These days, it’s impossible to scroll without hearing Doechii‘s “Anxiety” creeping up on Us — and that melody sounds eerily familiar.
The 26-year-old rapper’s now-viral 2020 hit, which finally became available to stream in March, prominently samples another inescapable song from the early 2010s: Gotye‘s “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
With a feature by Kimbra, the song became career-defining for Gotye, a Belgian-born musician who kickstarted his career in Australia. “Somebody That I Used to Know” became the best-selling song of 2012 and earned Gotye the trophies for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 55th annual Grammy Awards. (He took home Best Alternative Music Album for Making Mirrors that same year.)
The xylophone-heavy beat is hypnotic, but even more memorable than the song itself was the music video. Gotye and Kimbra are shown singing while their skin is painted to blend in with the video’s geometric backdrop. (Some of Us will never forget when Andy Samberg and Taran Killam spoofed the music video in a Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Gotye himself.)
The Best Albums of 2024: Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and More
In her own music video for “Anxiety,” which was released in April, Doechii didn’t shy away from referencing her source material. Gotye and Kimbra lookalikes — painted in a nearly identical camouflage style — appear around the corner as Doechii runs through a house.
Some fans wondered whether Gotye reemerged from his lengthy stint away from the spotlight to make a cameo for the video, but all signs point to the musician staying under the radar.
With the immense success of Making Mirrors, which also features singles “Eyes Wide Open,” “I Feel Better” and “Save Me,” Gotye appeared to be everywhere. In 2014, however, he revealed in a newsletter that “there will be no new Gotye music” for the foreseeable future but assured fans that he would continue making music in some capacity.
Though he moved on with other side projects in the interim — most notably as the singer and drummer of the band The Basics, who announced their retirement from performing in 2021 — Gotye never fully went away. In 2018, he gave a rare interview opening up about his unexpected — and maybe even unwanted — rise to music stardom.
“I was having this odd experience,” he told Australia’s Double J while reflecting on the height of his popularity with “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
He continued, “I was flushed with the success that kept surprising me. The scale of it, the way that it kept rolling on. But then also what I perceived as a pretty strong backlash. People saying, ‘This song is plastered everywhere. I can’t go to a mall without hearing it. Whether I hate it or like it — I don’t want to hear it anymore!’”
Stars’ First Grammy Appearances
The mixed feelings were strange to navigate. “It was an interesting experience to feel like, ‘Wow, it’s got such an addictive quality and has crossed such unusual borders that it’s now so out of my hands. Maybe you should play it a bit less?’ … It blew my mind where the song had somehow travelled to.”
Two years later, Gotye released a live album titled The Songroom (Season 2, Episode 9). In 2024, he returned in earnest on his first single in more than a decade, with FISHER, Chris Lake and Sante Sansone remixing the original “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
Despite his air of mystery, Gotye has maintained a relatively active social media presence. He often plugs the work of other artists via Instagram and shares updates on his nonprofit, Forgotten Futures, which aims “to revive lost and forgotten yet vital artifacts of electronic musical instrument history.”
As for whether he’ll weigh in on Doechii’s homage? It seems Us will have to keep hoping.
