After nearly a decade, one of EDM’s superstars is back. Zedd, the professional alias of German DJ and producer Anton Zaslavski, is a household name in both the EDM and pop worlds. The 2010s were a time of booming commercial and musical success for him, with tracks like “Clarity”, “Stay”, and “Break Free” each scoring top 10 slots on the Billboard Hot 100 and securing Zedd as a powerhouse in the EDM scene from 2012 to 2018. But, according to Zedd, his older music left much to be desired when it came to quality and authenticity. Now, he returns with Telos, a direct response to the artist's qualms with his older projects. In mid-September, Zedd sat down for a press conference hosted by °1824 to discuss his newest project, the artistry and intentions behind it, and what this new era of musicianship means for him.
In many ways, Telos sits as an antithesis to both Zedd’s previous works and the expectations of the current music industry landscape. “I’m going to make a record for myself. It’s not going to be for the streams; it’s most certainly not going to be for the algorithms…It’s gonna be for people who love art…”, Zedd remarked, a motive that influenced nearly all aspects of the album's creation and musicality. Telos marks the end of a nine-year hiatus of no solo albums from Zedd, a period filled by both the COVID-19 pandemic and the slow— and at times excruciatingly perfectionist— process he took towards this album’s completion. This comes in direct opposition to the intense pressure put on current music artists to constantly churn out new media to keep audiences engaged.
Similarly, on Telos, Zedd breaks out of the stylistic confinements of his discography— “I’ve been making these songs throughout the years that felt too complex, or too musical, or too theatrical for the music I have been releasing [previously]. But, when I realized I was gonna make an album for myself, and just for myself, all those songs all of a sudden felt like they had a home.” The result produced is a significantly more cinematic, genre-bending, and heartfelt record. “Telos” is an ancient Greek word that translates to end, but for Zedd, this album marks a new phase of life and music-making, and it is only the beginning.
The making of Telos was very different from Zedd’s previous albums and stands as the most time-consuming yet rewarding piece of art within his collection. “The level of quality of this album is something that I doubted myself for many years that I could accomplish,” Zedd recalls. Throughout the tedious process of composing, he ensured to match his album to his laid-out intentions. With a precise vision, Zedd realized that he was spending more time than he would have preferred perfecting every detail, and the strain took a toll on his physical health in the form of his weight loss. Each additional barrier tested and questioned whether he could reach this new height.
To emphasize how the making of Telos is a step up from other albums, Zedd used Clarity as a comparison. When he previously collaborated with Lady Gaga, he had already written 10 songs before meeting her which led to him experimenting in his free time. While writing for Gaga and making music for himself, his work organically manifested in a series of songs that materialized into Clarity. Zedd described Clarity as “too theatrical for his ultimate musical goals.” In contrast, he says that in order for Telos “to find a home for more sincerity, the songs have been getting curated for over a decade, many of which lived dormant as demos from the time of the pandemic”. What makes Telos a one-off is that it is conscious and mindful, working with a concept instead of coming up with a theme after production. Throughout the process, Zedd discovered that less is more.
In countless ways, Telos exemplifies prioritizing personal authenticity and artistry over expectation. However, the aspect of Telos’s counterculture that Zedd most emphasized was the album having a holistic nature in such a playlist-centered world. Increasingly in today’s culture of music listening, albums feel catered to playlist-making. “I think the reason why I haven't been super happy with the world of albums in the past decade is because more and more increasingly albums to me felt like playlists. It felt like they were put together somewhere between the executive producer of an album and the label…to figure out what would get the most streams…It doesn’t really give you any reason to listen to the album.” This is where Telos once again strays from the norm. “I’ve loved albums that are journeys, and one way to create a journey [and] get someone to listen to the whole album front to back is by making it better than a playlist, and what a playlist can’t do is intelligently morph into the next song.”
Telos by all means intends to create a musical journey, an aspect that serves listeners just as much as it serves each individual track on the album. “Sometimes you need a larger canvas to tell a proper story, so sometimes I make music and I just let it be…I know one day some opportunity will arise and it will make perfect sense.” There is a unique importance in allowing songs to exist in context and creating an album that works as a whole, and this was a heavy influence on the structure of Telos. “Zooming out and really looking at what a song needs is something I get better with throughout my years because I think you…lose your ego…and you look at the bigger picture of things. I think that’s one way I’ve matured. [Also] through really let[ting] go of expectations and genuinely listening to your heart and your desires of what music wants and fight against the thing that you know that will mess the algorithms up and not please everybody in the short term.” Telos stands as a testament to Zedd's commitment to crafting an authentic artistic experience, and the album invites listeners to engage deeply with his vision rather than merely consuming a collection of tracks.
A hallmark of the EDM genre and Zedd’s discography alike is collaborating, a topic Zedd voiced contrasting opinions on, describing his opportunities for collaborations as “a huge honor” while also later admitting, “The short answer is I don't like collaborating.” As Zedd explains, there are two sides to the process of partnering with someone on a track: “The ratio between what people expect from a collaboration from two producers they love, and the result that you can get, it’s oftentimes mismatched…Imagination is always so much more mind-blowing than most results end up being. So, I don’t love collaborating with different producers as much. That being said, the producers I got to work with…They are so unique in their own way that together we’re able to reach something different, a platform that we wouldn’t have reached individually, and I think that’s what makes a good collaboration.”
Zedd also applies this sentiment to collaborating with artists, which he finds to be indescribably valuable. “Me being able to collaborate with these vastly diverse artists enabled Telos as an album to be more diverse. It really let me spread further into the depths of the genres I was going into…That is the reason why people should collaborate…[To] explore other sides and reach stages of their sounds that they wouldn't be able to reach without their collaborator…I love collaborating when it’s done right, it’s just not as easy as it sounds.” Specifically, Zedd heavily commended collaborator Bea Miller, featured on the opening track “Out of Time” and “Tangerine Rays”, for acting as the “missing puzzle piece” for the songs that previously laid dormant and incomplete on his hard drive. “[There were] songs where I was really lacking…human emotion… With Bea Miller, [there were] multiple songs where I was feeling something that I couldn't achieve with my keyboard [and] with my laptop. When Bea started singing certain songs…I was able to actually feel the emotion from the song that I wasn't able to feel beforehand. The collaborations…let me have a voice.” As Zedd explains, the right partnerships have the power to unlock profound emotional depth and creative potential, and that power was successfully unlocked on Telos.
Although Zedd defines his main genre of music as EDM, Telos demonstrates his ability to approach music in a multi-genre manner that incorporates his upbringing in classical music, as well as funk, jazz, and hard metal. Many of his drum fills in the album are playable on a drum kit rather than being made electronically. Zedd realized he had to break out of confinements, with respect to the EDM genre and typical four-by-four bars, to fulfill his desires. This change in his production is a reflection of his maturity as an artist and realizing that some of his favorite records were the ones he “listened to first and didn’t enjoy immediately, but trusted the artist, listened to it more and realized it was more than what was understood at once”. In his song “Automatic Yes” with John Mayer, the hook is 2-3 BPM slower than the rest of the song, and while this minor change provides more anticipation, it only sits for a fraction of the song. This messes with DJs’ ability to sync this song with other songs, but Zedd decided it was more important to develop his own artistry.
Another aspect of growth in his music was in “Out of Time,” in which Zedd recalls. “the vocals were fighting with the melody, both of which I didn’t want to give up but combined, would downplay the effects if they existed by themselves”. Ten years ago, Zedd admitted he would’ve “swapped the vocals for the synth,” but he knew that the “vocals gave him what I was looking for and melody was just feeding my ego”. This decision was a direct reflection of his growth as an artist and being able to look at the bigger picture. While each song has its unique element and sounds different from one another, Zedd still insisted on getting the songs to functionally work together and transition into each other. The orchestral ending of the album reminds the audience again of his deep musical roots.
As the production of this album took a tremendous amount of effort to assemble, so did the live aspect of the tour. This tour was the most detailed show Zedd had ever put on, and it was the most challenging for him. His accumulated knowledge of what it takes to put on a good show is echoed through his meticulous stage design, including lighting, audio engineering, and visual effects. With his song “Senses,” Zedd experimented with storytelling so people can “see what they hear” much like he did with his whole album. He incorporated visuals of “walking up stairs, falling through glass and going through the universe”. While the idea sounds abstract, nothing compares to experiencing Telos live with first-hand sight and hearing of the elements of his stage design.
“Telos” is a word that can take many forms. Yes, “telos” translates to “end”, but it can also mean “purpose”,“goal”, or “fulfillment”. For Zedd, Telos takes on all of its possible meanings. “I decided to make that kind of album and I took that time and I’m really really proud of it…That was the goal and completion aspect that, to me, is like ‘this is all I wanted and I can't believe I finally did it.’ So, Telos really in that regard is a personal accomplishment…a goal that I had reached that I wasn’t sure I could reach.” Not only that, but Zedd seems to parallel the multifaceted nature of “telos” and its many definitions with this album, both marking a meaningful “end” to the chapter of his earlier commercialized sound while also forging a new path with greater musical prowess, and authenticity, fulfilling the goals he has also sought out and achieving a higher purpose with his music. In all ways, Telos is a culmination of Zedd’s growth, not just as an EDM artist, but as a creator unbound by genre, industry pressures, or personal setbacks. Through this, Zedd captures the essence of Telos in all its meanings—closure, intent, and ultimate creative realization.
