What happened to Gotye? The tale of a willful one-hit wonder
Despite the potential stability of some fleeting fads when considering the ebb and flow of certain popularity waves, the one-hit wonder concept in music seems less respectable by today’s standards. However, this is a little off the mark for artists like Gotye, whose rise to stardom was far less aligned with the typical one-hit wonder path to the top and back down again.
The term “one-hit wonder” has become somewhat dirtied over the years, mainly because of its inherent implications about faded stars that fail to occupy the limelight. By definition, it usually refers to the fluke success of a singer or artist who achieves a smash with a singular, career-defining track, only to disappear almost entirely immediately after, like their emergence was far from a meticulously planned attempt at stardom.
These aren’t bad songs, however. Depending on the varying definitions of good and bad, these songs have captivated mainstream attention with endearing rhythms, catchy hooks, and inexplicable cultural appeal. Some are more directly embedded in certain moments, seasons, or societal developments, evoking a unique type of timelessness that can sometimes come back around at various points.
While there are countless examples of this, one of the more strangely removed, distinctively unique songs that many consider lumped in the same shameless category is Gotye’s explosive 2011 track with Kimbra, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’. Unlike most other one-hit wonders, the song felt like a more deep-seated moment that circulated from accidental discovery.
What happened to Gotye?
Released from Gotye’s third album, Making Mirrors, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ climbed the charts almost instantaneously while gaining backing from several industry figures, including Lily Allen. Unlike other one-hit wonders, the track adopted all the signifiers of an artist very much at the beginning of his journey, most notably how the song itself felt like an intricate art piece rather than a catchy, formulaic tune released for mainstream popularity.
Although not a household name before its release, Gotye’s work before Making Mirrors also painted a picture of someone who wanted to get into the music industry, with a growing knack for experimentation and a burgeoning reputation in his respective circles that made him seem well-equipped for mainstream stardom. And then, of course, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ was a smash for all the right reasons, the least of which was that it was genuinely a good song that deserved its position.
After the success, however, Gotye seemingly vanished. From the outsider’s perspective, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ quickly indicated its own one-hit wonder status by its association with a name that rose as quickly as it fell, despite the unmatched potential of such a monumentally charged breakthrough that delivered all the promise of longevity. For Gotye, however, this move wasn’t as tragic as it perhaps seemed, but rather a conscious, considered, and gradual step away from the space intent on churning out meaningless music from those without much artistic intent.
In reality, Gotye never actually disappeared. In fact, the singer, whose real name is Wouter André De Backer, has continued working as a musician, collaborator, and singer-songwriter. However, in the eyes of the industry, he disappeared without much else to say other than the one track, another seemingly lost fleeting fad that tried and failed to maintain momentum in a brutal industry. However, he quickly decided he would exist as an artist in the music industry in his own way, driven by the nature of creating without the pressures of profitisation.
“I’m not interested in selling my music,” the musician told news.com in 2017, per The Music. “That’s the reason I don’t put ads on my YouTube channel, which seems strange to people in today’s climate, but that is a decision you can make,” he continued, adding, “I’m like that with all my music. I generally never want to sync my music for products.” Clearly, it was never about making hits, and the success of ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ was truly accidental, only more so for him than anybody else.
As he said in the same interview: “I decided it made more sense to focus on creative things and not get hung up on money and lawyers and courts.”
