Now that dubstep has faded from popular consciousness, it’s perhaps easy to forget just what an impact Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites had upon release ten years ago and the legacy it’s left since. With his second EP, Sonny Moore took dubstep from south London nightclubs to daytime radio and introduced a whole new generation of fans to dance music, many of whom have since become successful producers themselves. Within a week of its release, eight of the EP’s nine tracks had made the Beatport Top 10 chart. A couple of years later, it won Moore two of his eight (as of writing) Grammy awards.
For many listeners, Scary Monsters… was their first exposure to Moore’s signature sound – an unhinged mix of guttural bass, screaming leads and internet meme samples. This sound, coupled with Moore’s very sudden rise to fame, ruffled more than a few purists’ feathers, with the Guardian famously asking “Is Skrillex the most hated man in dubstep?” in 2011. Nonetheless, Moore is today recognised as one of a handful of EDM acts who helped propel the genre to its current heights of popularity, with such star producers as Zedd and Porter Robinson having him to thank for boosting their careers early on. And without this EP, none of it might have happened.
Released just a few months after his debut EP My Name is Skrillex, Scary Monsters… shows significant improvement of both Moore’s production skills and his ability to structure tracks. Opening track ‘Rock N’ Roll’ greets us with distorted 4×4 kick drums and Moore’s autotuned voice repeating “Hello again to all my friends / Together we can play some rock and roll!”, before leading into a glitchy house drop that’s as catchy as it is face-meltingly complex. Midway through, the track drops the tempo briefly to dubstep and then brings it back up to house – Moore’s first EP had hinted at genre changes like this, but its execution here is so seamlessly you almost don’t notice. Moore may have been open about his influences – electronic pioneers like The Prodigy and Aphex Twin as well as more contemporary producers like Noisia – in interviews, but his aim was always to create something uniquely him, and he certainly nailed it here; ‘Rock N’ Roll’ and the tracks that follow it were quite unlike anything else heard before, and little heard since.
As its title suggests, Scary Monsters… is an EP full of contrasts between light and dark, welcoming and intimidating, often undulating all within the space of 30 seconds. On the title track, after Moore finishes hitting us over the head with his deranged bass synths and a drum line that could’ve been lifted from a metalcore breakdown, he rounds things off by putting his vocals over some chilled piano and ambient sounds as the track’s layers are slowly stripped away. Conversely, ‘All I Ask of You’ is a sweet deadmau5-esque progressive house track driven by bright plucked chords and Pennybirdrabbit’s lovelorn vocals, which leaves the listener totally unprepared for the next track, the dark and crushingly heavy ‘Scatta’. Many producers have tried to blend heavy and soft elements like this, but few have pulled it off to such powerful effect.
Also of note is Moore’s way of knowing when to keep things more simple and when to go to town; while the title track is centred around the infamous growly bass and little else, the next track, ‘Kill Everybody’, offers much more variation, grafting trancy chords, funk guitar samples and even 8-bit video game sounds onto Tiesto’s stadium-rave aesthetic. The EP ends with a remix of Moore’s earlier track ‘With You, Friends’ followed by three remixes by other producers; these may not have established the same legacy as the other tracks and are clearly meant more for the dancefloor than for casual listening, but are still enjoyable enough for what they are.
If there’s one criticism to be made of Scary Monsters…, it’s that it often leaves you wanting for melody. Moments like the title track’s screechy octave-jumping and the meandering, nasal synth lead on ‘All I Ask of You’ prove that when it comes to writing memorable, emotionally-stirring top lines, Moore isn’t quite Armin van Buuren. Of course, this isn’t of too much concern when you’re moshing with hundreds of other festival-goers, and the EP’s complex production values and boundless energy make it an easy flaw to forgive.
There aren’t many records released in dance music’s 30-year history that can claim to have truly revolutionised the genre, and given the industry’s shift towards shorter EPs and singles, it’s unlikely that many ever will again. The idea that one such record was created by an emo kid from Los Angeles with a laptop and a strange haircut might sound laughable on paper, but is impossible to argue with in reality. There’s little telling where Moore, now 32, will take his career in the 2020s, as he seems equally at home producing hits for pop and hip-hop artists as catering to the EDM crowd nowadays. But this EP, along with its two follow-ups – More Monsters and Sprites and Bangarang (both from 2011) – will forever represent a period of time that turned the dance music scene on its head and helped shape it into what it is today.
Words by Nat Schaefer
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