"Beautiful Now" is a song by Russian-born German musician

Zedd Anton Zaslavski (russian: Антон Заславский; born 2 September 1989), known professionally as Zedd (), is a Russian-born German disc jockey, DJ, record producer, and songwriter. Zedd grew up and began his musical journey in Kaise ...

from his second studio album, '' True Colors'' (2015), featuring vocals from American singer-songwriter

Jon Bellion Jonathan David Bellion (born December 26, 1990) is an American singer, rapper, and songwriter. He was born and raised in Lake Grove, New York on Long Island. He is best known for his song "All Time Low," along with his writing and producing cred ...

. It was written by Zedd, Bellion,

Antonina Armato Antonina Armato is an American songwriter, record producer, music producer and businesswoman. She is the co-founder and member of Rock Mafia, a record production/songwriting team. Antonina is credited for writing and producing for artists begin ...

David Jost David Jost (born 12 August 1972) is a German music producer, singer-songwriter and DJ born in Hamburg. His career has a track record of 74 platinum and 108 gold records and 14 No. 1 hits. He's worked with artists like Lady Gaga, Chris Brown, To ...

, Tim James and

Desmond Child John Charles Barrett (born October 28, 1953), known professionally as Desmond Child, is an American songwriter and producer. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008. His hits as a songwriter include Kiss's "I Was Made for Lovi ...

. The song was released on May 13, 2015, as the album's second single. The song was commercially successful and has been featured on a number of worldwide music charts.

Background

On May 8, 2015, as part of his ''True Colors'' promotional campaign, Zedd premiered "Beautiful Now" at the Shedd Aquarium in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. Five days later, he announced that he would release the song onto iTunes at 9:00 PM PST. A few hours prior to its release, he tweeted the lyrics from the song's beat break: "BAH BAH BAH BABABAH BAH BAH BABABAH BAH BAH BAH BABABAH BABABABA". The official audio for the song was uploaded to Zedd's YouTube channel at that same time.

Composition

"Beautiful Now" is a

progressive house Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of American and European house music of the late 1980s.Gerard, Morgan; ...

song with influences of

dance-pop Dance-pop is a popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a ...

written in the key of

D major D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Ch ...

. It runs at 128 BPM.

Music video

The music video for "Beautiful Now", directed by Jonathan Desbiens, was released on June 11, 2015.

Synopsis

The video intertwines five different stories together. The first is of a woman who supposedly drowned her female lover in a pool; the second involves an elderly Central American man who is journeying on an unsuccessful mountain climbing attempt; the third involves the son of a man whose home is invaded by armed robbers; the fourth involves Zedd portraying a liquor store robber who becomes hostile with the management by threatening him with a knife; and the fifth depicts a distraught girl laying down on a railroad. As the song progresses, the video intercuts to scenes of family happiness, good times with friends, dancing and rejoicing before concluding the five stories. The first woman's lover is pulled from the water before drowning, and the ex realizes the gravity of the situation; the old man attempts to climb the mountain and falls, but survives, without reaching the summit; the armed robbery victim's son confronts the hostiles at gunpoint and subdues them; Zedd's character reflects over what sunk him to his current point in life and seems to change his ways; the suicidal girl is missed by the train and reflects on her life and why she chose such an extreme act. All five people in the stories see themselves in a reflection in various surfaces as their stories are closed and they all resolve to be better people.

Reception

As of October 2, 2023, the video has over 220 million views and over 2 million likes on Zedd's

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel.

Track listing

*CD single and digital download # "Beautiful Now" – 3:38 *Digital download (Remixes EP) # "Beautiful Now" – 3:55 # "Beautiful Now" – 4:00 # "Beautiful Now" – 3:19 # "Beautiful Now" – 4:15 *Digital download (Dirty South Remix) (iTunes) # "Beautiful Now" – 3:18 *Digital download (Dirty South Remix) (Spotify) # "Beautiful Now" – 2:53

Grey remix

On July 29, 2015, Los Angeles-based duo

Grey Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

released their remix of "Beautiful Now" on

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

as a free download. The remix is known for its significant deviation in sound from the original, using a

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

to give Bellion's vocals a different melody and robotic distortion, and accompanying them with a darker and melodically distinct background inspired by Egyptian music. The remix quickly began receiving coverage across electronic music websites and communities, and was acclaimed for its uniqueness and originality. It also became notable for only being Grey's first release despite its professionality, leading to speculation that the alias belonged to an experienced group of producers now going anonymous. The alias belongs to brothers Kyle and Michael Trewartha, the former of whom previously operated under the alias Singularity. Eventually, the remix came to the attention of Zedd, who liked and reposted the remix to his official SoundCloud page, and later released the track for purchase on

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

on September 11, 2015. Zedd has since continued to actively support Grey, playing their remix of

Skrillex Sonny John Moore (born January 15, 1988), known professionally as Skrillex, is an American DJ and music producer. Growing up in Northeast Los Angeles and Northern California, he joined the post-hardcore band From First to Last as the lead sing ...

and

Diplo Thomas Wesley Pentz (born November 10, 1978), known professionally as Diplo, is an American DJ and music producer. He is the co-creator and lead member of the electronic dancehall music project Major Lazer, a member of the supergroup LSD with ...

's "

Where Are Ü Now "Where Are Ü Now" is a song produced by American EDM artists Skrillex and Diplo under their collaborative effort Jack Ü, with vocals from Canadian singer Justin Bieber. The song was released as the second single from the duo's debut studio alb ...

" featuring

Justin Bieber Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Bieber is recognized for his genre-melding musicianship and has played an influential role in modern-day popular music. He was discovered by American record executive Scooter ...

at his

True Colors Tour The True Colors Tour was a headlining concert tour by Russian-German music producer Zedd, launched in support of his studio album '' True Colors''. The tour visited Asia, Europe, and North America from 6 August 2015 to 11 January 2016. Set l ...

. He also went on to call Grey "hands down the best electronic music act right now" on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. Grey has since officially remixed two other songs from ''True Colors''; " Papercut" and " True Colors", and toured with Zedd in 2017 as part of his Echo Tour.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{authority control 2014 songs Songs written by Jon Bellion Songs written by Desmond Child Songs written by Antonina Armato Songs written by Tim James (musician) Zedd songs Interscope Records singles Songs written by Zedd Songs written by David Jost