You know that ticking sound? That insistent, rhythmic clock-like pulse that kicks off the track? It’s not just a cool production trick. It’s the entire thesis of the song. When Stay by Zedd and Alessia Cara dropped in early 2017, it felt like every other radio hit, yet it was fundamentally different. Most EDM-pop crossovers at the time were trying to be "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. They were chasing a specific kind of nostalgia. But Zedd? He was chasing something much more mechanical and, honestly, much more clever.
He took a 20-year-old singer from Brampton with a voice like velvet sandpaper and put her over a beat that sounded like a Swiss watch. It worked. It worked so well that the song spent nearly thirty weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. People still play it at weddings, gyms, and in those weirdly quiet aisles of CVS.
The Mechanical Genius of the Ticking Clock
Zedd is a classically trained musician. If you look at his background—growing up in a household of musicians in Germany—you realize he doesn't just "vibe" his way through a DAW. He calculates. The "ticking" in Stay by Zedd and Alessia Cara isn't a loop he found in a sample pack. He’s gone on record explaining how he meticulously layered sounds to create that specific tension. It’s meant to make you feel anxious. It’s meant to remind you that time is running out, which is exactly what the lyrics are begging for: just a little more time.
Contrast is everything here. You have this rigid, robotic percussion. Then, Alessia Cara slides in. Her voice isn't perfect in a "pitch-corrected to death" way; it has grit. She sounds tired, hopeful, and desperate all at once. That's the secret sauce. If you put a "perfect" vocal like Ariana Grande on this track, it might have been too shiny. It wouldn't have felt human.
Breaking Down the Vocoder Magic
About two-thirds of the way through, the song does something weird. The "robotic" backing vocals start mimicking Alessia. This isn't just for flair. It represents the merging of the two worlds—the human emotion and the digital production. Zedd used a vocoder, but he played the chords manually to ensure the harmonies felt "musical" rather than just algorithmic.
It’s easy to forget how dominant this sound was. In 2017, pop was transitioning. We were moving away from the "stadium EDM" of 2012 and into this weird, mid-tempo, moody space. This song defined that space. It wasn't quite a ballad, and it wasn't a club banger. It was a "shuffler."
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Why Alessia Cara was the Only Choice
Think back to 2015. Alessia Cara was the "Here" girl. She was the anti-pop star, the one sitting in the corner at the party wanting to go home. Pairing her with a high-gloss DJ like Zedd seemed like a massive risk. Would her fans think she sold out? Would Zedd fans think she was too low-energy?
Actually, the opposite happened.
The collaboration happened because Zedd heard her sing an acoustic version of a song and realized her "dry" vocal style would cut through his synth-heavy production. He didn't want a powerhouse belter. He wanted a storyteller. When she sings "All you have to do is stay," she isn't screaming it from a mountaintop. She’s saying it across a kitchen table at 2:00 AM. That intimacy is why the song survived the "one-hit-wonder" cycle of the late 2010s.
- The Tempo: 102 BPM. It’s the sweet spot for "driving music."
- The Key: F minor. It’s a key that feels inherently dramatic but not overly depressed.
- The Writers: Aside from Zedd and Alessia, you had Linus Wiklund and Sarah Aarons. Aarons is a name you should know; she's the secret weapon behind some of the biggest hits of the last decade.
The Cultural Impact Nobody Admits
People love to hate on "Mainstream Pop." It’s a hobby for some. But Stay by Zedd and Alessia Cara actually influenced how songs were structured for the next three years. Notice how the "drop" isn't a loud, aggressive synth blast? It’s a rhythmic, chopped-up vocal melody. This "vocal chop" trend became the industry standard. Every bedroom producer on YouTube started trying to replicate that "Stay" lead sound.
It was a masterclass in minimalism. Zedd stripped away the unnecessary noise. If a sound didn't serve the "clock" theme or the vocal, it was deleted. This reflected a broader shift in music—getting rid of the "wall of sound" and focusing on negative space.
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The Lyrics: Deceptively Simple?
On the surface, it’s a song about wanting someone to not leave. Groundbreaking, right? Not really. But look closer at the phrasing. "Waiting on the light to change," "The change is in the air." There’s a constant movement. The song never sits still. It’s about the transition between staying and leaving. Most break-up songs are about the "after" or the "before." This song lives entirely in the five minutes where you’re deciding whether to put your shoes on or take them off.
Factual Milestones and Stats
Let's look at the hard evidence of its dominance. The song peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It hit number one on the Mainstream Top 40. But the real kicker? It has over a billion streams on Spotify. A billion. That’s not just "radio play." That’s people actively choosing to hear those ticking clocks over and over again for years.
The music video, directed by Tim Mattia, followed a "sliding doors" narrative. It showed two different outcomes based on whether they made an elevator or not. It reinforced the "time" theme. It wasn't just a random video of them dancing in a field. It was conceptual.
The Technical "Snap"
If you listen to the snare drum in this track, it’s incredibly sharp. Zedd is notorious for spending days—literally days—on a single snare sound. He wants it to hit your eardrum in a way that feels physical. In an era where many tracks were starting to sound "soft" and "lo-fi," this song had a bite.
Misconceptions About the Collab
Some critics at the time claimed this was a "manufactured" label pairing. It wasn't. Zedd reached out to Alessia directly. They worked on the song in a way that felt more like a garage band session than a corporate meeting. They recorded the vocals in a day. That spontaneity is why the ad-libs at the end feel genuine.
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Is it a dance song? Not really. Is it a pop song? Mostly. Is it a masterpiece of audio engineering? Absolutely. Even if you don't like the melody, you have to respect the architecture of the sound. It’s a perfectly built machine.
How to Appreciate the Song Today
If you haven't heard it in a while, do yourself a favor. Put on a pair of high-quality headphones. Don't listen to it through your phone speakers.
- Listen to the panning. Notice how the "ticking" moves slightly or how the backing vocals sit behind your ears.
- Focus on the bassline. It’s much funkier than people remember. It doesn't just sit on the root note; it moves.
- Check the silence. Look for the moments where everything cuts out for a split second before the chorus. That's where the "energy" comes from.
Stay by Zedd and Alessia Cara isn't just a relic of 2017. It’s a blueprint for how to make electronic music feel like it has a heartbeat. It proved that you don't need a 128 BPM thumper to get people moving. You just need a clock, a great voice, and a really, really sharp snare drum.
To truly understand the production, try stripping the song down. Look up the acoustic versions or the "making of" clips Zedd has shared. You’ll see that underneath the digital gloss, there’s a very simple, very sad song about the fear of being alone. That’s why it stuck. The tech gets us in the door, but the feeling makes us stay.
Start by comparing the studio version to Alessia's live performances of the track. You'll notice she rarely changes the phrasing. The original recording was so "right" that even the artist finds it hard to deviate from that specific emotional pocket. Once you hear that ticking clock as a heartbeat, you'll never hear the song the same way again.