Gaga For Gotye!

Well, it's been a couple of months since I posted something on my blog. With my 16th birthday coming soon and other stuff relating on family and friends are occurring, it's probably time for me to talk about my newest obsession: Gotye!



If you've been living under a rock, Gotye is a Belgian-Australian indie rock artist/musical genius who is well-known in the US for his hit song Somebody That I Used To Know featuring Katy Perry look-alike Kimbra. It's a song about a breakup, but unlike most breakup songs, this song is more relatable to someone who has had their hearts crushed a billion times or someone who has been through a year-long friendship split. It also features a "he said, she said" kind of vibe to both Gotye and Kimbra's verses. It's sorta like Adele's Rolling In The Deep or Someone Like You, but with a male singer. The music video for it is kind of creative, not to mention odd with it's bodypaint concept, but if you can understand what they're doing, then good for you. If you haven't seen the music video(or film clip, as Gotye refers it in "Aussie Slang"), then go to Youtube and check it out, along with all of the covers and parodies of it.

However, I couldn't judge Gotye on just one song. I did my research and listened to his other songs from his previous albums and all of a sudden, I was in a trance or something. I can't describe what Gotye does in his music. It's like he's this magical musician who makes music that can pierce raw feelings and emotional passion that can bring people together. Also, it feels like Gotye puts alot of effort, creativity and hard work to make him well-known as of today. As a poet myself, I actually believe that he makes excellent stories with his music and tackles subjects and messages that don't focus about going to the club, having a good time, or having you-know-what 24/7. Instead, Gotye talks about tech-manipulation in one song and in another, he talks about messy hearts. You see, I like this type of music because it's a little bit of a break from all of the other music I listen to(i.e. Katy Perry, LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, etc). This is also the type of music I'd recommend to people who were born in the early 90's and fans of Sting and Peter Gabriel.

Not only is Wally De Backer(that's Gotye's real name) a fantastic singer, he can also play various instruments such as drums and piano. He also uses a musical fence as a bass in one of his songs. Yes, I said a fence. Can Justin Bieber do that in his songs? I don't think so. Another thing he did was use autotune in a song, too. However, he used it because the song had a futuristic feel in it and his "character" should be this person from a different place singing it. You see, that's how you use autotune in music. You use it for creative reasons, not for the sake of it to cover the fact that you can't sing (I'm looking at you, T-Pain).

 Also, Wally's whole life was entirely about music. In fact, when he was a teenager, he would be in his bedroom recording music on his laptop all alone. He was also labeled a "Nerdy Two-Shoes" in high school, but he didn't get beaten up by the jocks(thank goodness). The reason why he was labeled that was because he liked computers and robots and all that other geeky stuff(I wonder if he wore glasses or had braces). Wally actually had a band with his friends called Downstares, which broke up after high school ended. I wish I could go back in time to catch Downstares perform, but I wasn't even born at the time! Anyway, when the band split, Wally was on his own and he decided to make a name for himself by being a copy-and-paster sampler musician and made his first Gotye album entitled Boardface.

  In 2008, Wally became an international success with his 2nd album Like Drawing Blood. Then, a couple of years has passed and Making Mirrors made it's debut in 2011, with STIUTK being a #1 hit in Australia, England, Belgium(Wally's hometown) and several other countries. Then, in April of this year, STIUTK became the number one song on Billboard's Hot 100 in the United States, making Gotye the most popular Australian musican to have a #1 hit in decades. Many people here in the US have began to recognize his music and have became fans of his work ever since. If you like indie pop  or if yout want to to take a break from regular pop, you should check Gotye's work out.