2011’s Most Underrated Music: Major Lazer feat. The Party Squad - “Original Don”

Sounding like what happens when the fictitious, militant, machine gun-armed zombie slaying major enters the party, the fact that millions of underground partiers didn’t stop what they were doing upon first listen to Diplo and Switch’s latest and fist-pump their iPads into oblivion is telling. The hipster revolution is dead, and the kids who just two years earlier collectively lost their shit the first time they heard “Pon de Floor” all now have legitimate jobs, regularly take showers and wouldn’t be caught dead sweating in an irony-filled, cocaine and PBR fueled frenzy at their local dive establishment.

Invoking dancehall, hardstyle, Dutch house styled traditional march and Baltimore club, it’s the perfect track for Diplo’s live DJ sets, a sign that the producer is slowly easing into his role as genre-bending big room headliner. Much of the track’s lack of immediate impact can be traced to this as well, as Diplo now trends large instead of small, key plays from top indie selectors of little to no importance anymore, international superstar Tiesto likely a more important co-sign that DC local Tom Lim. An interesting case study of mainstream crossover, “Original Don” is both gargantuan and important.