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The biggest debut of 2012 doesn’t belong to a glossy pop act like One Direction or Justin Bieber.
Sure, those boys have hordes of teenage girls ready to download their music at the drop of a tweet, but they’ve got nothing on the scruffy gents of Mumford & Sons, whose new disc, Babel sold 600,000 copies in its first seven days. (The next-best opening? Bieber’s Believe, with 374,000 in week 1.)
Babel‘s success (it has now led the chart for three weeks and sold 865,000 copies total) is indicative of a larger shift within the music industry. As pop music morphs into a glow-stick dance party, country acts have adopted the traditional pop sound. That leaves Mumford and the burgeoning Americana and folk genres (think acoustic guitars, banjos, and innumerable fitted tweed vests) to fill the country void. Did you get all that? Allow us to break it down. READ FULL STORY »
Mumford & Sons are officially the biggest band on the planet.
The London lads scored the best debut sales week of 2012 with their sophomore album Babel, which moved 600,000 copies in its first week and easily topped the Billboard 200. Their last album, Sigh No More, which quietly sold 2.5 million copies over the course of two and a half years (and consequently jumped to No. 10 this week!) peaked at No. 2 during the week of the Grammys in 2011, when Mumford took the stage with Bob Dylan and the Avett Brothers.
Babel‘s amazing sales far outshine the next-best debut of the year, Justin Bieber’s Believe, which sold 374,000 copies in its first week. And the album marked the best debut since Drake’s Take Care moved 630,000 units in November. Still, Babel will have to settle for second place in terms of overall sales weeks in 2012 — Adele’s 21 sold 730,000 copies in the frame following the Grammys, her album’s 52nd(!) week.
Of the 600,000 copies that Babel sold, a whopping 420,000 (72 percent) of them were digital albums. That’s the second-biggest digital sales week ever behind Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, which sold 662,000 digital copies thanks, in part, to its controversial 99-cent deal on Amazon. READ FULL STORY »
Think Reel Steel meets Electric Daisy Carnival, and you’re almost close to visualizing Deadmau5′s new video for “Professional Griefers.” I say “almost” because even the most vivid imagination would be missing one of the UFC-themed clip’s key ingredients: So. Much. Money.
In a recent interview with Spin.com (also known as the only Spin), Deadmau5 helmet-wearer Joel Zimmerman claims that the video “is one of the highest-budget electronic music videos of all time,” saying that the budget is “in the seven-digit range.”
So, what did all of that money go toward? A giant, future-primitive Ultimate Fighting thunderdome in which the EDM hero battles My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way with massive, remote-controlled metal avatars. Oh, and there’s a cute little puppy! Sort of…
See all seven digits of this electronic madness in the video below:
In today’s media universe, there are two ways to get big. The first is to put your heart into your craft, work tirelessly toward promoting that art, and associate yourself with like-minded individuals who will help push and challenge you as you move forward.
Or you can just talk to a magazine and say some terrible things about people more famous than you.
In a not-at-all-surprising turn of events, international superstar and electronic head piece enthusiast deadmau5 (real, less silly name: Joel Zimmerman) spent part of his interview in the new issue of Rolling Stone talking smack about Madonna and David Guetta.
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Tell us how you really feel about Madonna, AngerMau5!
During her recent appearance at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, the 53-year-old singer went on a drug-related riff while introducing the artist Avicii.
“In my world, the words ‘music’ and ‘dance’ are not separated, okay?” Madge told the crowd.
And to prove that she’s not a narc, the pop star then asked the kids, “How many people in this crowd have seen Molly?”
Molly, for those not as hip as Madonna, is slang for the “pure” form of MDMA (Ecstasy), a drug some associate with dance/electronic/rave/things-that-aren’t-Dave-Grohl music culture. Madonna’s latest album, of course, is titled MDNA.
None of this pleases Deadmau5. The EDM star took to Facebook to express his displeasure with Her Madjesty:
very classy there madonna. “HUR DUR HAS ANYONE SEEN MOLLY???” such a great message for the young music lovers at ultra. quite the f’n philanthropist. but hey, at least yer HIP AND TRENDY! f—ing cant smack my head hard enough right now.
