The New York Times just featured Anton Zaslavski (Zedd) as a ‘prodigy’ leaping beyond electronic dance music in an editorial by Ben Sisario. While I’m not saying he’s unworthy, it’s important to understand that Zedd’s career has been fast-tracked due to his signing with Interscope’s Jimmy Ovine (Interscope Chairman and co-owner of Beats by Dre). There’s big money in dance music, and Interscope is banking on Zedd to bring it in.
From Billboard,
Zedd — 22-year-old German native Anton Zaslavski — has in a very short time become the apple of Interscope’s increasingly electronic dance music-focused eye, and not just for the usual remixes and endemic dance fodder: for pop production of the highest order.
Since signing with Interscope in May, Zedd has produced music with Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Meanwhile, the label’s promotional arm has him positively featured in almost every mainstream media outlet including Rolling Stone’s “Artist to Watch”, Billboard’s Fall 2012 “10 to Watch”, Spin Magazine’s “The Best Way to Cure an EDM Hater” and now The New York Times’ “Prodigies Leap Beyond Electronic Dance Music”.
Spectrum is a track that we’re all enamored with, but did you know that it was produced with Max Martin? Martin is actually the producer / songwriter responsible for some of the biggest pop singles of our time by the likes of Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys and Katy Perry. So is it really electronic dance music or is it just sound engineered to trigger an emotional response so that it will sell more singles?
Pitbull said this about the industry back in April (Billboard),
“It’s [the music business] 90% business and 10% talent. There’s no genius to what I do. I keep it simple, stupid — K.I.S.S.”
The goal for labels right now is simple: find the next Skrillex. Take someone talented like Zedd, and use label resources (promotion, branding, marketing) to turn them into a global superstar. Soon it will become difficult to separate electronic dance music from manufactured pop radio hits.
The cycle of the music industry usually goes like this: the underground becomes the mainstream, labels drain all of the blood they can out of it, the people revolt and a new underground is formed. While I will refrain from calling electronic dance music a social movement, I think that our generation is tired of corporate BS. Artists are getting more options – there is opportunity outside of signing with a record label.
Porter Robinson recently declined a collaboration with Katy Perry (DailyStar) and is staying true to his roots as a producer.
“It’s not the ’90s; we have the Internet. Record labels are not as important or influential as they used to be. They’re less capable of puppet-mastering the whole scene.”
Let’s hope so.
Image via Facebook.com/Zedd
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