Wiki
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Release Date
28 July 2016
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Length
14 tracks
Generationwhy is the debut studio album by American electronic music producer ZHU, released on July 29, 2016 by Columbia Records. The album features works and vocals from the likes of Maya Angelou, Jaymes Young, Nylo, Mitch Bell, Nikola Bedingfield, Adam Schmalholz, and Broods. The album followed after the success of ZHU's collaborative debut EP Genesis Series, released in 2015.
The album is about millennials and their endless pursuit of any kind of affinity: "I feel like people are searching for a type of relationship, a communnity - a place they can belong.". The album's cover is introspective; it becomes a mirror for the audience, led back to the feelings of rebirth and youthful innocence Zhu has said he tried to evoke with the project.
Songs like “Palm Of My Hand” pay homage to that vibrant psychedelia synonymous with the early work of bands Zhu looked up to – Pink Floyd, as well as The Doors. “There was something kind of soulful and bluesy about it, and I wanted to incorporate some more soul into electronic music. I wanted to humanise it a little bit more,” he says.
Zhu worked on a number of remixes to some legendary dance records – namely, “In The Morning” from this album, which reconstitutes elements of Rui da Silva’s “Touch Me”, as well as a live-only version of Faithless’ "Insomnia”. While many would be intimidated by the stakes in reworking successful pieces, Zhu says that they’re simply an exercise in taking the classic rave and dance records he loves and seeing how he can modernise them – “if it works it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't.”
Despite his clear affinity with history, Zhu seems to gravitate equally towards the progressive, and it’s his curiosity that connects the two. He explains that the album, and its title, is designed to spark that same curiosity in us – to remind people of the questions they should be asking of the world, and most importantly, of themselves. While his initial anonymity raised his entire existence as a question, with Generationwhy, Zhu turns the tables on the public at large.
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