Music, like any other form of art, is suppose to make you feel something. Artists push the envelope to make the audience react, whether it be a good reaction or a bad reaction. Think of your favorite song, it makes you feel a certain type of way. The lyrics can transcend you into a new world, and you never thought that someone else’s words could depict how you feel so well.
EDM has quickly taken the world by storm. It took the idea of poetic, meaningful lyrics and threw it out the window. It only takes one track to make a DJ blow up. EDM is all about always jumping and never stopping. It’s wild. It’s explosive. It tells a story without any words.
Now, before I talk about the song that made me feel compelled to write this piece, I just want to state that I know this song has been out for awhile now, but I feel like no one has said anything about it, other than Youtube comments that I’ve seen. So without further ado, today’s song I want to talk about is, “I took a pill in Ibiza,” by Mike Posner.
This is one of the few songs that have a remixed version, that is more popular than the original. First of all, the Seeb Remix is great, but it changes the song completely. The original, also great, has this dark perception of fame through Posner’s eyes. It’s a call for help and a warning to those who seek the limelight. It’s not all that it’s worked out to be.
The remix version completely undermines the meaning of the lyrics, making it seem like a song mocking fame, but also enjoying the craziness that comes with the life. It leaves out the entire bridge of the original and replaces it with a wirey beat that you can only get through over distorting and pushes of a button.
There’s a reason that Posner chose to go with an acoustic version, verses the techno influence of many popular songs on the radio. There’s a rawness to the song that you can only get with a guitar. The sliding of the strings go hand in hand with the song. He’s putting it all out there, being vulnerable and seen in a form that cannot be mimicked by a synthesizer.
Comparing the two music videos, the original version has close to 24 million views. That’s a lot! The remix version has over 766 million views. That’s even more. Looking at the comments, not a lot of people had a clue that there was even an original version.
And yes, the music video of the remixed version still depicts the idea of the fast paced life still goes on even if you can’t keep up, but the listener loses the meaning of the song. Posner writes/sings, “My name’s a reminder of a pop song people forgot.” These lyrics stood out to me the most because it feels as though that has happened again.
Check out the original if you haven’t.
The Millennial Sound 