History Music / Deadmau5

* LonelyAtTheTop: Has an [[http://choleric-mau5.blogspot.com/2010/09/everyone-wants-something.html entire blog post]] about being unable to have a "normal" romantic relationship because of his career. This trope is also pretty much heavily implied often with his anecdotes and streams, such as during the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiT3_sQbq24 Valentines Day 2012]] ("Guess I'll be spending Valentine's Day alone.") and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9jhUGvb67k Christmas Eve 2011]] ("Why aren't you with your family?" "[[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments I am with my family, I'm with you guys.]] I'm by myself in my empty-ass house.") streams, not to mention several other times where he's ranted about being treated differently by others because of his fame (such as his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4piSzm4oSk rant about shopping]], brought on by a Facebook comment).

* AscendedMeme: The phrase "go to bed", usually used by fans as a response against one of his trolling attempts, was championed by him as a response to any hate Tweets he got about his outburst at Music/{{Madonna}}.
** GratuitousForeignLanguage: After enough times of using the phrase, he asked his fans on Twitter to send him versions of it in different languages. The result was him spamming the phrase to angry Madonnna fans in a variety of different languages.

* [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Early Album Weirdness]]: ''Get Scraped'' is entirely different from the rest of his albums, consisting of songs spanning far more genres and sounds than his later ones. ''Vexillology'', the next album released, also sounds different from his modern sound, though it at least has a consistent one. It isn't until ''Random Album Title'' that he finally establishes his signature sound and feel.
** This trope is invoked even harder in the new bio for his redesigned website, which doesn't even mention ''Get Scraped'' or ''Vexillology'', instead just starting at ''Random Album Title''.
*** However, with the release of while(1<2), this seems to have gone full-circle as it resembles ''Get Scraped" far more than any of his projects after it.

* [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas Even Scrawny Miscreants Love Their Mamas]]: [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457796646805&set=a.457793736805.248938.9980651805&type=3&theater He's still really close to his mom]]. He has referred to her as "awesome", pays her to keep an eye on his place while he's gone, and [[http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2861405 often talks to her on the phone]]. The red spiral staircase in his loft that can be seen in some of his older livestream footage was painted by her, and she makes [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=486424106805&set=a.486421321805.263949.9980651805&type=3&theater awesome]] [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=486424196805&set=a.486421321805.263949.9980651805&type=3&theater paintings]] of him. In [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=486424046805&set=a.486421321805.263949.9980651805&type=3&theater one case]], you can see it [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150561918916806&set=a.10150561918441806.375354.9980651805&type=3&theater framed in his renovated living room]].
--> "[[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457796781805&set=a.457793736805.248938.9980651805&type=3&theater hello mother]]...Thanks for the many years of patience, love...AND CHEAP RENT! Your estranged mau5y son...Joel Zimmerman."
** In the Joe Rogen podcast the night before the 2012 Grammys, he told the hosts that if any of them starts smoking weed in the studio, he'll be in the bathroom, shaking, waiting for the cops to show up...[[MamaBear or his mom]].
** He once said on Twitter that he gets his "telling it like it is" from his mother (after a mention about how his mom said that fellow DJ Kaskade's haircut sucked).

* [[AGoodNameForARockBand A Good Name for a House Song]]: Joel's admitted most of his song titles are picked usually at the very last second and are based on random line-of-sight phrases. For example, [[http://choleric-mau5.blogspot.com/2010/08/falling-up.html "Faxing Berlin" was apparently coined in an AIM conversation.]]

* Website/FourChan: Goes on (and is well-liked by) /b/ (and claims to have gotten his start there), but has a mutual hatred of /mu/. He says that he doesn't post, though, only preferring to lurk.

* [[LineOfSightName Line of Sight Tattoo]]: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGzh7h2Ugk The origin of the scissors tattoo on his left arm]]. He was hanging out with [[Music/MotleyCrue Tommy Lee]] and arbitrarily decided to get a tattoo, but didn't know what to get until he saw some packaging with the scissors-and-dotted-line symbol on it.

* XtremeKoolLetterz / Letters2Numbers: deadmau5. Justified in that it was originally going to be spelled correctly but couldn't fit the character limit for an IRC username.

--> "[[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457796781805&set=a.457793736805.248938.9980651805&type=3&theater hello mother]]...Thanks for the many years of patience, love...AND CHEAP RENT! [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming Your estranged mau5y son...Joel Zimmerman.]]"

* ArtShift: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2LFI6abQI4 The video to "Telemiscommunications"]] regularly shifts through 19 drastically different artstyles, some featuring hand-drawn animation, some Flash animation, various types of 3D, and even stop motion. The video was born out of a contest where animators would follow a base set of choreographed frames, with the video stitching them all together to form a single narrative.

** Avicii also became recurring target, with nearly every 2012 livestream so far has had at least one TakeThat towards him.

While known for his music and his mau5head image, he is also known for being one of the [[OneOfUs nerdiest musicians]] to ever exist, being extremely open with his fans, and causing controversy, usually by speaking what is ''exactly'' on his mind, PR and sugarcoating be damned. These, combined with his [[ClusterFBomb constant cursing]], his [[{{Troll}} sense of humor]], his [[IJustWantToBeNormal personal problems]], and the tendency for people to take anything he says out of context, result in a rather ''interesting'' individual.

* RenaissanceMan: On top of making awesome electronica music, he skateboards (badly), snowboards, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTYH0vh0ap0 jet-skis]], [[OneOfUs plays video games]], does web design and web programming, computer programming, 3D modeling and animation, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBKueTCYBhQ Flash animation]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr8TTRPGal0 plays the piano]] and is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF6vYOZ3a_o learning the guitar]], and ''[[HiddenDepths photography]]''. The best part? Nearly all of that is self-taught, and he encourages his fans to do the same.

* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: His nickname for his tour manager is "Pretty Princess" Paul.

* TakeThat: His first ever hit, a collaboration with Steve Duda under the [=BSOD=] alias titled "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo9wJaFl1Ww This Is The Hook]]", is a Take That against how formulaic house music is.

** Avicii is starting to become the next Music/DavidGuetta in terms of {{Take That}}s being a RunningGag now, too. Nearly every 2012 livestream so far has had at least one TakeThat towards him.

*** Avicii died on April 20, 2018, making a lot of these an instance of a FunnyAneurysmMoment.

** During the March 26 2012 livestream, he joked that he has likely issued some kind of TakeThat against ''everyone'' at this point (a small list of people so far includes Avicii, Justin Bieber, Ed Hardy, Lady Gaga, David Guetta, Neon Hitch, Madonna, Pauly D, Snooki, Britney Spears, and Tiesto).

** His collaboration with Kaskade, "I Remember", is 9 minutes and 57 seconds.

** Early versions of "Drop The Poptart/Somewhere Up Here" ranged from 13:31 to 16 minutes and 43 seconds!

* EpicRocking: The majority of his music is around and usually longer than five minutes. "Cthulhu Sleeps" is the longest song he's ever done, being 10 min and 34 sec long. "Strobe" is only one second shorter.

-->"Yeah, yeah fuckin' eh, ya hoser! Go listen to [[DavidGuetta Guetta]], eh!"

** Issuing {{Take That}}s on DavidGuetta is practically a RunningGag (though it's less animosity towards the guy himself and more towards his style of producing - "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiT3_sQbq24&t=42m17s He's like a human-fucking-mashup!]]"). One such example of this case is in the CanadaEh trope above, though there are many, ''many'' other examples of this.

* {{Trap|Music}}: He experimented with it for a few now-deleted Soundcloud tracks in 2016, and "ebortS" is a properly released trap instrumental, which also includes portions of "Strobe".

*** He has a demo on his [=SoundCloud=] titled "[[http://soundcloud.com/fuckmylife/today-im-french today, im french]]", which is his one and only outright foray into French House music (he explained in a livestream that it never was released properly because he'd get [[FanDumb accused of stealing from]] Music/DaftPunk.) The unreleased song "[[http://soundcloud.com/fuckmylife/riff6-mp3 Swinged]]" is also really European-House-ish, if not outright French House.

* RearrangeTheSong: He frequently uploads ([[MissingEpisode and deletes]]) [=WIPs=] all over the place, some of which end up becoming officially released under new titles after some substantial tweaking. Some examples include:

** His collaborations with Shotty Horroh, including the officially-released [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c3FH6PheKM Legendary]]" are also hip-hop collaborations with Shotty Horroh, most of which taking slight dubstep inspirations.

* TitleDrop: A ''very'' subtle one in the [[NothingIsScarier abrupt ending]] to "Take Care of the Proper Paperwork". It requires amplification to hear it, but you can just ''barely'' hear somebody saying ''something'', [[https://twitter.com/deadmau5/status/250724138296152064 which is apparently "Take care of the proper paperwork."]]

* AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle: The lyrics in "Sofi Needs a Ladder" start out with "Let's play MU-si-CAL-chairs, one of my favorite gaaaaames".

* ArcWords: "United We Fail", which is the name of his upcoming graphic novel project. What does it mean, and what significance does it have in the story? We have no idea, and he's not talking.
** It's also the title of his (entirely unrelated to said novel) [[http://deadmau5.tumblr.com tumblr]], too, but the significance of ''that'' is also unknown.

** "Breadmau5 - Toast N Stuff" is thought to have been given a ''massive'' shout-out in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Mz8sQSEUGn4 this video]], in which he waits for a while for [[ItMakesSenseInContext toast to pop out of his battery-powered toaster]].

* BlueWithShock: The line variety, in this [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150581506596806&set=a.100357766805.100899.9980651805&type=1&theater fan-made image]] that he posted of him playing ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' - [[CallBack trying to fight off a bear]] [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext with a wooden bowl and a spoon]].

* BookEnds: One of his old songs, "You Need a Ladder", starts and ends with 8-bit Zelda overworld music.

* ButtMonkey: Skrillex is often the [[StealthPun butt]] of deadmau5's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhRbpMspDsw jokes]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHeuAp0Tll8 pranks]].

** ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' features an amulet named [[http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/halcyons-ascent "Halcyon's Ascent"]], which is entirely based on him. The name is a reference to his old Halcyon441 name, the icon looks like a mau5head, and its special affix makes enemies jump, which references the reaction his song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0MD4ilQ3wE "Raise Your Weapon"]] produces on fans upon live shows (the lore for the amulet even quotes the song).

* ClusterFBomb: ''Often''. Demonstrated aptly in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLm1WptpkSM this video]], which is just a ''small fraction'' of the number of times he's dropped it. It even applies to his text posts!

** Also used in one of his Halcyon441 songs, "How To Flame"

* CountryMatters: Yes, "cunt" is in his repitoire of cuss words. It only shows up when he is ''[[OhCrap absolutely enraged]]''.
** There's also the song "See Ya Next Tuesday", a slight variation of the phrase "'''C''' '''U''' '''N'''ext '''T'''uesday".

* DarkerAndEdgier: ''while(1<2)'' is definitely a lot more introspective and darker than the good majority of his older songs. If anything, Joel pretty much abandoned trying to make dance music and moved towards creating a more personal, somber, Music/NineInchNails inspired sound.
** His recent livestream jams indicate he might be moving back toward dance, albeit the moody, atmospheric kind seen Random Album Title and For Lack of a Better Name.

* FreezeFrameBonus: In the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh_XtHebsOQ Vegas residency video]], each of the job applications getting stamped with "Fail!" have different, and totally hilarious, things filled in for them.

* FunWithAcronyms: One of his songs released under his BSOD alias is..."[[ShapedLikeItself BSOD]]". The alias actually stands for "Blue Screen of Death", while the song title means "Better Sounding On Drugs" (which is constantly said throughout the song).

* [[AGoodNameForARockBand A Good Name for a House Song]]: [[http://choleric-mau5.blogspot.com/2010/08/falling-up.html "Faxing Berlin" was apparently coined in an AIM conversation.]]
* GreatestHitsAlbum: ''5 Years of Mau5'', which contains some of deadmau5's best works, and remixes of those tracks by various artists, such as Botnek, Dillon Francis, and Shiba San.

* IgnoreTheFanservice: [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150194381311806&set=a.10150194380116806.307482.9980651805&type=3&theater Surrounded by scantily-clad women wearing mau5heads?]] He looks like he'd rather be somewhere else. Though [=SOFI=] hugging him [[HatesBeingTouched might not help matters]].

* InsistentTerminology: ''Hates'' being called a DJ, as "there is no jockeying of discs going on".
** Technically, he is a producer since he makes his own music, but [=DJs=] his own stuff at his live shows.

** "Hey Baby" is basically an electro-house version of [[Music/DonnaSummer "Love To Love You Baby"]]. Made together with fellow canadian showgirl and singer Melleefresh (with which Joel did quite a lot of sex-themed electro-house songs), [[TheImmodestOrgasm it features her sexual moaning in the background at a certain point of the song.]] '''Yes.'''
* {{Irony}}: A house producer [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XLkFNzKgeM complaining about how obnoxiously loud his neighbors are]].
** For extra irony, they even play ''his own music''.

* LethalChef: In one of his really, really [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oex6sjhzNM old videos]], he managed to screw up making an omelette (it somehow resulted in ''scrambled eggs''). In the 2011 Christmas Eve stream, reheating soup in a pot was considered a huge success for him ("This soup was made with magnets!"), and his caption for a picture of his [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150561919571806&set=a.10150561918441806.375354.9980651805&type=3&theater newly-renovated kitchen]] was "the kitchen, where cooking will likely never get done". [[http://deadmau5.tumblr.com/post/14296981705/you-consider-yourself-intelligent He can apparently]] make [[CanadaEh Kraft Dinner]], though.
** He somehow successfully cooked lasagna one night, [[https://twitter.com/#!/deadmau5/status/170412037132922880/photo/1 but it still looks a little off]].

* LiteralMinded: Very much so. One such instance is when he saw the album cover for Music/LadyGaga's ''Born This Way'': "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jB0yFPkUsI I'd hate to give birth to that motorcycle-thing, that's big.]]" See also: ExactWords above.

* LongSongShortScene: Is practically a RunningGag with him. He has TONS of unfinished or just plain unreleased projects in various computers and drives at home and items up on his [=SoundCloud=], either because he simply forgot about them, got bored working on them, or thinks they are too flawed, which is a shame, because a decent amount of said songs are actually quite good. For instance, "[[http://soundcloud.com/fuckmylife/riff6-mp3 Swinged]]" was mentioned in a later livestream as "too busy", and he hasn't really worked on it since he first posted it.

* LyricalDissonance: "Literature/TheVeldt"

* NiceHat: The giant helmets he wears, called "mau5head"s. He has several of them, including an LED one that serves as an ExpressiveMask.

* OffTheWagon: Fell off ''hard'' at the end of 2011. His house renovation, lack of a studio (but majorly itching to work on music), break-up with his girlfriend of a year, and his struggle with his depression, combined with no touring to keep his mind off of things, led to him [[MustHaveNicotine taking up smoking again]], as well as far more mentions of him getting [[DrowningMySorrows really drunk]] after his unhooked performances at the beginning of 2012. It looks like he's doing better now, though.
* OlderThanTheyLook: [[http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150289025606806&set=a.100357766805.100899.9980651805&type=3&theater This guy is 31]]. It's been said that he can pass for 18 when he shaves.

* OutOfGenreExperience: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnwfTHpnGLY Raise Your Weapon]]" is this, two times. It opens up as nothing more than solemn piano chords and a drum beat for about four minutes, [[spoiler:[[{{Dubstep}} and then the drop happens]].]]

** "[[https://soundcloud.com/fuckmylife/are-you-not-afraid-blah Are you not afraid blah]]" is another hip-hop song that's so well-produced that if deadmau5 is the ''last'' person you'd think of being capable of making that beat.
* PerpetualFrowner: The number of photos of him frowning, stoic, or making some silly face ''far'' outnumber the few photos you can find of him outright, genuinely smiling.
** Averted in his videos and in live streams, in which he actually smiles a bit more often.

* RearrangeTheSong:

** "Aural Psynapse" is actually a re-edit of a song that he made ''in 2001'' under his old Halcyon441 name, also titled "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufyx6Yqy2CM Aural Psynapse]]". Not only are the synth lines similar, but the background effects used in the song (which are especially obvious right at the beginning) later showed up in "Strobe" and "[=HR8938=] Cephei".

--> "[[http://deadmau5.tumblr.com/post/14298175708/im-a-female-who-enrolled-in-full-sail-university-to ahhh! Full Fail! dude! save the cash! learn on the internets!]]"

* RunningGag: "Skrillex is Not Even Funny", after it was coined in a Ustream session.

** "[[ShoutOut Closer]]" uses the the five tones from Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind.

* SleepCute: [[http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5qphem6311rywkrto2_1280.png This picture]].

** After posting a demo of "Sunspot" on his [=SoundCloud=], he later posted "[[http://soundcloud.com/fuckmylife/sunspot-da-exxxxxxtreme-drop Sunspot (da eXXXXXXtreme drop mix)]]", a 15-second dubstep version demo lampooning all of the recent dubstep trends "of the past year", including seemingly-random effects and sampling, like the style found in Music/{{Skrillex}}'s work.

** At Ultra 2014, he took a few potshots at his newest enemy, recent breakout EDM star Martin Garrix. During his performance later that night, he played an edit of his infamous "Animals" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0zWguEOxachis set to "Old McDonald Had a Farm"]]. To top things off, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW5L0Tq93vY he also mixed Avicii's "Levels" into "Ghosts 'n' Stuff"]] as a follow-up.

* TropeName: ''Random Album Title''

** His {{Dubstep}} demos on [=SoundCloud=] have [[SarcasmMode creative titles]] such as "Dub5tepthingie2".
** His next album is titled ''>album title goes here<'', continuing the trend.

* WordSaladLyrics: The lyrics for "Professional Griefers" are this, no matter how [[{{Mondegreen}} they are heard]] when he streams it.
** Though there certainly seems to be a [[{{Dystopia}} dystopian future theme]] going on.
*** [[MagicVersusScience We got machines but the kids got Jesus]]
*** [[GodIsDead God can't hear you]]
*** [[RobotMe Watch them build a friend just like you]]
*** [[EvilOverlord Press ALT CTRL for the mixtape master]]
*** [[OrwellianEditor Photographs that I'm erasing ]]
*** [[CrushKillDestroy Self-infection, mass destruction. Programmed for the final function.]] To name a few.
* WritersCannotDoMath: ''4x4=12'', in what is a rare example of a ''musician'' failing at math. The album name is an in-joke stemming from a live-stream incident in which he was describing his setup and said "four times four, which is twelve". After [[HilarityEnsues his fans poked fun at him for it]], he decided to name his next album after the incident. Also {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in "Maths", where the only vocal line is a faint voice saying "four PLUS four PLUS four is twelve" at a few points in the song.
** While the equation makes no sense in base 10, [[GeniusBonus it does make sense in base 14.]]

** [[http://deadmau5.tumblr.com/post/19570452553/collaborations-songwritting-and-the-like According to his post about musical collaborations and such]], he likes to read short stories (since he doesn't have enough time to read full-fledged novels). Given the subject matter of songs such as "[[Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu Cthulhu Sleeps]]" and "LiteratureTheVeldt", he seems to enjoy reading {{Cosmic Horror Stor|y}}ies and depressing sci-fi.

* LyricalDissonance: [[Creator/RayBradbury The Veldt]]

** One of his upcoming songs is titled "[[Creator/RayBradbury The Veldt]]", and has lyrics that explicitly reference the story.

** [[http://deadmau5.tumblr.com/post/19570452553/collaborations-songwritting-and-the-like According to his post about musical collaborations and such]], he likes to read short stories (since he doesn't have enough time to read full-fledged novels). Given the subject matter of songs such as "[[Creator/HPLovecraft Cthulhu Sleeps]]" and "[[Creator/RayBradbury The Veldt]]", he seems to enjoy reading {{Cosmic Horror Stor|y}}ies and depressing sci-fi.

A Canadian ElectronicMusic producer and icon, deadmau5 (pronounced "dead mouse") is easily one of the most popular electronic artists today. Getting his professional start in 2006 when he released his first full album, ''Get Scraped'', he is best known for the songs "Faxing Berlin", "I Remember", "Ghosts 'n' Stuff", "Sofi Needs a Ladder", and "Raise Your Weapon", as well as for wearing his epony[[JustForPun mau5]] [[NiceHat mau5head]] during live performances. His stage name comes from an incident in which he found a [[TitleDrop dead mouse]] in his computer while replacing his video card - on the IRC channel he frequented, he became known as "that dead mouse guy" after recounting the incident, and decided to change his username to "deadmau5" as a joke. The name is spelled as it is because of the character limit for names on certain IRC servers (you can only fit eight and "deadmouse" is nine), [[Letters2Numbers with the "5" as the "s" on the end]] because [[RuleOfCool it's cool]].

Real name Joel Zimmerman, he was born on January 5, 1981, and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario (though he considers his current city of residence, UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}}, his hometown). As a child, he had a hobby of tearing apart household electronics to figure out how they worked, which carried over to his later fascination with electronic music production - as opposed to solely using plugins and software to make his sounds (which he derisively calls "laptop music"), [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D26U26fFojw he uses huge racks of analog modular CV equipment]] to produce them. After dropping out of high school, doing many odd jobs over the years (including being contracted for an IT job for two years using only his own self-taught computer programming skills), and starting a design business on the side, all while producing music in his free time as a hobby, he found himself being paid to do music for advertising until he got discovered by DJ Chris Lake. This and the appearance of his first hit as deadmau5, "Faxing Berlin", on Pete Tong's radio show led to him being signed onto Ultra Records, later creating his own label, mau5trap, and thus becoming a hit electronic artist doing music full-time.

Real name Joel Zimmerman, he was born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario (though he considers his current city of residence, UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}}, his hometown). As a child, he had a hobby of tearing apart household electronics to figure out how they worked, which carried over to his later fascination with electronic music production - as opposed to solely using plugins and software to make his sounds (which he derisively calls "laptop music"), [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D26U26fFojw he uses huge racks of analog modular CV equipment]] to produce them. After dropping out of high school, doing many odd jobs over the years (including being contracted for an IT job for two years using only his own self-taught computer programming skills), and starting a design business on the side, all while producing music in his free time as a hobby, he found himself being paid to do music for advertising until he got discovered by DJ Chris Lake. This and the appearance of his first hit as deadmau5, "Faxing Berlin", on Pete Tong's radio show led to him being signed onto Ultra Records, later creating his own label, mau5trap, and thus becoming a hit electronic artist doing music full-time.