“That was me trying to escape something and being a bit of a dickhead honestly”: Porter Robinson regrets labelling EDM as “not really art”
“Around then, I was at my peak level of angst about not wanting to make EDM.”
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Coachella
Porter Robinson says he regrets calling EDM “not really art” in a 2014 interview, explaining that he was “being a bit of a dickhead” at the time.
Robinson became disillusioned with the genre, and in 2014 – in the run-up to the release of his debut album – he appeared in an NME interview dismissing and criticising it. He said at the time, “A lot of the EDM stuff stopped being appealing to me not because of the culture of it but more so because the music is quite functional.
“It exists to make people go crazy, and to me in a lot of ways it’s entertainment and it’s not really art. I know that sounds kind of pompous but, just in terms of expression I think there’s kind of a ceiling to what you can do when you’re trying to operate within this tiny little circle of stuff that can make people go crazy and jump up and down and wanna have an awesome party.”
But, as he tells The Independent in a new interview: “EDM is clearly art … that video was me trying to escape something and being a bit of a dickhead honestly.”
Around the time the NME interview happened, he made the smash hit Clarity with Zedd. But Robinson didn’t want to be associated with it, and even took his name off the credits. He explains, “Around then, I was at my peak level of angst about not wanting to make EDM… and wanting to be cool. I was trying to be a rockstar but really, I was just drinking to get through the shows.”
He describes Avicii’s 2018 suicide as a “wake-up call” for a lot of people in EDM. Robinson is now sober, along with many of his peers. He explains, “Almost every single DJ who was popular in the 2010s is now extremely sober. You start falling apart but then you procrastinate, like putting off the pain. Then it hits you all at once.”
