Lick it - Kaskade feat Skrillex

This is a danceable pop instrumental music by Kaskade and Skrillex. It has an amazing video which boggles the mind as to how they made it. A-grade effort on that part. Enjoy the tune and visuals.

#lickit #kaskade #skrillex #dance #pop #instrumental #music #video #us #unitedstates #america 

2011. Las Vegas. Kaskade is in his hotel room, tweaking stems for what’s meant to be the most ambitious project of his career. He was gunning for a double album that captures both fire and ice. One disc for the club. One for the headphones. He wants it to be deeper, more dangerous and more dancefloor-shaking than anything he's done before. But one track is missing. Something harder. Unexpected. Disruptive. Then comes a phone call that Skrillex is in town. Two titans from seemingly divergent worlds - Kaskade, the melodic house virtuoso and Skrillex, the dubstep revolutionary. The titans joined forces to create the track ‘Lick It’.

Lick It is a high-energy dance track from Kaskade’s 2011 album Fire & Ice (track 4 on the Fire disc) featuring dubstep icon Skrillex. It starts straightaway with dance beats. The song represents a fusion of Kaskade’s melodic and progressive-house style with Skrillex’s signature bass-driven sound. The collaboration expected of that time. It was later released as a single on April 17, 2012. For a fleeting moment in 2012, the electronic music universe tilted on it’s axis. More than just a track, this collaboration became a cultural flashpoint that challenged genre boundaries and birthed one of EDM’s most visually arresting music videos.

 

 Key players behind the mix 

The lead actress in the music video was Aníta Lísa Svansdóttir. She was an Icelandic athlete whose physicality nailed the role. The director of the video was Sean Stiegemeier. He Used reverse shots to mirror the song’s tension/release which in fact, made the video a brilliant production work. The producer was Skrillex himself who crafted the track’s chaotic bass architecture. However, the entire album’s visionary was Kaskade who curated the Fire & Ice duality theme. 

Kaskade’s gambit was that he deliberately sought a ‘left-field’ partner of sort to say in order to fracture expectations for it’s fourth single. Enter Skrillex, fresh off his Grammy-winning bass music explosion. As Kaskade told MTV… 

"Collaborating with Skrillex [...] was one of the more unique opportunities I had [...] We have different styles, but that’s what made it fun. I like doing the unexpected". 

Skrillex’s sonic signature of distorted wobbles and explosive drops sliced through Kaskade’s synths like a chainsaw through velvet. Kaskade and Skrillex weren’t supposed to collide. They weren’t just unlikely collaborators since they were sonic antonyms. But together? It worked. Lick It was born not from compromise but from chaos. The track was driven by a simple idea – what if beauty met brutality…and danced?

Kaskade had already been a leading figure in American EDM by 2011. Kaskade, whose real name is Ryan Raddon, had been shaping US house since the early 2000s by championing emotional buildups with melodic anthems. His fans came for the euphoria, the warm drops and vocal layers. He was already creating good music so he was well-known for crafting uplifting ‘mainstream-friendly’ house tracks. He became the clean-cut priest of progressive house music. His Fire & Ice album was a concept double-disc where one disc had upbeat fire tracks and a second ice disc of chill remixes. He wanted to make it happen asap. To execute this vision, Kaskade enlisted diverse collaborators. On Fire, he invited popular dance acts (Ex – Rebecca & Fiona) and on Ice he featured mellow vocalists (like Skylar Grey). The collaboration with Skrillex (Sonny Moore) on ‘Lick It’ combined Kaskade’s dancefloor sensibility with Skrillex’s cutting-edge style. It perfect that track.

At the time, Skrillex was fresh off back-to-back successes and he himself was establishing himself in the industry. He had already put out some bangers by then. His 2010 Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP and 2011’s Bangarang had made him a rising superstar in electronic music. It was unlike anything at the time. He had just detonated the EDM world with those productions. Critics noted that by 2011 Skrillex had ‘just flying kicked his way into the scene’ and his influence on the genre was ineffable. He soon became the godchild of bass drops and speaker destruction by dragging dubstep out of dark warehouses and into the mainstream.

Kaskade and Skrillex moving into the studio together was a surprising match. It was one that was blending progressive house with fresh dubstep/bass influences. As one EDM writer observed, flipping a track by ‘Kaskade and Skrillex takes intrepid confidence’ since both artists ‘place no boundaries on [their] genre’ and together they could reshape the song’s structure while honouring each side’s strengths.

Sonically, ‘Lick It’ fused Skrillex’s distorted wobble basslines with Kaskade’s shimmering synths. Notably, it sampled Le Knight Club’s remix of ‘Number Seven’ by Raw Man…an obscure French touch reference. The lyrics (repetitive, rhythmic chants of ‘Lick the drum plate’) served as a visceral hook and was emphasizing texture over narrative. 

 

 Concept and symbolism 

For many of you wondering what’s the idea behind the music video’s story, here’s a small explanation The official music video (Ultra Records, April 2012) features no appearance by Kaskade or Skrillex. Instead, it tells a surreal and symbolic story centered on a lone woman in a stark snowy landscape. It follows an Icelandic soccer player-turned-actress named Aníta Lísa Svansdóttir as a music-obsessed woman in a frozen town. But there is a problem in town and everyone has the solution except her. As bass frequencies intensify, blood erupts from her ears. It’s not just her but everyone lies vulnerable to bass in the town. It is a literal depiction of sonic overload. Her quest? To find headphones for relief. To her horror, everyone has a headphone and are safe except her. No one wants to lend or part with their headphones either. The twist – the entire narrative unfolds backward with Aníta running uphill in reverse.

The music video has bleeding ears, frozen worlds and headphone salvation. It’s a surrealist nightmare in reverse. The video unfolds mostly in reverse where at first we see her bleeding from the ears in frustration, then the footage rewinds to reveal the blood ‘sucking’ back into her head.

She clutches her ears and is clearly in pain as red liquid pours into the snow around her. She is hunting for solace. When she pleads for help, people ignore her. She has no choice but to wander the town for reprieve. Eventually she spots a man running away with a pair of headphones. There’s a spare headphone in there. She breaks through a building’s window with a rock to grab identical headphones and puts them on. In the final (forward) moment, the bleeding stops and sunlight returns as she hears music – then she steps outside where people emerge from the buildings to chase her for theft. But she is able to outdo them and flee. She looks cute as the ear bleeding is over and she got far away from their grasp after stealing the headphones. The bleeding stops. The world changes. Her grey hell melts into rhythm. Sunlight returns. The cold fades. And suddenly, everyone around her starts dancing.

Visually, the video uses icy CGI and time-reversal effects to underscore itis conceptual message. The bleeding-ears metaphor and inverted time imply that without music the protagonist is literally drained of life. When she finally plugs into sound, everything ‘restarts’. In interviews, director Sean Stiegemeier (Pictures in a Row) explained this as a metaphor for sound’s healing power where it shows how the music literally reverses her pain. (No credits are given for the unnamed actress which reflects the video’s surreal focus on the ‘every person’ figure rather than celebrity. The stark cold landscape and red blood imagery also tie into Fire & Ice’s motif as if sound is the only warmth in a frozen world. The message is clear…
Music saves.
Not metaphorically. Literally.

 

 Lyrics – Minimalism as a weapon 

The lyrics of ‘Lick It’ are minimal and provocative. You may barely hear them. Essentially the singer repeats the line ‘Lick the drop beat!’ over and over while also interspersed with phrases like ‘If any won’t give a f’. There is no sung verse and instead, the words are shouted commands. The effect is part charm and part shock. It’s a dance mantra urging listeners to fully immerse themselves in the rhythm (‘lick’ being a playful euphemism).

In this sense, the song’s message is pure hedonism and release. Many observers interpret it as a celebration of a sensual boundary-pushing fun. The explicit and cheeky hook encourages a no-holds-barred party attitude. Sonically, ‘Lick It’ is bombastic and polished. Critics noted that the song leans toward Kaskade’s trademark melodic structure rather than Skrillex’s usual ‘filthy’ dubstep. (One reviewer observed that Kaskade’s house formula ‘sticks to this mandate’ of accessible club music on Fire & Ice and it ‘does just fine’ here).

Around the 60-second mark, Skrillex slides in with his signature trick of warped bass and serrated synth stabs that cut like a strobe light. The build is tense, the drop? Nasty. But it’s controlled. That’s the kicker. Skrillex doesn’t go full chaos-mode. He restrains the monster and letting Kaskade’s structure take the lead. It’s not a drop for destruction — it’s a drop for dancing. And the lyrics? Minimal. Repetitive. Obsessive. Just a chant – ‘Lick it…Lick it good’. It’s seductive. It’s silly. It’s anarchic. And it absolutely tears up a dance floor.

 

 Shooting challenges 

Location – South Iceland during mid-winter. It was terribly cold during the period. Crews battled 4-hour daylight windows and plenty of blizzards. But the finish was nothing short of perfection.

Physical demand – Aníta sprinted backward on ice for days. Stiegemeier noted…

"It was the most physical shoot I’ve done [...] Fortunately, she’s a professional soccer player". 

Effects – Blood squibs synchronized with Skrillex’s drops while reverse motion created eerie visuals (Ex – blood retreating into ears). 

 

 Reception and legacy – What did the world think? 

At first, critics weren’t sure what to make of ‘Lick It’. It was a mashup of worlds.
Some called it risky. Some called it genius. Others called it both. But fans? They loved it.

Upon release, critics and fans generally embraced ‘Lick It’ as a highlight of Fire & Ice. The reception was travelling worldwide. Many electronic music fans cite it as a favourite club track from Kaskade’s catalogue. It especially gained traction online more than anywhere else. On YouTube and streaming platforms, the audio clip and official video have garnered millions of views with listeners praising the song’s relentless rhythm. The sound was good and the video was unique. A few fan comments (for example, on Reddit) celebrated the song as a ‘chonk’ or ‘absolute banger’ noting it’s uniqueness in mixes. Even after a decade, it’s a beloved track for the thousands.

No major backlash emerged if anything. Overall, it was an excellent collab. Some listeners were amused by the dark-but-danceable video and rude lyrics. Don’t worry, they weren’t many anyway. Professional reviews were positive about the collaboration. The Washington Post singled out Skrillex’s subdued approach as ‘he underplays his usual wobble’ and fits neatly into Kaskade’s house style. Likewise, an EDM blog reviewer wrote that Skrillex sounds ‘restrained and controlled’ on the track which actually makes Lick It turn into a ‘really groovy’ tune. In album reviews, Lick It was often listed among the stronger Fire tracks. Sputnikmusic, for example, noted that Kaskade’s experimental Ice remixes could be hit-or-miss but found ‘Lick It’ to be one of the exceptions that works well.

Over the years, Lick It has maintained a cult status among dance fans. How to deny it’s fantastic work! It’s quirky title and video make it memorable and it occasionally resurges as a nostalgic gem from the early 2010s EDM era. It was an era when house music was viral. Kaskade himself has included it in DJ sets on occasion and it appeared on remix compilations (Ex – Norman Doray and Alex Kenji remixes). In the end, ‘Lick It’ stands as a curious but effective fusion of Kaskade’s melodic sensibility and Skrillex’s bass-heavy punch. It became a staple in DJ sets. It tore up Ultra festivals. And over the years, it’s become a cult classic, quietly rediscovered by ravers, playlist-makers, and EDM romantics who remember the golden years of 2010s electronic music which embodies the late-2000s/early-2010s EDM crossover moment.

Fire & Ice hit 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Chart but ‘Lick It’ became a cultural prototype. 

 

 Final thoughts 

'Lick It’ is more than a song and is a timestamp. As TYNAN’s 2020 remix  proves: true sonic revolution never expires; it just awaits it’s next detonation. A decade later, this collab remains a blueprint for risk-taking in EDM. It’s video with a blend of body horror and poetic symbolism. It captures the universal truth that music can be weapon or remedy and sometimes, it must hurt to transcend. As Kaskade declared…

"This track and video is something truly distinctive". 

Indeed, it was. And for those who weathered it’s icy storm, ‘Lick It’ offered not just a bass drop but a revelation. The song and it’s ‘ICE Mix’ appear on Discs 1 & 2 of Kaskade’s 2011 album Fire & Ice (Ultra Records).

"The best collabs aren’t safe—they’re dangerous. They make your ears bleed before they make you fly!"  — Unnamed fan, SoundCloud comment thread on TYNAN’s remix

 Sources – Contemporary reviews and interviews; official album credits and track listings.