15 years ago, Skrillex was literally “the most hated man in music”. Resident Advisor called him “headache inducing”, while others coined ‘brostep’ as a unique pejorative for his sound. Now, with the release of his fourth album, Fuck U Skrillex You Think Ur Andy Warhol but Ur Not!! <3, those same platforms are praising him. So what’s changed?

Well, Skrillex certainly hasn’t, and this same silly chaos is now attracting widespread acclaim. The notorious American producer’s latest project features tongue-in-cheek commentary from meme-wise trap producer DJ Smokey (who narrates Skrillex’s exaggerated bass drops with lines like “this is fucked beyond repair”) and flits between flashes of brostep, hyperpop and baile funk with the attention span of a For You Page doomscroll. It’s almost as if, in the 15 years since Skrillex debuted, the world appears to have grown tired of music that takes itself too seriously. 

It’s a trend that’s playing out globally. Last month, trailblazing Chinese rapper Jackzebra told Dazed that China’s youth “don’t fuck with techno anymore” and are instead gravitating towards the “freedom and chaos” of hardstyle and hyperpop. That same week, the founders of new Copenhagen club night Unearth heralded a similar shift on the other end of the continent. Then there’s the cartoonish pop maximalism of PC Music’s A.G. Cook and Danny L Harle, who are now ubiquitous thanks to their work on Charli xcx’s hedonistic, irony-laced Brat. The record was all about meme graphics, chaotic pop remixes, and Charli declining to perform at the BRIT awards so she can get drunk instead.

“Young people’s humour is quite absurdist right now,” says Finessa (FKA Finessa Williams), DJ, producer and co-owner of donk and hard dance party Donkline, which curates a clubbing experience as weird and wonderful as the 160bpm dance edits that they spin. There are events themed around frogs, DJs with names like Banana Del Ray and Willie Donka, and even a 24-hour phone line (0800 144 8463) that delivers donk to ravers-in-need across the UK. “Millennials were more nihilistic, but Gen Z prefers to be inane over straight bleakness,” Finessa continues. “If you want to wear black and be cool and macho, cool, go to a techno party. But, if you think that looks a bit ‘silly’, come to the silly party.”

For Finessa, the recent shift towards hardstyle and donk represents the “ego death” of mainstream dance genres like techno and drum’n’bass. “A bunch of DJs and producers in our scene had got sick of how we were expected to present ourselves in these other scenes,” he explains. “Every time a big dubstep, techno or drum’n’bass producer comes along, they’re meant to be some mysterious edgy character (Google Chase and Status and have a look at their press pics, you’ll get what I mean). [It’s about] letting go of that character, letting go of the manufactured and serious image, wanting to just make tunes for the fun of it and not having to pretend to be someone you’re not.”

A similar dynamic can be seen playing out in the rise of hardstyle music over in China. At a time when Chinese youth are choosing to ‘lie flat’ in the face of rising societal pressures, a movement known as ‘social dance’ is taking hold online. Participants flail their arms in unpredictable directions and even mimic moves from anime series Naruto to eccentric hardstyle edits colliding Skepta vocals with Kirby’s Dream Land soundbites. Much like Finessa’s appraisal, Chinese rapper Jackzebra told Dazed that this new sound is underpinned by a desire for “freedom and chaos” among Chinese youth, suggesting that the rise of so-called ‘silly’ music emerges as a response to wider social pressures on young people today. 

These sonics thrive on the Chinese internet’s notoriously maximalist UI, reflecting the online environments in which Gen Z globally have spent many of their formative years. “Being online these days is a sensory overload of visual and sonic stimuli that flood our brains through incoherent phrases and soundbites. It’s no surprise that we’re seeing music reflect this chaotic landscape,” says internet expert and Dazed contributing editor Gunseli Yalcinkaya. “Combine this with remix culture, with young people accessing all music genres over time and geography, [and] we see a tendency towards bolder and more experimental sounds that defy trad music rules.”

Being online these days is a sensory overload of visual and sonic stimuli. It’s no surprise that we’re seeing music reflect this chaotic landscape

– Gunseli Yalcinkaya

The internet plays a huge role in this, with more artists having to incorporate it – and meme culture more broadly – into their tour strategies. For example, 2019’s Minecraft Fire Festival featured ‘live’ performances from Umru, AG Cook and Charli xcx, hosted within the prolific video game’s servers. With attendees in their thousands all manifesting as blocklike avatars and spamming memes in the chat, these virtual festivals manifest a key dichotomy that underpins this new musical trend: its artists are chart-toppingly, Grammy-winningly serious, but its aesthetics are distinctly silly, arriving as a satirisation on the high-fashion exclusivity of music that came before them.

This intensely online existence has also led to a shift in drug culture. Where the previously dominant techno sonics were associated with the use of sense-enhancing drugs like ecstasy, the kids of today are already hyper-connected 24/7 through the internet. Our mental health is already taking daily hits from images of genocide and hate speech by world leaders being broadcast directly into our phones – we don’t need their senses heightened any further. 

“In the past, the club was a space for connection and emotionality, however synthetic those bonds were in reality,” Yalcinkaya explains. “It’s unsurprising that ketamine has taken over as the ‘drug of choice’ for young people, because of its disassociating effects, which allow you to be close to one another, while being isolated in your individual k-holes. It also makes it harder to look at your phone.” Plus, let’s face it, it’s hard to look all cool and serious while K-holing. 

With everything that’s going on in the world, who wants to look at their phones anyway? My parents spent their early 20s in the second summer of love. They rocked smiley face graphics and had their minds blown by the seemingly unlimited potential of the Roland TR808. They thought ecstasy could save the world. Now, with the background of the global pandemic, genocide playing out right before our eyes, and polycrisis on the horizon, it’s hard to be so optimistic. The best we can hope for is to k-hole while a DJ dressed as Gandalf spins hardcore donk edits of “Call Me Maybe” and try to forget it all. After all, that’s pretty much what Charli did in her viral Boiler Room set. The world’s so serious right now, we just want to have fun.