Shots Fired: Deadmau5 Takes Aim At Armin Van Buuren’s ‘A State Of Trance’

Seemingly always annoyed Joel Zimmerman, aka Deadmau5/Trollmau5 has upped the ante in relation to the target choices of his rantings, this time setting his sights on Armin van Buuren’s longtime PODcast “A State Of Trance”. In the rant, Joel claims that “ASOT is about as much “trance” as Nelson Mandela is indie punk.” Armin countered with a challenge to the mau5, firing back: “why don’t you come and play #ASOT700 and show us what “trance” is? Or backing out again?” Fighting words volleyed back from Armin.

@deadmau5 why don’t you come and play #ASOT700 and show us what “trance” is? Or backing out again? — Armin van Buuren (@arminvanbuuren) July 11, 2014

Given,  ASOT definitely isn’t purely trance sounds anymore, and Armin never claims that it is. It is mentioned in the PODcasts tagline that both trance and progressive are represented. Additionally, trance has evolved and changed so much throughout the years, that Joel’s following statements seem antiquated even coming from him. Honestly, he kind of sounds like a bitter old person whining about the evolution of things throughout the years…just to stir up some more controversy and try to continue to perpetuate his presence and relevance in the Twitterverse and blogosphere. Joel continued to expound on his prior statement, urging us to “settle down kids, I’m not picking fights. Love what u want. The version of ‘trance’ in my head is more antiquated than adagio for strings, k?” British trance act Binary Finary also got into the tiff after Deadmau5 tweeted “Trance died in the late ‘90s. Thanks a lot binary finary,” to which the UK producer responded, “since you always like to blag off genres, produce a 140bpm uplifting trance track that you can make for us to judge.” To which Joel fired back “my biggest problem right now is deciding to either watch Mad Max 2, or beyond thunderdome, Yours is “what I think”. Amazing.”

Anyone else remember “trance”? I’m thinking like, Union Jack… Art of Trance… Etc. You know, old people music. — deadmau5 (@deadmau5) July 11, 2014

Settle down kids, I’m not picking fights. Love what u want. The version of “trance” in my head is more antiquated than adagio for strings k? — deadmau5 (@deadmau5) July 11, 2014

.@binaryfinary my biggest problem right now is deciding to either watch Mad Max 2, or beyond thunderdome, Yours is “what i think”. amazing. — deadmau5 (@deadmau5) July 11, 2014

GOING INTO STUDIO. GOING TO MAKE TRANCE. EVERYTHING IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD. brb. — deadmau5 (@deadmau5) July 11, 2014

Well, not exactly Joel. Stating that someone else’s biggest problem is what you think, while qualifying that yours is something completely different, while being consistently active in the back and forth on that very subject matter, makes no sense at all. It’s akin to saying that you don’t enjoy ice cream whatsoever, while you are balls deep in a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.  Jus’ saying.

How about everyone goes back to making music that we can all enjoy, instead?