Deadmau5
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Joel Zimmerman, better known by his stage name deadmau5 (pronounced “dead-mow-five”) is a Canadian EDM producer and DJ. He is best known for his signature ‘mau5head’, torturing his own fanbase with NFTs, and his persistent aptitude for posting comments that make Gordon Ramsey look like a polite and refined individual.
With a large collection of potential awards and a few commercially successful albums, deadmau5 was widely recognized as one of the most influential and accomplished masters of repeating the same four notes for ten minutes and calling it a ‘song’ for a couple years in the 2010s.
Career[edit | edit source]
Stuart Little and Everything Before[edit | edit source]
Zimmerman was born in 1981, in a strange land called Canada. Despite the unfortunate start, it was soon apparent that he was destined for great things. As a teenager, he received his first keyboard, and quickly realized he had a gift for repeating the same note over and over again. His path was clear: he was to be a producer of electronic music. Leaving his old life behind, Zimmerman began his new life in the music industry. After cycling through several other names, he started operating under the moniker ‘deadmau5’, an old internet chat room handle that had supposedly originated from his childhood friend, a mouse named Stuart Little, who was tragically killed by electrocution repairing wires inside his computer.
BSOD and Fame[edit | edit source]
One of deadmau5’s forming breaks of his career was when he met Steve Duda, another techno “composer” with a penchant for developing things that make music, and not music. Nonetheless, the pair had big dreams, and were bent on being next Aphex Twin. However, they accidently formed the commercially successful duo "BSOD", leading to them being appealing to pretentious music listeners the aisle over instead. While most of their songs were quickly forgotten, one particular single - a parodical song entitled ‘This Is The Hook’ - was an instant success, despite the fact that its lyrics were taking the piss out of the very house-listeners who liked it -- don't tell Benny Benassi.
Eventually, Duda realized that he was meant for more than 4 bar loops, and split from BSOD, occasionally reuniting with deadmau5 whenever he decides another four bar loop fix wouldn't be so bad. Around that time, Zimmerman released his first studio album, Get Scraped. Get Scraped has since been promptly scraped from the internet. The album was followed by Vexillology, an album deadmau5 apparently knew would only appeal to future hardcore fans. After two years of arguing with a Care Bear, his major breakthrough came with the release of his specifically-titled third album, Random Album Title (2006). While mostly consisting of four bar loops, Random Album Title also contained a collaboration with fellow electronic producer Kaskade, called "I Remember". Special for being a four bar loop with vocals, it catapulted deadmau5 into fame.
The Peak of mau5[edit | edit source]
deadmau5 now knew that he had the potential to be big. A year later, after an intense period of work (in which he primarily thought up new names for songs he had already written), he released his next album, For Lack of a Better Name, and then 4x4=12 in 2010, both of which the masses soaked up like a... like a freakin' sponge. deadmau5's rise to prominence was further supported by live performances, including a live set at the 54th Grammy Awards, and another at the... well, you name it, he did it. If you guessed Foot Locker, you were right too. In 2012, he endured a notable interview with the Rolling Stone magazine, placing him as the first electronic artist to adorn the magazine's cover, and the first to break the magazine’s record of ‘most people insulted in one interview’. By this point, deadmau5 had now risen to the top ranks of the world's electronic musicians, an honor endowed to only the best four bar loop producers - and had brought with him a "revolution" - at least, that's what his website calls it, so I'm not going to argue.
deadmau5’s album, > Album Title Goes Here <, was released into 2012, with notable features including a song inspired by Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and another starring the singing screaming talents of Gerard Way. With the album meeting a number six place on the Billboard 200, a number one place on the Dance/Electronic Albums chart, a nomination for Best Dance/Electronica Album for the 55th Grammy Awards, and thousands of trash folders, it has managed to retain deadmau5's spot as one of the most successful figures in his field of music.
Everything After[edit | edit source]
deadmau5's other album, While(1<2), (which is probably the most confusing name yet) was released in 2014 and is probably the album closest to being as edgy as he had hoped he'd be in 2005. The only song I'm capable of naming at the moment is my pet sealacinth coelacanth, which is a song that Joel yells "F***" in over and over again. This album also brought accusations that he was a satanist into his focus since he had named several tracks after the seven deadly sins. These were accusations he gleefully confirmed.
deadmau5's other other album, called W:/2016Album/, (NEVERMIND, THIS IS THE MOST CONFUSING) was released in 2016, and even deadmau5 hated this one. Accused of simply making a file in his computer an album, he also confirmed this. To be fair though, most fans do look at this album with more favorability than Vexillology.
After years of peddling NFTs, deadmau5 finally regained his conscious as the revolutionary firebrand he was born to be, and has started hyping up a 2026 album while admonishing AI and righting past wrongs. The four bar loops of this album have been lauded by fans as a return to form.
Live sets[edit | edit source]
deadmau5 often showcases his music live. He doesn't like to be called a "DJ", however, and argues that his sets are closer to live performances, as "there are no CDs involved", he "assembles tracks on the fly using cutting-edge computer technology", and that “DJs are fucking cunts, while I am not.”
While achieving crowds numbered in the gazillions (give or take a bazillion), deadmau5's performances have also had their critics. Some have complained that the sets are repetitive and uncreative, and that the only difference between each one is the order of the songs, and what patterns the strobe lights are flashed in to distract everyone from the monotonous music. This is obviously a ridiculous charge. deadmau5 also wears a fan's mau5head every performance! Creativity at its finest!
Controversial comments[edit | edit source]
On DJs[edit | edit source]
deadmau5 is well-known for being mildly critical of DJs in general, and has made quite a number of polite and constructive comments towards them. By which we mean he yells a bunch profanities at them.
- "It puts me to fucking sleep, to be quite honest; I don't really see the technical merit in playing two songs at the same speed together and it bores me to fucking tears and hopefully, with all due respect to the DJ type that will go the way of the fucking dinosaur, I'd like the cunts to dis-a-fucking-ppear! And to further elaborate on my point: fuck fucked cunt fuck fucking fuck fuck bitch fuck fucker. Fuckity fuck.
- No offence, though."
Fortunately, deadmau5 fell back on his comments later that year, explaining that the interview had been a bad one and that he hadn’t expressed his views on DJs correctly:
- "Yeah, I probably needed a couple more ‘fucks’ in there to get the message just right."
On other artists[edit | edit source]
deadmau5 has also expressed similar opinions towards other electronic artists. In a 2012 interview for the Rolling Stone he stated:
- "David Guetta has two iPods and a fucking mixer and he just plays tracks – like, 'Here's one with Akon, check it out!' Even Skrillex isn't doing anything too technical. He has a laptop and a MIDI recorder, and he's just playing his shit ... People are, thank fucking God, smartening up about who does what – but there’s still button-pushers getting paid half a million. And not to say I’m not a button-pusher. I’m just pushing a lot more buttons. Usually two... sometimes even three!
- Also, did I mention that DJs are fucking cunts? Well, they are. Fucking fuck fuck cunt fuckers."
Critical reception of music[edit | edit source]
deadmau5's music is mostly positively received, achieving praise for its universal appeal, and its fusion of house style with other genres. Its critics are numerous, however, and many have complained that deadmau5's art is "repetitive", "uncreative", and "just the same four notes over and over for ten minutes". These complaints are seriously flawed, even bordering on ridiculousness. deadmau5's music isn't "uncreative"; it has its own unique style, and it's not "repetitive"; it just has a beautiful simplicity. And finally, it's not "just the same four notes over and over for ten minutes"; usually it has a drumbeat in there as well... maybe someone is singing...
