 23 year-old dance-music producer from Los Angeles whose real name is Sonny Moore, nabbed the final Best New Artist slot at last night’s Grammy Nominations Concert, more than a few people balked:
Who is this Skill-rex person/band, and why has he/she/they taken away the nomination from my beloved (insert act here)?!
But other people were much more excited about his nomination (this is
a real, if not strictly grammatical reaction from his official Facebook page):
Your f–king amazing! I hope you win each and every one of those
Grammy’s, you deserve it! F–k the haters that say otherwise, your dope
as f–k!!!!!!
Truth is, if you aren’t still on the Party Rock circuit, you’ve
likely never heard of Skrillex, the dubstep wunderkind whose trancey EPs
blare at raves and festivals across the country and whose personal YouTube uploads have racked up over 190 million views. To the tech-savvy Gen-Zers, though, for whom thumping bass rumbles and beep-bop-boop remixes are commonplace, Skrillex is a god among DJs. (Somewhere, P!nk is totally confused by that line.)
Perhaps the Grammys were attempting to reach out to the youth
demographic that every awards show so desperately desires by giving
Skrillex a Best New Artist slot. Or perhaps they simply wanted to
acknowledge the rise of dubstep/dance music by awarding him five
nominations and giving deadmau5
three of his own. Or perhaps Grammy voters really just love Skrillex.
(I mean, he clearly shares a lot of fans with last year’s Best New
Artist winner, Esperanza Spalding, right?)
No matter what the reasoning, though, some people — you know, the
kind who prefer guitars and pianos and lyrics (fogies!) – just can’t
consider Skrillex a legitimate music artist. They hear tracks like the
one below and wonder, “Is this music or just noise?” (and also: “Get off
my lawn!”):
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