The Chainsmokers
photo: techcrunch · cc by 2.0 ↗Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall are an American electronic-pop duo formed in New York City in 2012, who rose from the viral novelty single '#Selfie' to a run of genre-blurring crossover hits. Records like 'Roses,' the Grammy-winning 'Don't Let Me Down,' the Billboard number-one 'Closer,' and 'Something Just Like This' fused festival-EDM builds with confessional, pop-punk-inflected songwriting, increasingly with Taggart singing lead. They became one of the defining pop acts of the mid-2010s, helping push EDM's drop-driven architecture into mainstream radio pop.
The Chainsmokers have named deadmau5 as a musical influence, and you can hear his fingerprints in their production: the long, patient build toward a melodic payoff and the bright, plucked synth arpeggios that carry the hook rather than a vocal. Where deadmau5 made the synth lead the emotional center of a track, the Chainsmokers do the same on their instrumental drops.
listen forThrow on deadmau5's 'Strobe' and wait for the slow bloom of its arpeggiated synth line, then cue the Chainsmokers' 'Roses' — hear how the drop hands the melody to the same kind of shimmering, plucked synth figure instead of a big-room bass hit.
Drew Taggart has said he first got into electronic dance music as a teenager through artists including Daft Punk, and the duo's records lean on the French act's toolkit — filtered, phasing synths and chopped, processed vocal fragments used as rhythmic hooks.
listen forPlay Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,' with its stuttering, vocoded vocal cut into a percussive loop, then the Chainsmokers' 'Don't Let Me Down' — listen for the way a warped, chopped vocal and a filtered synth snarl drive the drop.
The Chainsmokers have cited blink-182 among the acts that shaped their songwriting, and it surfaces less in the beats than in the toplines — Taggart's conversational, diaristic vocals and their bittersweet, growing-up heartbreak sit squarely in the pop-punk and emo tradition blink helped popularize.
listen forCue blink-182's 'Dammit,' with its resigned 'well I guess this is growing up' hook, then the Chainsmokers' 'Closer' — hear the same plainspoken, first-person heartbreak carried by an untrained, everyman voice, just set over a synth beat instead of guitars.