Gotye on ‘Glee’ cover: ‘I wasn’t sure something so mainstream was right for my music’

But the singer-songwriter says he's come round to the cover and thought the rendition was 'quite clever'

Gotye has spoken about the cover of his mega hit ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ that was recently performed on Glee and has admitted he was initially quite hesitant about allowing the song to be covered.

The track, which you can see the video for and the Glee version by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking, is the biggest selling single of the year so far in the UK and has hit the Number One spot in 18 countries.

The singer, whose real name is Wouter De Backer, told NME: “At first I was quite hesistant. One by-product of how quickly I’ve gone from being an artist who no-one’s really heard of to someone who seems fairly mainstream, certainly with that song, is that I’m still quite unsure about things like that.”

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He continued:

I wasn’t sure whether something so mainstream was right for my music and whether it reflected on my music in my bad way. But I think I realised that the song’s so popular, it’s kind of out of my hands, so when something like Glee comes along, why would I say no?

The singer then added that online reports which appeared earlier this week which said that he had criticised the cover were untrue and he actually thought that the cover, which was used to express difficulties between two long-lost brothers, was actually “quite clever”.

Asked why it had been put out that he didn’t like the cover, he replied: “It was constructed out of some soundbites of me talking at length about other things, it wasn’t me addressing what I think of the cover. I was talking about things like production aesthetics and reverb and somehow that got taken out of context that I wasn’t into it. I thought it was a good storyline and quite clever to attach it to estranged brothers like that.”

Gotye added that he had actually considered recording the track with another male vocalist until he settled on singer Kimbra and so quite enjoyed the new version.

He said of this: “When I was struggling to find the right female vocalist for the record, Francois [Tetaz], who was mixing my record actually suggested that I get a male vocalist until to do it. We talked about that right up until I found Kimbra.”

Gotye is currently touring the US.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cay2dnuhcs

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