What happened to Gotye after "Somebody That I Used to Know"?
Nothing bad happened to Gotye. That's the twist. Wally De Backer — the Belgian-born Australian behind the biggest song of 2012 — never released another album under the Gotye name, and it was entirely his own choice. He's been making music the whole time. Just not the kind you'd hear on the radio.
He quit at the absolute peak — on purpose
"Somebody That I Used to Know," featuring Kimbra, sold more than 13 million copies, topped the Billboard Hot 100, and won Record of the Year at the Grammys in February 2013, with its parent album Making Mirrors taking Best Alternative Music Album. The follow-up move was obvious: strike fast with another hit.
Instead, De Backer described feeling burned out by the song's omnipresence, and in a 2014 newsletter he told fans exactly where things stood:
"There will be no new Gotye music. Wait, maybe there will be."
He added that he wasn't entirely sure, and that there were "many contingencies." Twelve years on from Making Mirrors, that fourth album still hasn't materialized — though he has repeatedly said one is in the works.
What he's been doing instead
- The Basics — his Melbourne trio since 2002, in which he plays drums. They released The Age of Entitlement in 2015 and the covers album B.A.S.I.C. in 2019, retired from touring in April 2021, then reunited in a New York studio in 2025 to record new material — starting with the bilingual English-Russian single "Don't Be Deceived."
- Spirit Level — the independent label he co-founded with Tim Shiel in 2014, home to left-field Australian artists.
- Forgotten Futures — his nonprofit dedicated to restoring rare early electronic instruments, above all the French proto-synthesizer the Ondioline. He befriended its most famous player, Jean-Jacques Perrey, archived his music, and formed the Ondioline Orchestra to perform it after Perrey's death in 2016. In August 2025, he launched a tribute website to Perrey through the nonprofit.
- A quieter life — after years in Brooklyn, De Backer relocated with his family to the south of France in 2025.
The song won't retire, though
In March 2025, Doechii's "Anxiety" — built on a heavy sample of "Somebody That I Used to Know" — went viral and cracked the US top 10, topping charts in Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Its video even recreates the original's body-paint imagery, with lookalikes standing in for De Backer and Kimbra. The original clip, meanwhile, has passed 2.4 billion YouTube views.
For the record: De Backer has long said he keeps ads off his own YouTube channel — meaning one of the most-watched music videos in history was never treated as a cash machine by the man who made it.
Now that's somebody worth knowing.