Is That Flume?

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In celebration of the M&M’s 75th anniversary, Zedd and Aloe Blacc were hired by the brand to create a brand new rendition of “The Candy Man” — a song which originally appeared in the 1971 classic film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The song is actually quite distinctive compared to the typical advertisement jingle — it’s catchy, sonically relevant and doesn’t feel like an insipid stock tune. However, since we are exposed to a substantial of music daily, we couldn’t help but notice that something felt kind of wrong: the Flume influence was far too apparent. We are aware that Zedd often likes to experiment with different styles but the resemblance was uncanny.

Earlier this week, Diplo took to Twitter to call Zedd out for it. The Mad Decent honcho gave the record a thumbs down and said that it contained a “fake Flume drop.” He asserted to the German beatsmith that it’s “not okay” to do something like this and that “it’s not all about the money.” This then ignited a pretty entertaining back-and-forth, and to make the situation even more heated, Deadmau5 jumped in the conversation and fired shots at both super-producers.

@Zedd wtf is this?..https://t.co/cN1VAaxDAA ?????? fake flume drop ft m&ms? It's not OK do this man come on .. It's not all about the ?
— DiPN0TiZE (@diplo) March 21, 2016

@diplo stop being a jealous little bitch and do us all a favor and just shut the fuck up.
Thank you. :-)
— Zedd (@Zedd) March 22, 2016

Literally hopped off Justin's dick to say someone's shit is about money? God DAMN I love Twitter. I do.
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) March 22, 2016

Flume, a brilliant producer with a diverse style, is without doubt most famous for his signature synth sound — the heavily-compressed, shimmery, oscillating, side-chained, pitch-bending, white noise-integrated wall of sound that occurs during his drops. Some of Flume’s most popular songs, like “Holdin On” and his remixes of Lorde’s “Tennis Court” and Disclosure’s “You & Me,” utilize this particular sound (which we’re going to call the “Flume drop”) that we’re describing.

EDIT: Some of you have noted that this sound is called “future bass.” While the sound certainly belongs in that genre, future bass is a huge genre that encompasses a wide variety of sounds and rhythms. When we say the “Flume drop,” we’re talking about the particular sound as described above. Watch the Flume interview below for more clarification.

In honor of the Diplo-Zedd-Deadmau5 dispute, we’ve dug up a bunch of songs that use the Flume drop like Zedd did in “Candyman.” In no way are we trying to disrespect these artists or are we calling them Flume clones because, like Zedd, most of these guys are extremely talented and can make music outside of Flume-step. For example, Ekali’s is a remix of Flume’s “Smoke & Retribution” so it makes sense that that particular synth is used. Rustie was also on that sound at the time with “Slasherrr,” and Flume has revealed that it is one of his favorite Rustie tunes – so much that he even made his own edit. Check out some songs that use the Flume drop sound below.