Gotye

by itemvn  |  February 26, 2012 [Edit]

Wouter "Wally" De Backer (born 21 May 1980), also known professionally by his stage name Gotye, is a Belgian-Australianmulti-instrumental musician and singer-songwriter. The name "Gotye" is derived from "Gaultier" (or "Gautier" or "Gauthier"), the French equivalent of "Wouter" ("Walter" in English). Gotye's music has been compared to Sting and Peter Gabriel.

He has released three studio albums independently and one album featuring remixes of tracks from his first two albums. De Backer is also one-third of Melbourne indie-pop trio The Basics, who have independently released three studio albums and numerous other titles since 2002.

He has won five ARIA Awards and received a nomination for an MTV EMA for Best Asia and Pacific Act.

De Backer went on to produce two more four track Gotye collections which were met with positive reviews, with several tracks getting onto the rotation at Triple J. The CDs were made in the same style as the first, with De Backer hand crafting each one and tenaciously chasing up every opportunity to get an audience for his work. Interest in the Gotye project was growing, and De Backer was eventually offered a distribution deal for an album, which would essentially be a collection of the tracks from his three earlier releases. This album was released under the name Boardface in late 2003.

Like Drawing Blood was featured by Triple J in May 2006and was voted Number 1 in the listeners poll of the Best Album of 2006. The album was also nominated for a J Award that year. Two tracks from that album, "Learnalilgivinanlovin" and "Heart's a Mess", were ranked 94 and 8 respectively in Triple J's Hottest 100 for 2006. Like Drawing Blood has been certified Gold for sales of over 35,000 copies. His first single, "Learnalilgivinanlovin", was released in August 2006.

In September 2006, Gotye was nominated for an ARIA Award for best independent release for the album Like Drawing Blood. Also in 2006 Gotye won 'Most Outstanding New Independent Artist' at the inaugural Australian Independent Record (AIR) Chart Awards and Like Drawing Blood was amongst nine shortlisted finalists in the 2006 Australian Music Prize.

In 2007, De Backer won the ARIA for best male artist. As a result of the publicity of the nomination, Like Drawing Blood re-entered the ARIA albums chart at #36, surpassing the previous peak of #39. Also, Mixed Blood debuted on the ARIA albums chart at #44. Both of these entries came the first week after the ARIA Awards. In 2009, "Heart's a Mess" came in at #77 in Triple J's Hottest 100 of All Time, voted by the Australian public.

In late March 2011, De Backer revealed the next album's title to be Making Mirrors. This title was inspired by an artwork, painted by De Backer's father in the 1980s, discovered by De Backer amongst old bills and newspapers in his parents' barn, which was later edited in Photoshop to become the album artwork. On 27 November 2011, Gotye won three ARIA Awards: Best Male Artist, Best Pop Release and Single of the Year for the song "Somebody That I Used to Know." Kimbra who collaborated with Gotye on the track also won the ARIA award for Best Female Artist.

(Last edited by Jamaica)