Album Review: Skrillex - F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3

A surprise release on April Fools, Skrillex leaves with an intriguing final hurrah to Atlantic Records. ‘F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3’ is a victory lap to himself, a piss-take to Atlantic Records, and a sincere thank you to the audience and the collaborators, where the fragmented DJ mix may not always strike Skrillex’s overall intentions, but is still jam-packed with delightful bangers.

After pulling two surprise releases back in 2023 as his way to come back in the sound that he pretty much built off in the 2010s (as well as still acknowledging his collaborative presence, both mainstream and otherwise), Skrillex once again does yet another surprise release 2 years later, but this time, he’s peacing out. Leaving Atlantic Records with some jabs at the music industry that will hound artists, with Atlantic Records just being one of them that has stifled musicians’ releases before. Yet as he pulls the final project under said label, Skrillex makes sure that he goes out with a bang.

Thus, ‘F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3’ acts not just as a record that Skrillex really wants to put out to get out of his label contract, but it’s also one that tiptoes between being cheeky and sincere in his intentions. A blur of 30-second to 2-minute fragments that are pieced together for a DJ mix structure, where shuddering drops, insane DJ tags, and boisterous bangers all weave together. It is all to create an impression where Skrillex is very much bringing in old to recent scraps of his work, bringing all the credits to his features and collaborations that he can muster, and ensuring that there is some satisfaction with label executives that would rather monopolize all of these fragmented cuts, the people that actually value his work, the credited artists that are willing to be a part of celebrating Skrillex’s final hurrah, and to Skrillex who eventually has to move on from his label and continue his usual work independently. It’s a more tangled showcase of Skrillex’s ethos than one would expect, but there is enough spark amidst the fragments that do allow that to work, most especially with cuts where the drops are furious like ‘SPITFIRE’, ‘ANDY’, ‘ZEET NOISE’, ‘KORABU’, ‘G2G’, and ‘VOLTAGE’.

And while there is not a cut here that will eventually live to the ripped melodic shudders from his early 2010s EPs or the ecstatic refinement from ‘Quest for Fire’, there is something delightfully charming and gnarly about ‘F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3’. Even if the rather punkish joke or the charged sincerity might not exactly land the strongest, the fact that Skrillex is still very much willing to give Atlantic Records a big FUCK YOU and give pretty much everyone what they want is quite the daunting balancing act that, at some points, the record somehow manages to deliver for the most part. He may not be Andy Warhol, but just like Andy Warhol, Skrillex is also aware of how art will be monopolized in such a capitalist system, and how said art still means something to those who do care. For that alone, it’s worth the listen.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘SPITFIRE’, ‘RECOVERY’, ‘ANDY’, ‘MOMENTUM (ft. ILYKIMCHI)’, ‘MORJA KAIJI VIP’, ‘KORABU (ft. Varg2tm, Whitearmor, Eurohead, jamesjamesjames)’, ‘REDLINE DASH’, ‘ZEET NOISE’, ‘BOOSTER’, ‘BIGGY BAP’, ‘SAY GOODBYE’, ‘G2G’, ‘DNB TING’, ‘SAN DIEGO VIP’, ‘VOLTAGE’

Least Favorite Track: ‘SLICKMAN’, ‘BABY ROYAL’