After disbanding in 2012, should the DJ “supergroup” even have bothered regrouping?
Just to give context – no, we are not EDM heads here at JUNK, but if push comes to shove, we can try to conjure up reasons to like some more than others: Calvin Harris has the sounds of UK club culture to back him up and he does so cleverly; Avicii (RIP) could surprise with a certain deftness to tune-smithing at times; we also can try to watch Deadmaus try to have a soul and repeatedly fail, but still sayang him a bit, cos trying mah.
But Swedish House Mafia are awful – nothing rings hollower than them.
Liking or disliking the Swedish House Mafia will of course be a matter of personal opinion, some of you fans out there are already sharpening your fangs. But while we still maintain that these three clowns – three! How many DJ’s does it take to play one track???? – can’t write or produce a deeply meaningful popular tune for nuts (their abilities start to unravel when put up against their fellow countrymen, who are the best in the business), what really took the cake at their recent performance was the sheer arrogance and obnoxiousness of actually not bothering to actually TRY to DJ a competent set.
Look past the the mighty impressive stage theatrics – the streamer canons, flame throwers, and the laser and mechanical stage acrobatics – the Swedish House Mafia rested on laurels and sleepwalked thought a sloppy, unimaginative performance that consisted of nothing but their hits. Bad enough that they had nothing new to bring to the table musically, we in the audience had to endure ridiculous abrupt breaks in the set where tracks literally ended, the flow only to be restarted with cheesy ominous drops leaving the crowd unsure but in a state of forced ecstasy. Watching one of the ‘mafia grandiosely and incrementally knock out the opening strains of “ Miami 2 ibiza” – another dated “classic” – on some trigger pad was tedious and actually displayed a distinct lack of timing and crowd-reading. It felt like autofellatio that was amazingly situationally unaware.
In 2019, A Swedish House Mafia reunion just stinks of a pathetic, lazy money grab, and a reminder of the dark days of cheap, disposable EDM festival music. Trust us, the dance music scene – even if not always to our taste – has become more diverse since the mafia split up.
For those of us old enough to remember, there was a Kit Kat ad in the ’80s whose prescient script went, “You can’t sing, you can’t play, you look awful: You’ll go a long way!”. The same rules apply to Swedish House Mafia – they can’t DJ, they can’t write tunes, they look like men in the throes of a mid-life crisis on stage. But gauging the evident nostalgia of the mad-for-it audience, they will still go along way.
…Or will they? We hope not for long. Humanity deserves better.
Verdict : Delete! Delete! Delete! BURN BURN BURN.