Mark Richardson talks about bass, Beats by Dr. Dre and why we’re all addicted to the drop in Permission to Avalanche over at Pitchfork’s Resonance Frequency:

Beats by Dr. Dre are popular because they don’t reproduce music as much as they transform it. They are the right headphones for the current era, because their design “customizes” the sound for the listener who wants bass. Music is never finished; we can chop and screw, add bass, slow it down 100x, mash it up with something else. And people will buy headphones that finish the music in the way they like.

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This past week a funny jpeg made the rounds. It was a screenshot of an old Facebook post from the wildly popular dubstep producer Skrillex. He linked to a YouTube of Aphex Twin’s “Flim” and called it his “favorite song of all time.” Below the post, there are responses from his fans that say, “I was hoping for a drop,” and, “that track is waaaaay too light to be my face [sic] song.” The responses were edited down from hundreds of comments, many of which had Skrillex fans mirroring his praise of the tune. But the reason why it’s funny, and why it’s been passed around so much, is clear: These bass fiends have no ear for electronic music genius. They just want that drop.