(That’s ironic, given his mouse-head gimmick.) Nevertheless, his music tends to be relatively uncomplicated, conflict- and friction-free-in short, far more polite that you’d expect from a guy who smokes like a chimney, swears like a sailor, and, you know, wears a gigantic, light-up cartoon mouse head on stage.

The best deadmau5 tracks burrow into the kind of long, dark groove that has characterized four-to-the-floor dance music since the very beginning for listeners, they’re more about losing yourself in the beat than gawking at the bozo onstage.

And for all the shit that deadmau5 has gotten for being, well, deadmau5, his music has often been markedly less corny than 99% of mainstream EDM. His music isn’t without its strengths: It can be catchy and immersive, and it’s remarkably well-engineered, packed with satisfying oomph and spine-tingling timbres. But where many neurotic artists’ work actively benefits from their neuroses, the same can’t necessarily be said of deadmau5, aka Joel Zimmerman.

Deadmau5 full album