Whether it’s Jay-Z and Kanye West teaming up to produce Watch the Throne or Run-DMC covering Aerosmith’s Walk This Way, musical collaborations are often calculated to sell records and expand a fanbase.
But for electronic artist Joel “Deadmau5” Zimmerman, collaborations are all about making good music.
And on Sunday, he proved just that.
While working on the song “The Veldt” during a live video session, Zimmerman received a tweet from producer Chris James with a link to an audio file featuring him singing over the track. (The track has since collected more than 28,000 plays in less than a day.)
“Dude, can I please—let’s do it,” Zimmerman said during the live video session. “I’ll give you [the] writing [credit], I’ll give you to pub on your vocal. Dude, let’s do it. … That just made the track. That is fucking amazing.”
News of the collaboration spread around Twitter and Facebook, where more than 3,100 people liked a post Zimmerman made discussing the unlikely collaboration.
“[I] am SO happy with the way ‘the veldt’ is turning out mixwise… chris is working on a second verse today so thats getting in there soon,” Zimmerman wrote. “imma be so proud of this one! serious props to chris for nailing these vocals, theyre quite literally, perfect.”
The collaboration also caught Reddit’s attention, where redditor dylbrochill praised the Internet for helping aspiring artists get their shot.
“I must say the last few years have been great for music. The emergence of cross-breed social media/music sites like Soundcloud, Spotify, and The Hype Machine have enabled aspiring musicians to be heard more than any other era I can think of. Thanks to sites like these I’ve been able to discover groups from around the world that have very little support. I’m thankful to live in an age that allows this to happen.”
Photo via deadmau5