Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites is officially 16, sixteen years after the EP helped push his bass-heavy sound into the global mainstream

Released on October 22, 2010 through mau5trap and Big Beat Records, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites came only months after Skrillex introduced his solo project with My Name Is Skrillex. The nine-track EP included Rock ’n’ Roll (Will Take You to the Mountain), Kill Everybody, All I Ask of You and the title track, alongside collaborations with Pennybirdrabbit, Foreign Beggars and Bare Noize. Sonny Moore was still establishing himself as Skrillex after his earlier years with From First to Last, but the release quickly became one of the most important records from that transition.

How Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites Came Together

During a stay with Noisia in the Netherlands in May 2010, Skrillex started experimenting with Native Instruments FM8 after Nik Roos introduced him to the synthesiser. An early idea titled FM8 Test later developed into Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites after he returned home. The name also came from outside electronic music, taking inspiration from David Bowie’s 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).

@edmhousenetworkNobody in that room knew how iconic this moment would be 🔥 Skrillex dropped an early version of ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’ at Candy’s Apartment in Sydney back in September 2010, just weeks before it came out on Mau5trap and Big Beat Records. The setup behind it was famously DIY. The whole thing was made in Ableton Live 8 on a single MacBook Pro, mixed on studio monitors with a blown tweeter. Even the iconic scream before the drop was lifted from a viral YouTube video of a cup stacking champion celebrating a record run. That tour also saw him testing out his Benny Benassi ‘Cinema’ remix, which went on to win a Grammy the following year.♬ original sound – EDMHouseNetwork

Alongside the original tracks, Noisia and Zedd each contributed remixes of Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, while Bare Noize reworked Kill Everybody. Zedd was still near the beginning of his career, while Noisia were already established within drum and bass and bass music. Features from Foreign Beggars, Bare Noize and Pennybirdrabbit added further names from the electronic scene around Skrillex during this early stage of his solo career.

From An Early EP To The Grammys

As more listeners discovered the release, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites spent 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at No. 69. The EP reached No. 49 on the Billboard 200, bringing Skrillex far beyond the online audience and club crowds that had supported his first solo material.

By 2012, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites had also reached the 54th Grammy Awards, where the title track won Best Dance Recording and the EP took Best Dance/Electronica Album. His remix of Benny Benassi’s Cinema earned Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical, giving Skrillex three wins that night. He was also nominated for Best New Artist.

Speaking backstage after the ceremony, Skrillex recalled living illegally in a warehouse in Downtown Los Angeles only a year earlier while making music from his bedroom. Within a remarkably short period, his early solo releases had taken him from those makeshift recording spaces to chart success and three Grammy Awards.

Sixteen years after its release, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites remains closely connected to Skrillex’s breakthrough and the period when his take on dubstep reached a much larger international audience. The EP also preserves an early chapter involving Noisia, Zedd, Foreign Beggars and Bare Noize, before several of those careers entered very different stages of their own.