The 2010s File Feature
First Of The Year (Equinox)
First of the Year (Equinox) by Skrillex: Recording, Release, and Chart History Skrillex, the producer and DJ born Sonny John Moore in Los Angeles, released "…
01 The Story
First of the Year (Equinox) by Skrillex: Recording, Release, and Chart History
Skrillex, the producer and DJ born Sonny John Moore in Los Angeles, released "First of the Year (Equinox)" in 2011 as part of the More Monsters and Sprites extended play, which appeared on OWSLA Records, the label Skrillex had founded that same year. The track arrived at a moment when Skrillex was rapidly ascending to become the most prominent figure in the dubstep and brostep movement that was breaking through from underground electronic music scenes into mainstream commercial consciousness in the United States.
Moore had previously been known as the lead vocalist of the post-hardcore band From First to Last before departing from that project to pursue electronic music production. His transition from a guitar-oriented band context to electronic production was complete by 2010, and the releases he made under the Skrillex name in 2010 and 2011 established him as the dominant personality in the commercial dubstep movement. The Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP (2010) had introduced his sound to a broad audience, and the follow-up EP, More Monsters and Sprites, contained "First of the Year (Equinox)" as one of its most distinctive tracks.
The production of "First of the Year (Equinox)" was notable even within Skrillex's catalog for its use of a deceptively simple, almost music-box-quality introduction before deploying the aggressive bass drops and distorted synth growls that had become the signature of his production style. The contrast between the delicate opening passages and the abrasive, high-energy drops was more extreme in "First of the Year (Equinox)" than in many of his other tracks from this period, and this structural tension was a significant part of what made the song memorable. The production architecture moved from apparent gentleness to overwhelming sonic aggression with a suddenness designed to be maximally impactful in both club environments and through headphones.
The title "Equinox" referenced the astronomical phenomenon of equal day and night, a conceptual frame that aligned with the song's structural duality of quiet and loud, restrained and explosive. This kind of conceptual underpinning was characteristic of Skrillex's approach to his music, which was distinguished from many of his commercial dubstep contemporaries by an attention to visual and conceptual coherence that extended beyond the music itself into the packaging, music videos, and overall artistic presentation.
"First of the Year (Equinox)" first charted on the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dated November 19, 2011, entering at number 100. After a brief absence, it returned to the chart on the date of January 7, 2012, reaching its peak position of number 85. The song spent three weeks total on the Hot 100, a relatively brief residency that nonetheless represented a significant achievement for a pure electronic music production at a time when the genre's presence on the Hot 100 was still establishing itself. The song performed considerably more strongly on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, where it reached a much higher position and received sustained attention.
"First of the Year (Equinox)" was accompanied by a music video directed by Tony T. Datis that depicted a stylized narrative involving a supernatural child with the ability to defend herself against an adult predator through supernatural means. The video was striking and deliberately provocative, and it generated substantial online discussion about its content and the choices made in visualizing the song's themes. The video was widely circulated on YouTube during the period of the song's chart activity and contributed significantly to the song's overall cultural footprint beyond its radio airplay numbers.
Skrillex went on to win three Grammy Awards at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2012, including Best Dance Recording for "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites," Best Dance/Electronica Album for the same EP, and Best Remixed Recording for a remix of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend." This clean sweep of the dance and electronic categories was unprecedented and confirmed Skrillex's position as the most commercially and critically significant figure in American electronic music at that moment.
"First of the Year (Equinox)" accumulated more than 503 million YouTube views, placing it among the most-viewed electronic music recordings on the platform and confirming the enduring global appeal of Skrillex's early catalog. The song remained a fixture of electronic music playlists and DJ sets for years following its release, representing a key document in the history of how dubstep and electronic dance music crossed over from underground scenes to mainstream commercial radio in the early 2010s.
02 Song Meaning
The Meaning of First of the Year (Equinox): Duality, Innocence, and Sonic Transformation
"First of the Year (Equinox)" operates primarily as a piece of textural and structural electronic music rather than a lyric-driven narrative, but its conceptual and visual dimensions give it a meaningful framework that extends beyond its function as a club track. The song's title, with its reference to the equinox, establishes a central organizing principle of balance and duality: the equinox is the astronomical moment when light and darkness are in perfect equilibrium, and this theme of opposing forces in balance or tension runs through the track's construction and its visual presentation.
The most discussed context for the song's meaning is its accompanying music video, which depicted a scenario in which an apparently vulnerable child reveals a powerful and dangerous interior capacity for self-defense. The visual narrative engaged with themes of predation and protection, presenting a scenario where apparent innocence conceals formidable power. This reading of the video aligned with a broader cultural interest in narratives about children possessing supernatural capacities that make them more dangerous than they appear, a trope visible across horror and fantasy genres.
The song's structure enacts its thematic content. The opening passages are deliberately quiet, delicate, and even child-like in their sonic character, using what sounds like a simplified melodic figure that establishes an atmosphere of apparent fragility. The transition to the drop, where the production suddenly becomes aggressive and overwhelming, mirrors the narrative inversion of the video: what appears gentle and innocuous reveals itself as something with enormous destructive capacity when provoked. The structural surprise is itself a form of storytelling.
In the context of the broader electronic music culture from which "First of the Year (Equinox)" emerged, the song can be understood as a technical demonstration of Skrillex's approach to production: the use of extreme dynamic range, the manipulation of listener expectation, and the deployment of sound design as emotional argument. Where traditional song structures use lyrical narrative to create emotional progression, this track uses the manipulation of sonic texture and intensity to create a similar arc, one that moves from calm to confrontation with considerable force.
The "equinox" framing also gestures toward ideas of cyclical time and transitions between states. The first of the year, as a calendar marker, is traditionally associated with transformation, new beginnings, and the crossing of a threshold. The equinox similarly marks a moment of astronomical transition between one phase and another. These references, when combined, suggest a song interested in liminal moments, the periods of passage between opposing states that the track itself enacts through its dramatic structural shifts.
For the audience that embraced "First of the Year (Equinox)" at the height of Skrillex's commercial breakthrough, the song was experienced primarily through its physical, visceral dimensions: the impact of the bass drop in a nightclub or through high-quality headphones, the physiological pleasure of the moment when the restrained introduction gives way to the aggressive main section. This bodily mode of engagement with electronic music is itself meaningful, locating the track within a tradition of club and dance music that understands sonic experience as an inherently physical and not merely intellectual phenomenon.
The song's continued appeal across more than a decade reflects the durability of its structural design and the quality of its production. Even as the specific sounds of early 2010s dubstep have come to feel somewhat dated, the fundamental architecture of "First of the Year (Equinox)" retains its impact because the principle it operates on, the power of contrast and expectation violation, is a timeless compositional strategy that works across genres and eras. Its more than 503 million YouTube views confirm that the experience it offers has remained compelling for a global audience that continues to discover and return to the track.
→ More from the 2010s File
View all 2010s hits →
Keep digging