Opinions on EDM duo du jour The Chainsmokers are rarely blasé. Instead, the reactions that DJ Alex Pall and songwriter/vocalist Drew Taggart elicit tend to reside in the extremes — either they're the hottest thing in music today or the most insipid.
On the one hand, last year's massive summer hit, "Closer," a duet with Halsey, spent 12 weeks atop the Billboard 100 and has nearly a billion — yes, with a "b" — streams on Spotify. On the other, one of their DJ heroes, Deadmau5, wrote of them on Twitter following a laughably ill-conceived "American Idol" appearance: "The only thing @TheChainsmokers and pop EDM have in common is probably cancer."
They won the Best Dance Recording Grammy for "Don't Let Me Down." Meanwhile, a notoriously cringeworthy Billboard interview included cute tidbits about the size of their genitals and how their primary motivation is being able to have sex with hotter girls.
Their lyric video for "Something Just Like This," a collaboration with Coldplay, has been viewed on YouTube more than 250 million times in two months. But perception of them is such that Pall felt compelled to tell British music publication NME in a March reputation-rebuild interview, "I promise you, we're not a--holes."
So, depending on your perspective, consider this either a reminder or a warning: The Chainsmokers are scheduled to perform at the Maverik Center in West Valley this Tuesday.
Those in the former camp presumably know what to expect.
Except maybe for wondering if they're getting a canned show as a permanent response to last year's widely derided MTV VMAs appearance. After an out-of-tune performance by Taggart that, had he been an "Idol" contestant, would have prompted ex-judge Randy Jackson to charitably label him "a bit pitchy, dawg," the vocalist subsequently told Billboard, "So now I know why you lip-sync."
Here's the thing, though — despite the frequency with which their cultivated, celebrated frat-bro image inspires the urge to vomit, their music is both annoyingly catchy and, annoyingly, catchy.
"Closer" is an earworm track that, if allowed to get inside your head, will take up residence and make you hate yourself for ever actually enjoying it.
And their debut full-length album, "Memories…Do Not Open," is primarily made up of "Closer" clones.
The Chainsmokers are a group people love to hate and whose music people hate to love, but which — despite all efforts not to — they do.
And so, it's entirely possible they're both the biggest and the worst thing going right now. Let that inspire whichever extremist feelings you may be prone to.
ewalden@sltrib.com
Twitter: @esotericwalden
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The Chainsmokers
With Kiiara and Grandtheft
When • Tuesday, 7 p.m.
Where • Maverik Center, 3200 S. Decker Lake Dr., West Valley City
Tickets • $29.50-$75.50, Smith's Tix
