This week, major news consisted of nominations, lists, and more live performance announcements.
In terms of live performances, Lollapalooza begins this weekend – August 2, precisely. Much like Coachella, Lollapalooza has a mix of rock and EDM acts on the bill, with genre favorites Avicii, Nero, Porter Robinson, Bassnectar, Paper Diamond, Calvin Harris, Skream & Benga, and Kaskade performing. Also this weekend, the Mad Decent Block Party is going on in Philadelphia and New York, and lineups for Chicago and Los Angeles events are being announced soon. The electro-music festival was announced this week. Considered the “Woodstock” of EDM, the electro-music festival set in Huguenot, NY will start its eighth year in September.
While not performing at Lollapalooza, Swedish House Mafia, who essentially called it quits roughly a month ago, are considering adding India to the final leg of its last tour. Steve Angello also recently announced his Size Matters concert in Central Park. Scheduled for September 22, the event will feature Angelo with AN21 & Max Vangeli, Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano, and Third Party in their debut NYC appearance. On another solo note, Tiesto is hitting the Staples Center in Los Angeles right at the end of his Club Life College Invasion tour. The performance is on October 20.
Perhaps to make up for the minor firestorm incited by his “DJs just press play” blog post, Deadmau5 appears to be making amends by recording a track live. The track, called “There Might Be Coffee,” was considered, by the DJ, to sound too much like Swedish House Mafia and is now up on his Soundcloud account. Another track called “Unf-ck” is supposedly in the works.
David Guetta was in the news for multiple projects this week. First, Guetta may find himself without a major label as the result of the EMI-Universal merger, which is expected to be complete in September. Then, on Wednesday, burn announced a collaboration between the DJ and Los Angeles filmmaker Mr. Brainwash. Together, they’ll be doing the video for Guetta’s track “Metropolis.” Guetta, additionally, is revisiting a familiar collaboration – Rihanna. They did “Who’s That Chick” for the DJ, and now Guetta is in the studio working on the singer’s seventh album.
Aside from working with Rihanna, Guetta has collaborated with an extensive list of pop stars – which has caused critics to label him as a “sellout.” This week, as well, the “Where Them Girls At” DJ shot back at critics, saying: “If I think our music is amazing why would I not want to share it with more people.”
Guetta was recently nominated for a VMA, but not for the new electronic music category. Instead, those nominated for this brand-new category were Duck Sauce, for “Big Bad Wolf,”; Skrillex for “First of the Year (Equinox)”; Avicii, for “Levels”; Calvin Harris for “Feel So Close”; and Martin Solveig for “The Night Out.” Online voting just opened this week. Which do you think should win?
Forbes, this week, published its list of the World’s Highest Paid DJs. The top 10 pulled in a total of $125 million over the past year. Those at the top included Tiesto ($22 million); Skrillex ($15 million); Swedish House Mafia ($14 million); David Guetta ($13.5 million); and Steve Aoki ($12 million). The next five are Kaskade, Deadmau5, Afrojack, Avicii, and DJ Pauly D.
As far as new releases are concerned, Brazilian act Bonde do Role put out new album Tropicalbacanal on Mad Decent, and Israel’s The Flash Brothers released a bootleg track, “Flash Brothers vs. Linkin Park – The Catalyst Bomb.”
