"Professional Griefers" is a song by Canadian electronic music producer

Deadmau5 Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), known professionally as Deadmau5 (stylized as deadmau5; pronounced "dead-mouse"), is a Canadian electronic music producer and DJ. He mainly produces progressive house music, though he also produce ...

featuring vocals by American singer

Gerard Way Gerard Arthur Way (born April 9, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, and comic book writer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and co-founder of the rock band My Chemical Romance. He released his debut solo album, ''Hesitant Alien'', ...

. The song was released as the third single from his sixth studio album ''

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''. The song is featured in the game '' FIFA 13'' and its soundtrack. The song used to be featured in the game '' Asphalt 8: Airborne'' in the electronica playlist. The song was also featured briefly in season one episode five of the hit TV show '' Arrow''.

Background

"Professional Griefers" was first previewed as an unreleased instrumental on Deadmau5's

Ustream IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. ...

channel as a work in progress on February 13, 2011. The instrumental made its live debut during deadmau5's Meowingtons Hax tour mixed with Daft Punk's 2001 song

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" is a song by French duo Daft Punk, released in October 2001 as the fourth single from their second studio album ''Discovery''. A live version of "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" was released as a single fro ...

, premiering the track at his critically acclaimed headlining performance at Lollapalooza. The vocal version of "Professional Griefers", with Gerard Way, starts with hard beats and heavily distorted guitar stabs, then builds tension with discordant synth strikes leading into the chorus. In early 2012, when Zimmerman was asked why he was waiting to release it, he replied "

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going to do something big with it". That July, he spread the word that there was going to be a video shoot, and that he needed approximately 2,000 fans to arrive at the scene.

Release

In late 2011 and early 2012, only live recordings of "Professional Griefers" as an instrumental could be found floating around the Internet. On November 18, 2011, the instrumental version of the track was played during the official launch of ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made pub ...

''. As early as December 2011, Zimmerman began playing the track along with vocals via live Internet stream. Due to Gerard Way's distinctive voice, fans were able to discern it was him. Then on July 6, 2012, a preview of the track was uploaded to the official deadmau5 YouTube channel. Finally on August 14, 2012, "Professional Griefers" was released on

Beatport Beatport is an American electronic music-oriented online music store owned by LiveStyle. The company is based in Denver, Los Angeles, and Berlin. Beatport is oriented primarily towards DJs, selling full songs as well as resources that can be u ...

and iTunes. "Professional Griefers" was released on

's album ''

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'', including a vocal mix, radio edit, and a music video.

Music video

The video, featuring both Deadmau5 and Gerard Way, was directed by Paul Boyd and Jeff Ranasinghe and produced by Dave Stewart's Weapons of Mass Entertainment production company. It debuted on August 29, 2012 via

Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...

's YouTube channel. It is the most expensive electronic dance music video to date.Behind the Scenes: deadmau5 ft. Gerard Way "Professional Griefers" Video Shoot
/ref> The video begins near a trailer home whose residents are watching Zimmerman and Gerard battle with giant robotic mice at a

UFC The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...

match inside a dome (a reference to the Thunderdome from the ''

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'' franchise), with a crowd watching (consisting of the aforementioned 2000 fans). Throughout the video, it cuts to various people watching the match on TV. While Gerard is dominating the battle, a robotic version of "Meowingtons", Zimmerman's cat, enters and chews the wires to Gerard's controls. This renders Gerard's robot idle, which allows Zimmerman to win the match. But immediately after, the robotic cat assumes control of Zimmerman's beaten-up robot, causing it to stumble and fall into the dome, crushing it, as everyone inside flees. The video ends with the robotic cat standing on some debris, gazing into the camera, before pouncing on it.

Track listing

Chart performance

References

{{Gerard Way 2012 singles Deadmau5 songs 2011 songs Songs written by Deadmau5 Songs written by Gerard Way Ultra Music singles category:electronic rock songs Music videos directed by Paul Boyd