By now, I’m sure everyone has heard Gotye’s chart-topping single “Somebody That I Used To Know”. It’s a good song. It’s super-catchy, and I had it stuck in my head for about a month last year. Gotye’s single is slow-burning – he released it last summer, and it just topped the charts this month. The song got two big pushes – one, Gotye (real name: Wally de Backer, no joke) appeared on Saturday Night Live to perform two songs and appear in a Digital Short, which was pretty funny. First, here’s the video for “Somebody That I Used To Know”:

And here’s the SNL digital short:

Funny. Cute. It helps that Gotye is kind of indie and hippie and cute too. He’s not trying too hard, and he’s not all Lana del Rey “LOOK AT ME!”. Anyway, the second big Gotye moment was when the song was featured on Glee several weeks ago. Darren Criss and Matt Bomer (who play brothers on the show) sang Gotye and Kimbra’s parts in an awkward duet (it’s a screw-you break up song, being sung by brothers?). Here’s the video:

I’m not disputing the fact that both Criss and Bomer have lovely voices. Bomer especially – I’ve heard him sing without all of the filters and junk, and he really does have a strong, powerful, operatic singing voice. But… that sounded funky. So what did Gotye think of Glee’s version? Not much. In an interview a few days ago, Gotye said, “They did such a faithful arrangement of the instrumentals but the vocals were that pop Glee style, ultra-dry, sounded pretty tuned and the rock has no real sense… like it’s playing to you from a cardboard box. It made it sound dinky and wrong.” I think that’s a fair complaint, truly. I’m not saying that just because I hate Glee. Bomer and Criss’s vocals sounded over-processed.

Anyway, Gotye experienced something of a backlash from the Gleeks, and so he tried to take back part of his comments. Sort of. He was really half-assed about it, though, which means he probably should have just stood by his original statement. Gotye said on Monday, “The nature of using reverb and space in a recording can change your perception of how a sound appeals to you… this xylophone hook in my song — it’s kind of dinky not just in the cover version but the original song… [mockingly] that becomes the Glee cover I hated and Darren Criss is an a–hole.” Gotye also said, “I thought it was really clever to transpose the song to two guys … It was a great idea.” I guess he’s saying that he was “dinky” first in his use of the xylophone, and then he’s just talking around the whole “their vocals sounded like crap” issue with a lot of fancy music-talk. Just own it, Gotye. The cover was kind of crappy. It’s okay to say it.

Photos courtesy of WENN.