Deadmau5 on Highest-Paid DJs List, Mouse Head's Branding Power ~Billboard

(Billboard.biz) Deadmau5 sat down for a keynote Q&A at Billboard's FutureSound Conference an discussed the health of the EDM genre, the changes he's seen in dance music appreciationn, and the big business behind the craze.

Talking about the health and vitality of the genre, Deadmau5 -- the alias of Joel Zimmerman -- twisted the acronym EDM to "event-driven marketing," and compared the craze to the disco of the 1970s. "[Disco] had some hangtime -- 10, 15, 17 years tops," he told Billboard Editorial Director Bill Werde. "Not too many people are forward-thinking about electronic music."

He also brought up and slammed a Forbes report from August on " The World's Highest-Paid DJs" in which he was listed at No. 6 with a reported $11.5 million in annual earnings, a figure that he argued was inaccurate.

"After I saw the article, I called my manager and said, 'Yo, what the f---? I'm $9 million short, dude. We gotta talk,'" Zimmerman joked. "Nobody is making that kind of money."

When it came to his own brand -- Zimmerman will always be associated with his famous oversized mouse head -- he said he had noticed a trend toward branding gimmicks in recent years. "I'm not gonna condemn them for doing that, because "oh, I was the first guy to put something on my head,'" he said. "I can't have any hatred for anyone doing that, but I can understand how hard it must be to have a unifying brand identity with your art."

WATCH THE FIRST PART OF DEADMAU5'S FUTURESOUND Q&A BELOW:

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Tiesto Teams With (RED) For Global EDM Event On World AIDS Day

(Billboard) Tiesto will become the latest celebrity face of the (RED) campaign, teaming with the organization for a global event on World AIDS Day (Dec. 1, 2012) that will see the superstar DJ recruiting A-list house and EDM artists to raise awareness over the elimination and transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies by 2015.

"Having Tiesto engage his strong following to help (RED) deliver an AIDS-free generation is a dream true for us," (RED) CEO Deborah Dugan tells Billboard.biz. "This is just the kind of firepower we need to bring the world's attention to the fact that we can end AIDS; a notion that was considered virtually impossible a decade ago."

As part of the partnership, Tiesto will release a custom (RED) playlist later this month. He's no stranger to aligning with brands, having previously appeared in campaigns for the likes of Axe body spray, HP, Intel, Armani Exchange and Heineken. Earlier this year, he inked a deal with Guess for a limited-edition capsule collection for men and women as well as a handful of sponsored tour dates.

(RED) is also in the midst of its own renewed effort to reach music fans, having partnered with the Red Hot Foundation for the upcoming release of a "(RED) Hot + Fela compilation" and teaming with Crowdsurge for a 10-day online charity auction for concert tickets. It's also put a music focus to its latest marketing partnerships with the likes of Apple, Beats by Dre, Converse and others as the campaign seeks to align it self with all aspects of culture and music - and not always with an eye on retail.

"I wanted us to move slightly away from the limitations of 'you have to buy this to be (RED),'" (RED)'s Dugan told Billboard in May. "We're letting artists turn their music (RED). You could share a song and that could trigger a corporation to be (RED). You could be on a dancefloor with (RED) Converse or (RED) Beats by Dre headphones, and if somebody says, 'Oh you care about AIDS' and you have a good conversation about it, that's being (RED), too."

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Billboard: The Beat Generation: Electronic Dance Music Emerges as the Sound of Young America

(Billboard)

by Kerri Mason

"It happened in concert venues and arenas, where crowds of thousands sang along to beats instead of words . It happened in parks and open fields, where young people wore fuzzy animal ears and talked about peace, love, unity and respect-all without irony. And it happened in the living rooms of America, where toddlers re-created the LMFAO dance and their moms posted it on YouTube.

Forget disco, C+C Music Factory, Fatboy Slim or the Chemical Brothers: 2011 will go down as the year when America finally tuned in and dropped out to electronic dance music. It wasn't about a single sound or style, or an exclusionary "underground" ethic. Nor was it a collection of one-hit wonders, or festival bands sans the festival. The dance revolution of 2011 was for everyone. And if momentum is any kind of barometer, this time it might be here to stay.

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"The great thing about electronic music is that it's a very forceful scene," says DJ/producer Paul Oakenfold, one of the genre's first superstars. "It's 20 years old in Europe -- it's still getting bigger and better. America has finally caught up; now there's a whole new generation that loves it."

The numbers alone are staggering. In 2011, three-day festivals Electric Daisy Carnival (June 24-26 in Las Vegas) and Ultra Music Festival (March 25-27 in Miami) drew 230,000 and 150,000 attendees, respectively, besting all prior attendance records. Dance-dedicated label Ultra Records broke the 100 million mark in monthly YouTube views: Its channel now has more than 1.3 billion total views, making it the fifth-most-watched music-focused channel overall. Even the fledgling Identity Festival, a 20-date tour that debuted this year, drew 150,000 total fans to traditional concert venues. The mainstream music industry took quick note: APA, Live Nation and Troy Carter's Atom Factory all launched electronic-dedicated divisions this year.

But why, after 30 years of relative obscurity, was 2011 finally dance music's time? Theories abound: the equalizing quality of the Internet and the social-media generation's intense drive to share everything; a general staleness of other formerly dominant genres, like rock and hip-hop; a generational opt-out from recession anxiety; the rise of Las Vegas as an international dance destination; a few key pop figures stealthily championing the cause.

" Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas had a lot to do with it," Oakenfold says. "They took the essence of dance music and put it into top 40 records. It was there without people even knowing it."

Dance veterans parlayed that omnipresence into a year of personal bests. David Guetta's fifth album, "Nothing But the Beat" (Capitol/Astralwerks), debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, marking his highest U.S. sales week and chart position to date. Tiësto became the first DJ to grace the cover of Billboard and played the largest single-headliner DJ show in U.S. history, at the 26,000-capacity Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. Deadmau5 set a new bar at New York's Roseland Ballroom, selling out six consecutive nights, beating Rage Against the Machine's previous record of five, set in 1996.

Tiesto: The Billboard Cover Story

But 2011 was more about confluence than influence -- rising up as well as trickling down. And while established stars got the most visibility, a crew of new, young faces (in some cases, very young) helped bring electronic music back to its roots as a youth movement. These overnight sensations made their presences known not through music sales, but through the new-media-powered landscapes of touring and social influence.

At the top of the list is bass-music king Skrillex, who has already become one of the genre's hottest touring properties even though he has only released two original EPs and a few remixes. "He was without a doubt the breakout artist of the year, moving tickets like none of us have seen before," says Paul Morris, president of AM Only, Skrillex's booking agency.

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Skrillex has sold 171,000 units of "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites," according to Nielsen SoundScan. (His first EP, "My Name Is Skrillex," was released as a free download.) But such numbers don't tell the full story. Earlier this year, hard rock act Korn invited the young dub master to join it in the studio. The band posted one of the resulting songs, "Get Up," on its Facebook page as a free download for anyone who clicked the page's Like button. Promoted to Skrillex's 2.2 million Facebook fans and 440,000 Twitter followers, the track brought Korn 3 million new fans in about three months-and prompted the band to record an entire album with dubstep producers. ("The Path of Totality" arrived Dec. 6 on Roadrunner.) Skrillex's army of contemporaries, such as 19-year-old Porter Robinsonand 22-year-old Datsik, are building similar profiles.

Swedish House Mafia -- consisting of DJ/producers Steve Angello,Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso -- has a similar tale of seemingly immeasurable influence. While its individual members have longer histories in dance music, they've been known as a group for a mere year-and-a-half, and have released just four singles. But on Sept. 30, the group posted presale tickets for a Dec. 16 gig at New York's iconic Madison Square Garden. Nine minutes later, every available seat -- not just the presales -- was gone. That same week, Avicii, a 22-year-old Swedish DJ/producer who just announced a partnership with Atom Empire and Interscope, staged his own 10-minute sellout, of a 5,000-capacity performance at New York's Pier 94 on New Year's Eve.

"SHM best encapsulates 2011 to me," says Pasquale Rotella, president/CEO of Insomniac Events, which produces Electric Daisy Carnival. "They have managed to find a way to connect with the pop audience while still maintaining their appeal and credibility."

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An ever-increasing audience, a broader pool of successful artists and popularity that defies all pre-existing measures: If 2011 was big for EDM, 2012 looks even more mega.

"I believe we're already in a place where the genre has crossed over, and that in 2012 and beyond, the industry will continue to grow and become more professional," Rotella says.

The next step for the newly flush EDM business community is to qualify its scale and influence-not only to attract corporate sponsors, but to ward off the PR backlashes that any youth-focused movement can attract. Rotella started that process, commissioning Beacon Economics to conduct a custom study of the financial impact of this year's Electric Daisy Carnival on Vegas' regional economy. The results showed that the event generated an estimated $136 million for businesses-including hotels, restaurants and transportation-and $8.9 million in tax revenue for the city and state. Electric Daisy 2012 is scheduled for June 8-10, and three-day passes are already sold out.

Whether it's supporting local businesses, selling out iconic venues or even reinventing the sound of rock'n'roll, one thing is clear: Electronic dance music broke though in 2011, but it isn't stopping there. "This is just the beginning," Morris says, "of an amazing new era for dance music."

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