Axwell Λ Ingrosso clarify their controversial NY Times comment
Earlier this week, The New York Times ran an in-depth profile piece on Axwell Λ Ingrosso in which the pair left some comments that have ruffled more than a few feathers in the days since. One quote in particular — “Underground dance music – in the nicest way possible – it’s amateur” — has inspired a rampant backlash from the underground community, yet it appears the meaning of the comment may have been lost in translation.
To clarify their comment, Axwell took to Twitter to offer a detailed response:
“Listen up! The amount of bashing we’ve been given throughout the years for being commercial has been on a record level. and then a rather positive quote about “our” underground music gets put out of context – we are condemning underground music as a whole, and bashing where we come from ? seriously?
We were merely answering the question—so what do you guys think of all the underground people bashing people like yourself for moving into the mainstream as opposed to our early music…which we answered from our standpoint—ie. underground music if that’s what people label our early releases as—for us—was our amateur stage—amateur the way we translate it from English to Swedish means when we were trying things out, as a hobby, a lovely hobby, a happy time, after a while we started moving into mainstream more as our music came more successful—or perhaps the mainstream crowd got to our music—which i guess took it from the underground to mainstream. And we were clear to say that if people liked our music great, and if they didn’t, that ok. This was about our own releases, not other genres as a whole or other artists. We had nothing bad to say about anyone, this is a super happy time for us right now.”
Axwell cites a differing definition of “amateur” between Swedish and English as the root of the issue, while also claiming the quote was taken out of context. While it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon of spitefulness, it’s also hard to imagine Axwell and Ingrosso so intentionally denouncing an entire culture of dance music — even if their more recent output may be the furthest thing from the underground.
Read their full response here.
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