Kimbra feels life reverberate in 'The Golden Echo' - LA Times Kimbra feels life reverberate in 'The Golden Echo' Kimbra Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times New Zealand-born singer-songwriter Kimbra. Mikael Wood Contact Reporter 'We live surrounded by projections of the self,' Kimbra says. Her new album aims to point people another way. On Feb. 10, 2013, Kimbra walked onto the Staples Center stage and accepted a Grammy Award from Prince, who added his own seal of approval before reading the Recording Academy's pick for record of the year. "Oh, I love this song," he said of "Somebody That I Used to Know," the quirky pop hit by Gotye that featured Kimbra's vocals and topped the Billboard Hot 100, eventually selling 7.7 million copies and racking up more than half a billion plays on YouTube. Such a public endorsement by a music legend is the kind of moment a young artist might regard as a pivot point, an episode that set a course for triumphs to come. But a different day looms larger in Kimbra's memory: the next one.

That's when the New Zealand native moved into a rented Silver Lake property she'd discovered on Craigslist — a small farm, in her description, complete with sheep, a rooster and an outdoor stove set atop a tree stump. "It was this strange little oasis," she said recently. "Nature has always been something that gets me creative, and finally I felt centered again. That changed everything." Eighteen months later, the fruit of that creativity is revealed on Kimbra's impressive new album, "The Golden Echo." Released Tuesday by Warner Bros. Records, it's a boldly inventive pop experiment that moves from lush disco to sweaty R&B to crunching hard rock with the idiosyncratic logic of someone working in a makeshift home studio. Yet songs like "Carolina" and "'90s Music" face outward too, their bright melodies as irresistible as their textures are beguiling. Kimbra and Gotye Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times Kimbra, right, and Gotye backstage at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 10, 2013. Kimbra, right, and Gotye backstage at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 10, 2013. (Allen J.

Schaben / Los Angeles Times) "Kimbra is thick with thought, and that can sometimes challenge the ear," said Van Dyke Parks, the veteran producer and arranger who devised the darting string parts in "As You Are." "But she does whatever she can to bring some confection to it. She always makes it tasty." Born Kimbra Johnson, the 24-year-old grew up playing music in Hamilton, New Zealand, where the window in her childhood bedroom, she recalled wistfully, looked out over a river. In 2008 she moved to Melbourne after signing a management deal and began work on what would become her debut album, "Vows." The only thing predictable about Kimbra is her unpredictability. — Lenny Waronker, Warner Bros. A&R executive Full of sweetly off-kilter tunes reminiscent of the Canadian singer-songwriter Feist , the record sold well in Australia upon its release there in 2011. But to capitalize on the growing success of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" — a duet facilitated by the singers' shared producer, François Tétaz — Warner Bros. brought Kimbra to L.A.

and teamed her with proven hit makers like Greg Kurstin and Mike Elizondo to record a handful of new tracks for the album's U.S. edition. "That sounds like a very clinical process," the singer said at a café not far from her current home in Echo Park. (Having decided she was ready for an indoor kitchen, she left the sheep farm this summer.) "But it wasn't a thing of 'Let's add a few American pop songs.' If anything, what I added was slightly more left of center." Still, Kimbra spent 2012 touring like an aspiring pop star, at one point playing eight shows over four days at that year's South by Southwest music festival; she also performed with Gotye on "Saturday Night Live," recorded a song for Tim Burton 's movie "Frankenweenie" and collaborated with DJ A-Trak and Mark Foster (of the band Foster the People ) as part of a Converse promotion. By the time of the Grammys last year, she was ready for a bit of the solitude that a Craigslist post appeared to promise. "I'd go outside in the morning and cook eggs that I'd get from the coop," she remembered.

"Then I'd eat my breakfast with the animals, looking out over Los Angeles." The solace-in-nature thing can sometimes seem like a put-on, but for Kimbra it feels genuine. In our conversation at the coffee shop she was perfectly friendly yet spoke hurriedly, as though anxious to get through a series of talking points. But she seemed to relax later during a walk through Elysian Park, even as our path led us to scurry up a steep dirt hill. "I'm from New Zealand," she said. "This is no big deal." As inspiring as the farm was, Kimbra knew she needed additional tools to complete "The Golden Echo," which she wanted to sound "weightier" than "Vows" — like a "sonic experience," she said, in which scrappy, low-fi sounds would blend with slicker, more high-fi elements. So she took up with the producer Rich Costey, who installed her at his well-stocked L.A. studio; there they brought in players including Parks, the soul-jazz bassist Stephen Bruner (better known as Thundercat) and John "J.R." Robinson, a drummer celebrated for his work with Michael Jackson .

"Everything on this record was a product of looseness," Costey said. "Nothing was precious." The producer recalled opening computer files for some songs and discovering that Kimbra had already recorded upward of 250 separate parts. His job, he said, was to "consolidate" the singer's vision without sacrificing the spirit of adventure that defined her early demos. Lenny Waronker, an A&R executive at Warner Bros. who helped oversee the record's progress, said Kimbra and Costey met that goal. "We never knew what we were going to get from her," Waronker said. "The only thing predictable about Kimbra is her unpredictability." And yet the release of "The Golden Echo," which quickly broke into the top 20 on the iTunes album chart, has put Kimbra into a familiar pattern of interviews and photo shoots and concert tours like the one she's scheduled to launch in October.

(Before she leaves town she'll perform every Sunday night in September at the Bootleg HiFi near MacArthur Park.) Considering all that's on the horizon, Kimbra said she's better prepared this time for the wearying experience of promoting a record in "an age of high stimulus and short attention." While living at the farm she began practicing meditation, she said, "trying to breathe and not get caught up in the need to just fulfill my yearning and move on." "We live surrounded by projections of the self," she continued, and if that's true for normal people obsessed with tailoring their social-media identities, it's even truer for an artist whose "whole life is about output," as she put it. Yet the title of "The Golden Echo," drawn from the name of a flower linked to the Greek myth of Narcissus, advises listeners to slow down and engage more deeply with the music, like Narcissus gazing at his own image reflected in a pool of water. "That's a skill we're losing a bit," said Kimbra, whose gorgeously detailed album rewards such close attention.

"What if this record helps somebody do it?" Kimbra feels life reverberate in new album - Star2.com Kimbra feels life reverberate in new album October 22, 2014 Music News By MIKAEL WOOD David Bowie: The Last Interview And Other Conversations Singer is ready for the next chapter in her life. On Feb 10, 2013, Kimbra walked onto the Staples Center stage and accepted a Grammy Award from Prince, who added his own seal of approval before reading the Recording Academy’s pick for record of the year. “Oh, I love this song,” he said of Somebody That I Used To Know, the quirky pop hit by Gotye that featured Kimbra’s vocals and topped the Billboard Hot 100, eventually selling 7.7 million copies and racking up more than half a billion plays on YouTube. Such a public endorsement by a music legend is the kind of moment a young artiste might regard as a pivot point, an episode that set a course for triumphs to come. But a different day looms larger in Kimbra’s memory: the next one.

That’s when the New Zealand native moved into a rented Silver Lake, California property she’d discovered on Craigslist – a small farm, in her description, complete with sheep, a rooster and an outdoor stove set atop a tree stump. “It was this strange little oasis,” she said recently. “Nature has always been something that gets me creative, and finally I felt centred again. That changed everything.” Eighteen months later, the fruit of that creativity is revealed on Kimbra’s impressive new album, The Golden Echo. Released by Warner Bros Records, it’s a boldly inventive pop experiment that moves from lush disco to sweaty R&B to crunching hard rock with the idiosyncratic logic of someone working in a makeshift home studio. Yet songs like Carolina and ’90s Music face outward too, their bright melodies as irresistible as their textures are beguiling. “Kimbra is thick with thought, and that can sometimes challenge the ear,” said Van Dyke Parks, the veteran producer and arranger who devised the darting string parts in As You Are. “But she does whatever she can to bring some confection to it.

She always makes it tasty.” Born Kimbra Johnson, the 24-year-old grew up playing music in Hamilton, New Zealand, where the window in her childhood bedroom, she recalled wistfully, looked out over a river. In 2008 she moved to Melbourne, Australia after signing a management deal and began work on what would become her debut album, Vows. Full of sweetly off-kilter tunes reminiscent of the Canadian singer-songwriter Feist, the record sold well in Australia upon its release there in 2011. But to capitalise on the growing success of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know – a duet facilitated by the singers’ shared producer, Francois Tetaz – Warner Bros brought Kimbra to Los Angeles and teamed her with proven hit makers like Greg Kurstin and Mike Elizondo to record a handful of new tracks for the album’s US edition. “That sounds like a very clinical process,” the singer said at a cafe not far from her current home in Echo Park.

(Having decided she was ready for an indoor kitchen, she left the sheep farm this summer.) “But it wasn't a thing of ‘Let’s add a few American pop songs.’ If anything, what I added was slightly more left of centre.” Still, Kimbra spent 2012 touring like an aspiring pop star, at one point playing eight shows over four days at that year’s South by Southwest music festival; she also performed with Gotye on Saturday Night Live, recorded a song for Tim Burton’s movie Frankenweenie and collaborated with DJ A-Trak and Mark Foster (of the band Foster The People) as part of a Converse promotion. By the time of the Grammys last year, she was ready for a bit of the solitude that a Craigslist post appeared to promise. “I’d go outside in the morning and cook eggs that I’d get from the coop,” she remembered. “Then I’d eat my breakfast with the animals, looking out over Los Angeles.” The solace-in-nature thing can sometimes seem like a put-on, but for Kimbra it feels genuine. In our conversation at the coffee shop she was perfectly friendly yet spoke hurriedly, as though anxious to get through a series of talking points.

But she seemed to relax later during a walk through Elysian Park, even as our path led us to scurry up a steep dirt hill. “I’m from New Zealand,” she said. “This is no big deal.” As inspiring as the farm was, Kimbra knew she needed additional tools to complete The Golden Echo, which she wanted to sound “weightier” than Vows – like a “sonic experience,” she said, in which scrappy, low-fi sounds would blend with slicker, more high-fi elements. So, she took up with the producer Rich Costey, who installed her at his well-stocked LA studio; there they brought in players including Parks, the soul-jazz bassist Stephen Bruner (better known as Thundercat) and John “J.R.” Robinson, a drummer celebrated for his work with Michael Jackson. “Everything on this record was a product of looseness,” Costey said. “Nothing was precious.” The producer recalled opening computer files for some songs and discovering that Kimbra had already recorded upward of 250 separate parts. His job, he said, was to “consolidate” the singer’s vision without sacrificing the spirit of adventure that defined her early demos.

Lenny Waronker, an A&R executive at Warner Bros who helped oversee the record’s progress, said Kimbra and Costey met that goal. “We never knew what we were going to get from her,” Waronker said. “The only thing predictable about Kimbra is her unpredictability.” And yet the release of The Golden Echo, which quickly broke into the Top 20 on the iTunes album chart, has put Kimbra into a familiar pattern of interviews and photo shoots and concert tours like the one she’s scheduled to launch this month. Considering all that’s on the horizon, Kimbra said she’s better prepared this time for the wearying experience of promoting a record in “an age of high stimulus and short attention”. While living at the farm she began practicing meditation, she said, “trying to breathe and not get caught up in the need to just fulfill my yearning and move on”. “We live surrounded by projections of the self,” she continued, and if that’s true for normal people obsessed with tailoring their social-media identities, it’s even truer for an artist whose “whole life is about output”, as she put it.

Yet the title of The Golden Echo, drawn from the name of a flower linked to the Greek myth of Narcissus, advises listeners to slow down and engage more deeply with the music, like Narcissus gazing at his own image reflected in a pool of water. “That’s a skill we’re losing a bit,” said Kimbra, whose gorgeously detailed album rewards such close attention. “What if this record helps somebody do it?” – Los Angeles Times/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services Tags Kimbra: “This Is My Time To Make A Statement” | Music News | moshtix Kimbra: “This Is My Time To Make A Statement” Written by Cyclone Wehner on 21st July, 2014 CHECK OUT THE LATEST Migration ...more Before Lorde , there was another pure heroine from New Zealand – Kimbra Johnson . The singer-songwriter may be best known for that ubiquitous mega-duet with Gotye , Somebody That I Used To Know, which scored two Grammys including the prestigious Record of the Year, but she’s weaving her own mythology. Her second album, The Golden Echo, which follows 2011's break-out Vows, revels in pop maximalism.

Kimbra smashes out of electro-pop, straying into R&B, soul, funk, psychedelia and indie-rock. She’s aptly dubbed this wonky hybrid “prog-pop”. Even the artwork is opulently surrealist. Kimbra, big on collabs, is joined on The Golden Echo by such disparate guests as neo-soulster John Legend , renowned bassist Thundercat ( Flying Lotus , Suicidal Tendencies ), and rocker Omar Rodríguez-López of The Mars Volta / At The Drive-In fame, with Silverchair ‘s Daniel Johns her co-writer and veteran US producer Rich Costey sitting in. Yet it’s still very much Kimbra’s show. Kimbra, who grew up in a medical family in Hamilton, NZ, started playing guitar and performing as a child. Rumour has it three years ago she fretted needlessly that no-one would come to her inaugural headlining show at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel. Everything changed as Somebody… went viral. A Vows repackage was issued internationally in 2012, shooting into the US Top 20. Last year, Kimbra decided to settle in Los Angeles’ hipster enclave, Silver Lake – the next stop in her stellar trajectory.

Watch: Kimbra- 90s Music You’re living in LA now. How are you enjoying the Californian experience? Is that where you’re calling from? Kimbra: It is where I’m calling from. Yeah, this is where I’ve been for about a year-and-a-half now. It’s where the record was born and where I produced it and kinda pulled it into fruition. Naturally, whenever you place yourself in a new environment, a new context, you’re gonna be exposed to new sounds and new perspectives – even just spending time with different musicians. Over here I became friends with people like Thundercat and Flying Lotus and the guys from Queens Of The Stone Age – one of them [Michael Schuman] contributes on this album. There’s just so many incredible people here who are open to working. I was lucky to have the opportunity to reach out to these people. It’s been an awesome place to knuckle down as well. You can really choose the pace that you wanna move at here. I found a really serene and peaceful oasis to work out of, which was a little sheep farm that I found.

I did a lot of the writing there and then I ended up working in Eldorado Studios in Burbank and just found my element, I guess. I was very comfortable producing and doing the technical elements in the studio and just found myself growing a tonne by being in a more challenging environment. The first single from The Golden Echo is 90s Music, which isn’t typical. A while back you were considering a more stripped-down approach but this album is diverse, and expansive. What did you learn from making Vows that you applied to this record? K: I feel like on Vows I dipped my hand in a whole bunch of ideas and on this record I feel like I kinda committed to some of them a little more. I wasn’t so impatient to sort of reveal all my skills in one song, but rather let a song be one idea. Well, that’s not really true because at the same time a song like 90s Music kind of rushes through a lot of ideas at once. One of the strong themes that I touched on in Vows and really committed to on this record was the idea of juxtaposition – you know, the bittersweet.

So you have something that on the one hand is quite abrasive and severe and maybe like kind of aggressive or unsettling in some way, and then something on the other hand that’s very much graceful and playful and dreamy. I wanted to experiment with, “How many twists and turns can we take to keep the listener engaged?”, but kind of just feed these ideas and embrace the spirit of experimentation, which is pretty strong on a song like 90s Music, but I think it’s still there throughout the other songs as well. It’s not super similar to a lot of the other tracks on the record but, in saying that, I don’t feel there’s one that really sums the whole album up at all. It feels like every song is its own story, and I’m a big advocate of the album being a medium that exists to be consumed as a whole and not to be taken apart. Obviously a single plays a part, but I think that this record very much is an experience that you’re meant to have as a whole piece and body of work. It is very surprising that Daniel Johns contributed to this record as a co-writer. K: He’s on four songs, I think.

He became a huge inspiration to me throughout the making of the record. I met him through [legendary American composer and arranger] Van Dyke Parks when we did the show in Adelaide together. We were doing songs off Diorama, I was doing backing vocals for that, and we were doing songs from Van Dyke’s repertoire. We hit it off and so we thought we’d get in the studio together. And that’s when we wrote Teen Heat, which is the first song off the album. We did a song called As You Are with Van Dyke later, he put some strings on. It was so incredibly natural writing with him [Johns]. He brought something out of me that I hadn’t maybe explored as much before. I brought him back over to LA where I was and we continued to write over here. There’s, like, another 10 songs that nobody’s heard that we’ve done together (laughs). But it’s a trip, man. I used to listen to Silverchair and I was an angsty teen and jumping up and down in my bedroom to Frogstomp, and then Diorama was a life-changing album for me.

So just to get to have him and his colour throughout the record was quite an amazing thing. Watch: An Evening With Van Dyke Parks: Featuring Daniel Johns and Kimbra You’re a closet hard rock and metal fan. Was that the appeal of working with Rich Costey, as he’s worked extensively with bands like Muse? K: Yeah, I think it was. I mean, again, juxtaposition and the idea of taking one idea and throwing it against something else and trying to find a way to have those things co-exist and actually tread new ground in some way – that’s another theme for the production aesthetic. This record is quite inspired by R&B and future funk and soul, but it’s not interesting to me to go and work with a producer who’s just done a whole bunch of those kinds of records. That could have been an avenue that I took. But I really enjoy the work of Rich Costey because of how panoramic it all sounds. He’s mixed The Mars Volta and Rage Against The Machine , but also Major Lazer and things [and] produced for my favourite bands like Mew and Interpol and stuff… That was really exciting.

I think that’s a reason why this record doesn’t have a distinct sound to it, because of those decisions I made in terms of who I co-produced with. And, yeah, totally, the records I became enamoured with in my high school years were definitely on the heavier side and more aggressive, and it’s something I wanted just to channel in the music this time around as well – not so much try to make a metal record, it’s more the approach of trying to find a toughness in the backbone of the arrangements. Muse’s Matt Bellamy is one of the album’s many guest musicians, playing guitar on 90s Music, which was again unexpected. Did you get to meet him? K: Yeah, definitely. It was super random how that happened. A lot of the ‘collaborations’ as such have been more like just friends who were really into the music and wanted to jump on. That’s a cool way for things to happen!

I don’t really like the idea of dictating, like, “I want this person to come and play and you’re going to play this part.” It’s way more exciting to me if people who you’re naturally spending time with anyway then show an interest in the music and you get them down to the studio and get them to kind of be a colour. A lot of the people on the record, it’s not like they’re a big ‘feature’ – like, “This is ‘featuring’ this person” – it’s more about they kinda became roles in the film of The Golden Echo. I liked that thought of this being like this cinematic experience and these different people came on board to just give a little taste of their world on top of it. It’s not super obvious all the time. With Matt Bellamy, we sent that song to him and Rich said, “Hey, if you’ve got any ideas, just lay them down.” Literally the next day he sent across a guitar part and then came down to the studio and said hey and was just super pumped on this song. I think that’s a really nice natural way for things to happen. You’ve also teamed with John Legend.

You were previously involved in his single Made To Love off the Kanye West -helmed Love In The Future, and now you’ve worked together on Nobody But You, which apparently he almost released himself. What can you tell us about that? K: We just did this session together in LA. Actually, we met on Twitter. I can’t remember how it even happened! I think he might have reached out to me… He said that he was a fan of the music. I was like, “Wow, it’d be great to get together,” and we did. But, when we were writing, it wasn’t necessarily with an intention to write for someone’s album. It was like, “Let’s just make some music.” Then the song that came out of that, he was originally singing it and we got it all done for his album, he sent it to me, I was rapt. Like, “That’s awesome.” I think I sang some backing vocals on it. But, for one reason or another, it didn’t end up making it. I remember going like, “Man, it’s probably too good a song to just waste.

We should do something with it.” So I took the song and I re-did all the production on it — I wanted to go for a different feel on it and instrumentation — and ended up working on it for my album. It was awesome. It was just fun to see a song kind of grow into being a part of my world, and coming from a really fun collaboration. He’s such a talented dude. To get to be in a room with him and see the way he approaches things was different for sure to the way I do things, but it was a real learning experience. Listen: John Legend – Made To Love Your duet with Gotye, Somebody I Used To Know, was so huge and people always attach you to it. They mention Kimbra, they mention that song. Has it been difficult to define your own identity, particularly outside of Australia? K: I don’t know. I actually don’t feel a sense of any negativity from that. I haven’t experienced that being a restriction in any way. It’s only opened doors, really. I find that I’m definitely lucky in the sense that that’s given me a platform to share a record with people here in America.

Very often a lot of people say, “I first heard you on that song and it led me to listen to Vows,” and then to listen to this or listen to that. I think it’s a good challenge for an artist to have that sense of expectation. That’s just healthy pressure. It’d be like more work – you’ve been given this big opportunity and this song that’s come out and it’s showcased you in this light. I guess there’s a benchmark there and you’ve got to step up to it and, in a healthy way, prove yourself as an artist who has the kind of musical depth to maintain a place in the musical spectrum. Going into making this second record, I felt that it instilled a good sense of determination in me and a good sense of ambition, because I’d had this great opportunity and now I felt, “OK, this is my time to make a statement about the kind of musician I am.” To me, that’s a positive thing, not a negative. You’ve opened the door for that other Kiwi, Lorde. Have your paths crossed at all? K: Yeah, totally.

I went to her show — she was playing at The Echo, which is a cool little venue really close to where I live in LA — and that was awesome. It might have been last year, actually. It was really great to catch up with so many friends, ’cause she has mutual friends who I go way back with. I used to make music with her producer [Joel Little]. He was in a punk band [Goodnight Nurse] and I once sang vocals on one of his records [ All For You off 2006's Always And Never ]. It was just awesome to congratulate her on everything. It’s always nice to meet other artists who’re on a similar kinda whirlwind that you’ve been on. I know that she really appreciated that as well, just to connect with someone else in a similar stage of their career. So it was nice. You’ve emerged as a fashionista fave with your vintage style. Would you ever do a fashion line? Because increasingly pop acts are venturing out with that kind of cross-branding. K: It’s a possibility. I was very into designing at high school. I did textiles and I was making a lot of my costumes early on for stage.

I would buy vintage dresses and then kinda just use safety pins and sewing machines to put them into more elaborate silhouettes and stuff, and then I’d have girls help me. Even to this day, on the photo shoot of The Golden Echo, me and my stylist were coming up with outfits literally on the day – like we made a dress out of a fire blanket – and we just put things together in a very spontaneous way. Yeah, that is definitely something I’d be interested in. I’d obviously just wanna make sure that it was the right time and the right brand and partner with someone who I felt could help convey the right vision. I’m really into that idea of mixing mediums and [asking], “How can I expand the music to go beyond just music and actually be an art experience as well?” For the [launch] of this album, we’re doing an art exhibition here in LA where local artists are going to listen to the album and create a piece of artwork based off their favourite song and people will come in and put headphones on in a gallery and listen to each song at different stations and get to engage with the music within a piece of art.

I think that, to me, is a sentiment of this record, about being an echo for other people’s creativity as well. It disappointed so many people when The Golden Electric Tour with Janelle Monáe was cancelled due to her ill health. Is there still talk of you rescheduling that? K: Yeah, I mean, of course we both want to. Absolutely. It’s definitely not down to that. It’ll just be a matter of scheduling, you know? I definitely hope to resurrect that again… I just say, “I can’t make any kind of confirmations on that,” obviously because I know how busy she is as well. But I trust that the stars will align for that to happen at some point. I know that my main incentive now is finding a way to get back to Australia as soon as possible and do a tour of these [new] songs. I’m super excited to come back. I think it’ll be even a better energy in a way because it’ll be like, “Wow, we didn’t get served this time, so we’re gonna come back, and it’ll be even more energy than before.” But I try to be an eternal optimist with these things.

Are you hitting the summer festival circuit behind this album? K: Um, look, I know the tour dates will be announced very soon for this record and I can’t… Unfortunately, I don’t know too much at this point about what exactly that is, but I’m sure next year we’ll be doing a bunch of stuff. I’ve pretty much had the whole year locked out to kinda get into that. I guess “watch this space”, ’cause I’m sure announcements will be coming very soon! ‘The Golden Echo’ is released Friday, 15th August and is available for pre-order now . Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye Songfacts Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye Songfacts Songfacts Belgian born Wally De Backer is an indie rock singer-songwriter who records under the name of Gotye. He moved with his family to Australia at the age of 2 and has been releasing music there since 2001. De Backer achieved a breakthrough with his second album Like Drawing Blood, which was voted # in the Triple J listeners poll of the Best Album of 2006. This is the second single from De Backer's third album, Making Mirrors.

The LP was released in the summer of 2011 and went to #1 in Australia. The song features New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra, who won her country's Critics' Choice awards in 2011; the award is intended to recognize and nurture up-coming talent. Gotye didn't begin writing this song as a duet, but after he finished the first verse, he realized he had nowhere to go with the character he was writing about, and needed to introduce another voice. "Somebody" was both produced and written by Gotye in his parents' barn on the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne. It finds Gotye addressing a past lover, reminiscing about their relationship and break-up. The song draws from the aftermath and memory of several relationships, but he told Rolling Stone Australia that one does resound louder than the others. "There is an ex-girlfriend I know." he admitted. "It was five-six years ago. It wasn't a nasty breakup, but it was messy in the sense that we hurt each other more than we needed to because it wasn't a clean break. I guess it's closest to what the chorus is about.

We both realized we had to move on and we haven't seen each other since." The song samples the guitar break from Brazilian musician Luiz Bonfá's track "Seville." The classical guitarist died in 2001 but was generously given a co-writing credit by Gotye. According to Australia's Courier Mail, Bonfá also inspired the song's first few lyrics; Gotye inked an early deal awarding 45% of the song's royalties to the Brazilian's estate. "Somebody" was a commercial success, topping the charts in a number of countries including Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. It was the second best selling single of 2011 in Australia. Gotye made his US television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live on February 1, 2012 when he performed this song. The Canadian indie band, Walk Off the Earth, recorded an unusual cover of the song. The only instrumentation on their version is a single guitar, played simultaneously by five people using different strings and surfaces. Like Gotye's original, it became a YouTube sensation, viewed well over a million times and becoming the most popular cover song ever posted on YouTube.

This version of the song was most likely produced in a studio and mimed for the video, as the microphones are too far away to capture such a clean vocal sound. WOTE did perform the song live on the show Ellen, and this version sounded significantly rougher than the version in the famous video. Despite the likely lip-synching, the video is quite compelling and very clever. American Songwriter magazine asked Gotye why he thought the song has proved so successful? He replied: "I think it's the kind of slow build and drama that it has, the two-part story, and the multiple perspective aspect that has struck people. It's written openly enough that it expresses that confusion you can have after a broken relationship, and the way you can feel emotionally quite up and down. You can feel nostalgic and rosily melancholy, in a way. But sometimes we often feel quite bitter about things, when you have nothing to do with that relationship or maybe with that person anymore, at least not actively. It can be quite a confusing feeling. So maybe the way the song expresses those feelings appears to strike people as quite true, and quite relevant with their experiences." So, how do you pronounce "Gotye"? "Got ya"?

Nope, apparently it's "Go-tee-yay" like fashion designer Gaultier. The song's music video was directed, produced and edited by Natasha Pincus and features Gotye and Kimbra without clothing, but with body paint. Gotye told MTV News the clip presented some challenges, even after the filming had finished for the day. "We shot it over two very full days ... I quite clearly remember driving home at 9 a.m., after shooting all day, in a bathrobe, with bodypaint all over my face, and going through McDonald's drive-thru," he recalled. "I ordered a coffee to make sure I didn't crash on the way home. And the girl working there, she didn't even bat an eyelid. I guess it's a regular thing down in Hastings [Australia] McDonald's." Kimbra was not Gotye's initial choice to provide the female vocals on this song. "There was a vocalist who was quite high profile in Australia who was all set to do it and then canceled the night before we were going to do the vocal session," the Belgian-Australian divulged to Jam! Music .

"In fact, we met at a festival months later and she was just like, 'Maybe that was a mistake,'" he added with a laugh. Gotye spent five months looking for the right voice for the song, even trying his girlfriend, Australian singer-songwriter Tash Parker, but her voice wasn't right for the tune. Eventually, Kimbra was recommended by the song's mixer after he'd produced her debut album Vows. "Kimbra has so much she can do with her voice," said Gotye to Jam! Music. "On the one hand I feel like she's able to channel all these great jazz vocalists but then with 'Somebody That I Used To Know' what I was really looking for, I just wanted it to be raw and direct. I wanted to hear singing sort of trying to tap into the feeling of it and she did that." The poignant break-up song was performed in a different context during the "Big Brother" episode of Glee where it was sung as a duet by Darren Criss, who plays Blaine Anderson, and guest star Matt Bomer as his onscreen older brother.

Bomer told TVLine that his role in the show came about after suggesting 'Somebody That…' for Glee: "I had heard the Gotye song and I asked [series co-creator] Ryan [Murphy] if he ever thought of using that as a duet on the show," he recalled. "And he said he had. And then a week later I got a text from him asking me if I wanted to come on the show to sing it. And I said, 'Absolutely!'" Gotye blasted Criss and Bomer's cover of the song in an interview with the Sunday Mail. "They did such a faithful arrangement of the instruments but the vocals were that pop Glee style, ultra dry, sounded pretty tuned and the rock has no real sense, like it's playing to you from a cardboard box," he said. Gotye later backtracked on his comments, insisting: "I thought it was really clever to transpose the song to two guys... It was a great idea." The song powered to #1 on the Hot 100 in the week following its performances on both Glee and Saturday Night Live.

Gotye became the first Belgium-born act to top the Hot 100 since the Singing Nun spent four weeks at #1 with " Dominique " in 1963. He was also the first Australian-raised act to reach the peak position since Savage Garden reigned for four weeks in 2000 with " I Knew I Loved You ." The song replaced Fun's " We Are Young " at #1. This was the first time that two rock-based tracks had been atop the Hot 100 back-to-back since Matchbox Twenty's " Bent " succeeded Vertical Horizon's " Everything You Want " In July 2000. Kimbra was born on March 27, 1990 and the song's accession to the #1 spot made her the first female artist born in the '90s to top the Hot 100. Until Kimbra's reign, Dev, who was born on July 2, 1989, had been the most recent born woman to reach the summit. She was a featured act on Far East Movement's chart-topper " Like a G6 ." One of the reasons for the song's huge success is its crossover appeal.

It was the first ever tune to top all three of the Hot 100, Dance/Club Play Songs and Alternative Songs since the latter list premiered the week of Sept. 10, 1988. A lot of people discovered this tune through Shazam. The Hollywood Reporter recounted in June 2012 that "Somebody" was the first song to rack up one million tags in one week on the musical-recognition mobile app and has been purchased by a huge 8 percent of all Shazam users. This was the most streamed song of 2012 on the online music service, Spotify, just ahead of Carly Rae Jepsen's " Call Me Maybe ." Making Mirrors was the second most streamed album behind David Guetta's Nothing But The Beat. Making Mirrors won Album of the Year at the 2012 ARIAs, Australia's equivalent of the Grammy Awards. Gotye won three other awards at the same ceremony - Best Male Artist, Best Australian Live Act and Best Pop Release. This was the biggest-selling single of 2012 in the US after being downloaded 6.8 million times.

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" was second with 6.5 million downloads. The same two songs were also the top sellers in the UK in 2012 with "Somebody..." selling 1.3 million followed by "Call Me Maybe," with sales of 1.1 million. The song won Record of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards. Gotye was presented with his prize by Prince, who appeared sporting black sunglasses and a white cane. "A little bit lost for words, to receive an award from the man standing behind us with the cane," said the Australian singer-songwriter on receiving his statue. "Many years listening to this man's music growing up, and a big reason I was inspired to make music. Thank you." Gotye nabbed two other awards at the same ceremony, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance alongside Kimbra for this song and the Best Alternative Music Album for Making Mirrors.

The "duet where the guy and girl each talk about their side of a troubled relationship" genre has been around for a while - Stevie Nicks and Don Henley had a hit with one in 1981 with " Leather And Lace " - but they are rarely huge hits. It didn't take long for another one to top the Hot 100, however: Pink and Nate Ruess hit the top spot in 2013 with their he-said, she-said song Just Give Me A Reason . In his introduction on YouTube to " Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra ," Gotye mentions that he was reluctant to add to the growing mountain of re-interpretations of this hit song. However, the temptation to create a meta version that blends together the sound and video of a wide range of YouTube covers was too great. Gotye mentions that Kutiman's "Thru-You" was a direct inspiration. The full list of clips included and links to the originals are on the singer's website . >> Suggestion credit:

Question: The singer Kimbra who featured on the Record of the Year for 2012 was born and grew up where?
Answer: New Zealand