There are very few artists I absolutely despise more than The Chainsmokers. They represent an era long gone, a sound long passed, and somehow reached heights higher than all but a few dance groups ever. We’re talking about festival headliners, arena sellers, some of the worst music you’ve ever heard makers, and yet maybe the best remix artists in the world — The Chainsmokers.

Part 1: The Rise

If you weren’t around or involved in terminally online music spaces at the turn of the 2010s, there were a few places you could find new sounds at any given moment. Your options were:
-Youtube Channels: individually curated sounds to each channel
-Message boards and forums: really only for full on nerd-shit
-Illegal torrent sites: easily the most niche, yet deepest collections
-Pre-streaming upload sites: stuff like soundcloud, datpiff, hypemachine

In my lived experience, Youtube was king. It had the most popular channels that were broadcasting new genres at all times. In 2013, The Chainsmokers were one of the first artists to pick up on some of these massive indie-pop posting channels, remix the song, and then pop it on soundcloud. The song selection was absolutely insane: Two Door Cinema Club, Phoenix, Smallpools, The Killers, The Wanted, Mikky Ekko, Tove Lo, Ellie Goulding, Chromeo, Neon Trees all got this treatment. All in, in a span of 18 months these two dorks remixed 30 songs by 30 artists. It might be the best early catalogue any artist has in dance music. It’s the perfect blend of pop, indie, alternative, up-beat dance, pre-social media partying, junk food singalong dance music.

Some of these remixes are absolute classics. Millions of deserved streams. These songs were so good The Chainsmokers played one of the funniest sets of all time at Ultra in 2014 at what I can only assume was 11am. The description says it has to be around 4pm, they lucked into filling in for Laidback Luke, and the video shows them playing to a crowd of maybe 200 people. Not a cell phone in sight. Get it twisted, this set was the actual peak of The Chainsmokers’ career. Playing for an hour, some guess math tells me they played about 40 minutes of their own remixes and like 20 minutes of random big room drops. This was their artistic triumph. Sadly, this set also hints at the first crack in their career.

Part 2: Soaring Higher

32 minutes into that set you hear “…when Jason’s at the table” – the first line to the duo’s breakout single: #SELFIE. This was youtube bait. You gotta remember this is only like, a few years removed from Gagnam Style and Friday. At the time, it was inoffensive #VIRAL #EPICWIN #CAPTION #GTL millennial slop. I didn’t hate it then, I don’t think about it now – you can decide what’s worse. A-Trak, Audien, and Cash Cash’s instagrams are featured in the video. It somehow charted on Billboard. It’s certified platinum. Disgusting.

Their next run rivals their remix release. From the back end of 2014 to the middle of 2016, the releases included: Kanye ft. SirenXX, Let You Go ft. Great Good Fine Ok, Bouquet EP (Roses ft. Rozes, Waterbed, New York City, Until You Were Gone), Split (Only U) w/ Tiesto, and Don’t Let Me Down. That’s insane. All-time heat check. This is ’99 – ’04 Tim Duncan. These are fantastic dance pop tunes. They all followed the exact same formula of low & building intros, booming choruses, fun and whimsical melodies. I’ll never forget a radio host saying “This one’s Roses, featuring… Rozes. You think that’s a coincidence? I don’t think so. Maybe I can see between the lines, haha! Perhaps a conspiracy? Who knows. Anyways this is The Chainsmokers.” before playing it. It peaked at #6 on Billboard. Split (Only U) has gone double platinum in frathouses, on soundcloud mixes to this day, and on Friday Beers’ posts. Don’t Let Me Down hit #3 on Billboard. If they stopped here, it’s an absolutely incredible career and catalogue of music some DJs could only dream of. They headlined the side stage Ultra with this catalogue. They played their original remixes on this stage. Other DJs kickstarted their careers of remixing these songs, the biggest being Illenium. Sadly, they did not retire. They made more original songs.

Part 3: The Fall

In the dog days of summer 2016, while Lil Uzi was putting out Erase Your Social, they teamed up with an up-and-coming indie pop artist with a nasally voice. It was literally the #1 trend after Major Lazer’s Lean On was the biggest song in the world. The Chainsmokers and Halsey hit the studio, and sung a duet together becoming one of the worst songs of all time: Closer. It is not an understatement to say it is one of the biggest songs ever. It is 15x platinum. It’s one of the sleaziest songs I have ever heard. At the time, The Chainsmokers were my favorite artist, this single song made me jump off the bandwagon. It’s that horrendous. I’d be a bit out of pocket if I didn’t mention they rhyme “Bolder” with “shoulder”, “closer” with “rover”, Halsey calls herself insane, “Blink-182 song” is rhymed with “Tuscon”, and the melody is horrible. It’s all absolutely atrocious.

Their next megahit was an original with no features, released 6 months later in the dead winter of 2017: Paris. Horrendous. Abandoned were the catchy upbeat indie singalongs they grew famous from, and they have fully committed to this disgusting downtempo synth pop garbage made to bait people into singing horrible lyrics. Their immediate next single was Something Just Like This ft. Coldplay, which I cannot emphasize enough, is one of the worst songs officially released to chart in the top5 of Billboard. It’s certified diamond. Both of these songs were packaged on their debut “album”, Memories… Do Not Open. I wish nobody did.

Part 4: The Valley Can Only Go Deeper

From 2018 to 2023, the duo released maybe the worst collection of music that’s ever been publicly available. Of unofficial reviews I can find, their 4 albums of Sick Boy, World War Joy, So Far So Good, and Summertime Friends, and their live album in 2023 have an average score of about 2.8/10. I genuinely cannot find another artist with lower lows than that. This stretch of music sounds like an artist making noise cause they’re contractually obligated and they absolutely hate who they are. It’s unbelievably horrible. They wrote a song called The Fall ft. Ship Wrek (who blatantly carries the song), and it sounds like they’re singing to themselves about how they’re doped up and want to quit but straight up can’t. They should have. There is not a single song in this entire 5 year stretch that is good. It’s all some of the worst music I’ve ever heard. No career can come back from this. They headline Tomorrowland in 2023.

This is a complete rejection of their early career. They went from the artist remixing up-and-coming artists making unforgettable remixes, to the artist getting remixed by up-and-coming artists. There are countless remixes of Paris that are better than the original. Frat DJs have remixed Split (Only U) to this day into festival flips. How much is money and fame worth? Clearly enough for an artist to sacrifice their pride.

Part 5: The Rise pt. 2

I do not know what happened. In September 2024 The Chainsmokers uploaded a remix, Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things. This was their first remix upload in 8 years, since those glory days in the mid 2010s. It’s okay. It sounds like it’s from 2017. It is better than anything they have released in half a decade. It’s a fluke.

A week later. Another upload. Another remix. Central Cee & Lil Baby’s BAND4BAND. It’s under 2 minutes long. It’s techno. It’s the best Chainsmokers release since 2016. New sound? Whatever.

7 days pass. Another remix. The Dare’s Girls. It’s fine. Cute little track. Two weeks pass. Justice & Tame Impala’s Neverender, remixed by The Chainsmokers. I like it more than the original (which I think is very bad). The remix is okay. Both are forgettable.

December 10th, 2024. The upload notification hit my inbox. New Chainsmokers post. Let’s check it out. Gigi Perez – Sailor Song (The Chainsmokers & TWINSICK Remix). Play. It’s slow. It’s whistley. Indie guitars and cracked nasally voice. Piano kicks in during the pre-chorus. 40 seconds in, chorus explodes. Singalong. Unforgettable lyrics. 58 seconds. Melody. 70 seconds. Build. Progressive house drop. Nostalgic. It’s the best Chainsmokers release since 2014. It’s the best thing they’ve touched since before soundcloud had ads. It ended 2024 as my 3rd most played song on Soundcloud.

Nine days pass. Lola Young – Messy (The Chainsmokers Remix). It sounds exactly like it was dropshipped from 2014. It fits in perfectly with their early catalogue. It’s progressive house, nostalgic remix of an up-and-coming artist. It’s incredible. They unbelievably are back. I sound insane whenever I tell someone The Chainsmokers have put out back to back good releases. It’s been a decade since I said (or thought) this.

As of January 12th, it’s the last thing they’ve released. It’s a hint, a nudge, to their forgotten talent. They originated as the DJs remixing indie artists, became the biggest duo in the world getting remixed by indie DJs, and have somehow returned to be the DJs doing the remixes of smaller artists. The infrastructure to find incredible remix-food isn’t there anymore as we’re forced to live under the ever powerful thumb of algorithms and slop. I don’t know how long this hot streak will last, but it feels like watching a veteran come off the bench and show glimmers of who they used to be. I’ve hated this group more than anyone as they epitomize the corporatization of American culture in the 2010s, the sterilization of any personality in the pursuit of profit. It feels at least for a moment, the duo’s learned there’s no amount of money to change who you are and were. You can wear a mask and put on a guise for the sake of the almighty dollar, but underneath the glitz and glam you’ll only hate yourself more. This feeling encompasses and overwhelms so many (Mike Posner), few get a chance to break free. I’ll be watching to see if The Chainsmokers have broken from the chains of dogshit and are willing to live a 3rd career, very similar to their 1st.

In summation, here’s what their career looks like:

Thanks for reading 🙂
note: the featured image for this is a stock image of “2 white guys” – an homage to the ‘any two white guys could tell me they were the chainsmokers and i’d believe them’ era of twitter jokes and buzzfeed quizes