EDM star and airbrushed face-man, Hardwell, has this week joined Beyonce in receiving outlandish praise for an album which only took 18 people to write.
The Dutch producer has widely been called a “genius” who “respects artistry” for his work on one track on the album despite the fact that he managed to set a new record for the most amount of collaborations on one album – taking the title from Dr. Dre’s opus 2001 – after he worked with a whopping 18 other artists on the 14 track album.
“Calling this a solo album for one artist is about as accurate as saying that Sg. Peppers was a Ringo Starr record, i.e. not true,” claimed a source. “One maybe two collaborations are fine on a record, but 18 is pushing the boat out and suggests that maybe the DJ Mag winner isn’t as prodigious a songwriter as you’d expect.”
“18 is high even for EDM albums, which typically feature at least two collaborations,” he added, “whoever’s name is on the cover, and whoever actually produced the music.”
Reports from Hardwell’s camp claim that the album “is too a solo record” – one that just happens to borrow from the sounds of 18 other people and is packaged under one name.
“I’m not saying that Hardwell can’t write music by himself and had to rely on these collabs to scrape his album of dance noise out,” claimed a spokesperson for Hardwell. “I’m not saying that, I don’t want to make excuses for him, he’s perfectly capable of doing that himself but the fact of the matter is, and I don’t tell a lot of people this, Hardwell is afraid of recording studios.”
“He can’t sit in front of a DAW or desk by himself without becoming increasingly scared that there’s a ghost in the machine – something which originated after he was sat in front of his monitor with headphones on working on a track when David Guetta snuck into the room and gave him a fright by placing his unsheathed penis on his shoulder.”
“It’s probably the most terrifying thing anyone has ever been witness to,” continued the source. “He hasn’t been able to work alone since. It’s not like he’s actually not a very good producer and is clinging to the buoy being offered by these collabs, he’s written tons of great hits like, em, eh….that one with Tiësto from a while ago and eh, that other one.”
“Hardwell didn’t want to use so many other people to bulk up his output for the album,” concluded the spokeperson with a straight face. “But, because of his fear of recording studios – and not his lack of talent, he was forced to collaborate with the other acts so that he wasn’t alone in the studio.”
“If you want to blame anyone for the use of collaborations and co-production on the album, then blame Guetta,” he added.
