Two of dance music’s most storied producers collaborate for the first time—stream Martin Garrix and Zedd’s ‘Follow’
“After being friends for over 10 years, it was about time Zedd and I released our first song together,” Martin Garrix wrote in a March 24 tweet, the pre-save link to “Follow” set atop a collage featuring just some of Garrix and Zedd’s moments over the years.
The familial nature of their friendship has undoubtedly translated to “Follow,” which feels—from first to final second—a collaboration that is 50% Martin Garrix and 50% Zedd. And with the tick of Zedd’s quintessential clock sample, Garrix and Zedd seem to wind back time to 2013-2016. As Zedd recalls his razor-like bass and saws, emblematic of his beloved but now old-school electro-house sound, the STMPD RCRDS head exercises his anthemic, Bayfront Park-filling progressive-meets-bigroom touch on a single that, however paradoxically, is at once nostalgic and contemporary.
The news of “Follow” has been met with expressions of surprise, not at the names aligned in the credits, but rather, that a joint Garrix/Zedd track took so many years to materialize. But ask Dancing Astronaut, and we’ll assert that the signs pointing to such a partnership were always perceptible. Take Zedd’s guest appearance for a back-to-back at Garrix’s 2019 Echostage date—part of a string of back-to-back team ups in recent years—for instance. Or, even more fatefully, Garrix’s February 2020 interview with South Florida’s Revolution 93.5 FM, in which the Dutchman mentioned a “crazy, weird, different” work in progress involving both himself and the True Colors album maker. Though the elusive collaboration took on almost a figmental quality thereafter, it became a reality one week after EDC Las Vegas 2021, when both creatives posted stories of themselves working together in the studio just after Zedd brought out Garrix during his set at cosmicMEADOW. A little over two months later, what would become formally known as “Follow” on March 25 was confirmed; it’d be the next track he’d finish, Zedd proclaimed in January. And after officially teasing the crown jewel of the 2022 festival circuit, Garrix, with the fateful press of the FaceTime button, digitally positioned Zedd beside him at Lollapalooza Chile to debut “Follow.”
Pending its formal premiere at Bayfront Park, “Follow” can be streamed in full below.
Categories: Music