Beautiful Now

Background

On May 8, 2015, as part of his True Colors promotional campaign, Zedd premiered "Beautiful Now" at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois. Five days later, he announced that he would release the song onto iTunes at 9:00 PM PST. A few hours prior to its release, he tweeted the lyrics from the song's beat break: "BAH BAH BAH BABABAH BAH BAH BABABAH BAH BAH BAH BABABAH BABABABA"

Composition

"Beautiful Now" is a progressive house song written in the key of D major. It runs at 128 bpm.

Music video

The music video for "Beautiful Now", directed by Jodeb, was released on June 11, 2015.

Synopsis

The video intertwines five different stories together. The first is of a woman who supposedly drowned her female lover in a pool; the second involves an elderly Central American man who is journeying on an unsuccessful mountain climbing attempt; the third involves the son of a man whose home is invaded by armed robbers; the fourth involves Zedd portraying a liquor store robber who becomes hostile with the management; and the fifth depicts a distraught girl laying down on a railroad. As the song progresses, the video intercuts to scenes of family happiness, good times with friends, dancing and rejoicing before concluding the five stories. The first woman's lover is pulled from the water before drowning, and the ex realizes the gravity of the situation; the old man attempts to climb the mountain and falls, but survives, without reaching the summit; the armed robbery victim's son confronts the hostiles at gunpoint and subdudes them; Zedd's character reflects over what sunk him to his current point in life and seems to change his ways; the suicidal girl is missed by the train and reflects on her life and why she chose such an extreme act. All five people in the stories see themselves in a reflection in various surfaces as their stories are closed and they all resolve to be better people.

As of the end of November 2016, the video has over 85 million views on Zedd's Vevo channel.

Track listing

1. "Beautiful Now (featuring Jon Bellion)" – 3:38

1. "Beautiful Now (featuring Jon Bellion) [Dirty South Remix]" – 3:18

1. "Beautiful Now (Zonderling Remix)" – 3:55
2. "Beautiful Now (Marshmello Remix)" – 3:15
3. "Beautiful Now (KDrew Remix)" – 4:00
4. "Beautiful Now (Dirty South Remix)" – 3:19
5. "Beautiful Now (Charlie Darker Remix)" – 4:15

1. "Beautiful Now (featuring Jon Bellion) [Dirty South Remix]" – 2:53

Grey remix

On July 29, 2015, Los Angeles-based duo Grey released their remix of "Beautiful Now" on SoundCloud as a free download. The remix is known for its significant deviation in sound from the original, using a vocoder to give Bellion's vocals a different melody and robotic distortion, and accompanying them with a darker and melodically distinct background inspired by Egyptian music. The remix quickly began receiving coverage across electronic music websites and communities, and was acclaimed for its uniqueness and originality. It also became notable for only being Grey's first release despite its professionality, leading to speculation that the alias belonged to an experienced group of producers now going anonymous. The alias belongs to brothers Kyle and Michael Trewartha, the former of whom previously operated under the alias Singularity.

Eventually, the remix came to the attention of Zedd, who liked and reposted the remix to his official SoundCloud page, and later released the track for purchase on iTunes on September 11, 2015. Zedd has since continued to actively support Grey, playing their remix of Skrillex and Diplo's "Where Are Ü Now" featuring Justin Bieber at his True Colors Tour. He also went on to call Grey "hands down the best electronic music act right now" on Twitter. Grey has since officially remixed two other songs from True Colors; "Papercut" and "True Colors".