Summer-themed releases, yet another DJ-influenced fashion collection, and a DJ admitting he’s a sellout are just some of this week’s news highlights.
More DJs are venturing into fashion. Last week, we got a preview of Avicii’s advertisements, and this week saw the announcement of Tiesto’s partnership with Guess. Like other stars branching out into couture, the Dutch trance DJ’s limited edition collection will be based on his performance’s style – think background visuals – and begins with the Limited Edition Tiesto Watch, with apparel to follow in the fall.
In other partnership news, well-known European festival Tomorrowland is collaborating with YouTube to form TomorrowlandTV, another online streaming performances entry. During the festival’s 2012 run, from July 27 to 29, the performances will be broadcast live and then available for future viewing.
Tomorrowland is not the only festival coming up in recent months. Diplo and Skrillex’s Full Flex Express festival recently started and is continuing through six Canadian dates. The two producers, along with Pretty Lights and Grimes, are traveling by train between all dates.
For future events, Calvin Harris was recently announced as the headliner for the third Sound Wave Festival in Arizona, an EDM festival held in September at a waterpark, and Coachella, with a growing EDM presence, is now going on the water.
EDM festivals and performances are a growing force, assisting with reversing the trend of poor concert sales. For solo performances, Pollstar pointed out this week, the top EDM earners in 2012 were Steve Aoki ($4.5 million), Avicii ($4.1 million), and Bassnectar ($3.5 million).
With the growing presence of EDM comes visible beefs between artists. Are electronic diss tracks far behind? While, this week, Deadmau5 called himself a sellout for creating a dubstep track, genre producer Rusko called the “Strobe” artist a “c-nt,” not for the sellout remark but, rather, regarding a disagreement over smoking medical marijuana backstage. Whose side are you on?
Although neither Rusko nor Deadmau5 have new music this week, plenty of other artists do. Erick Morillo as Sympho Nympho with Harry “Choo Choo” Romero and Jose Nunez put out Subliminal 2012, a compilation for his sessions at Pacha Ibiza. Meanwhile, The Chemical Brothers, in preparation for the upcoming Olympics, put out “Theme for Velodrone,” which will be played during the cycling events. The track debuted this week on BBC Radio 1. Decky Hedrock, of Japanese Popstars, put out a solo work, titled Rapier EP, under name Sirkus Sirkuz. Hedrock will be hitting the U.K., Europe, and eventually the U.S to support the release. R3hab also released a remix of Jay Sean’s “I’m All Yours” and, along with Afrojack, will be on Sean’s next single, “So High.”
For future releases, David Guetta is pairing up again with Will.i.am. While Guetta does not appear to have another album in the works, he is appearing on the Black Eyed Peas rapper’s upcoming solo effort, #willpower. And, Porter Robinson, who has seen his popularity increase recently, is going back into the studio. In an interview with Billboard, the U.S. producer mentioned live performance will influence his upcoming work.
