She’s new to the music scene and she’s only 21-years-old. She’s already taken the music world by storm and her song “R.I.P.” just hit the top of the UK singles chart this week.

Rita herself has commented on the comparisons to Rihanna saying: “It’s a compliment to be compared to someone like her. She’s so successful and an amazing woman. I’d rather be compared to her than someone not as successful, so it’s good. I’ll take that!”

With her music career taking off in a big way, check out her single below.

Here’s all of Adam “MCA” Yauch’s opening lines from EVERY Beastie Boys song. #SWEET #RIPMCA #BeastieBoys

Beastie Boys” rapper MCA – real name Adam Yauch – has sadly passed.

In 2009, MCA announced he was being treated for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node (below). He had since undergone surgery and radiation therapy.

MCA co-founded Beastie Boys in 1979 with Mike D, and Ad Rock … and went on to churn out some of the most iconic albums in hip-hop … including License to Ill, Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication.

The group has won multiple Grammys and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year, although Adam could not make the event.

[from left to right: Mike D, Adrock and MCA]

History of the Beastie Boys [see below]

Joel Zimmerman doesn’t like being called a DJ. The dance music phenomenon from Toronto, better known as deadmau5, rolls his eyes at the description which he sees as a hopelessly outdated way of describing what he does. His sets are closer to live performances as he assembles tracks on the fly using cutting edge computer technology including software that he’s helped to write himself. “There are no CDs involved,” he explains. “It’s a technological orgy up there and I try and keep it more my music than anyone else’s. If people come out to see deadmau5 I want them to hear deadmau5 music.”

Now firmly established as one of the most innovative and popular electronic live acts globally, Deadmau5 has had an outstanding year. His driving foresight is constantly pushing the technological boundaries of his stage show. In May 2010 he unveiled the visual orgy of the cube stage and his highly anticipated L.E.D ‘mau5ehead’. The year climaxed with a 17,000 capacity sell out show at London’s Earls Court. He is the first ever electronic artist to headline the legendary venue. Additionally the dancefloor icon’s multi award winning albums have seen him achieve that rare balance, appealing to both the clubbing cognoscenti and musical masses.

Zimmerman grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, near Toronto. As a kid he was obsessed with computers and started making chip tunes as a teenager. “They’re musical compositions made using the chips from old computers,” he explains. Soon, his chip tunes attracted the attention of the Los Angeles nu metal community which resulted in him contributing to Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee’s 1999 album Methods Of Mayhem. The unlikely duo remain friends as well as collaborators; in 2009 they released two electro house singles — Chicken and Redic — under the name W.T.F.?, while they also reunited to play at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival in 2010.

It was around this time that Zimmerman became involved with a low-budget dance music radio show in Niagara Falls called The Party Revolution. “Back then, cutting edge dance music in Niagara Falls meant Babylon Zoo,” he laughs. His job was “technical whizz kid”. In other words, he was the one who knew how to use a computer. “All those guys were interested in was recording two turntables onto a computer and burning off a CD so they could send it the radio station,” he explains. “I learnt about digital audio and making music on computers and new editing techniques. Every new bit of technology that was released to do with making music, I was on top of it. They were still dinosauring it out playing on turntables.”

When he tried to convince local recording studios that they needed to embrace computers at the turn of the millennium, no-one was interested. “They had an old school approach to recording music. They were really in denial about that kind of thing. It was rocket science to them. They didn’t get it.” Zimmerman did. Eventually he managed to convince a small studio in Toronto to let him install new technology and he helped to record numerous local bands.

While earning his dance music stripes, Zimmerman worked as a web developer. Together with long-term collaborator Steve Duda, Zimmerman writes music making software, including one of the programmes he uses in his live show which he describes it as “like a drum sequencer and sample player on crack”. Evolving music technology’s cutting edge, deadmau5 worked for FL Studios, the company behind Fruity Loops, and contributed to the development of an iPhone app called Touch Mix, which allows you to mix tracks on your mobile.

Zimmerman says that his dream at the time was to be a producer, working on other people’s music. He wrote his own material as a hobby. “IDM (intelligent dance music) like Aphex Twin,” he says. “Nothing to do with the kind of thing I make now.”

His first proper release started out as a joke. It was called This Is The Hook, written together with Duda under the name B.S.O.D. (which stands for ‘blue screen of death’, jargon for the dreaded Windows error message). They took a house beat and added a digitised voice explaining what was happening. They considered it to be a hilarious parody of the formulaic extreme of dance music; what they hadn’t counted on was it going to #1 on the Beatport chart in 2006.

B.S.O.D. crafted an entire album and remixed Hurt by Christina Aguilera, but the money ran out and Duda had to return to L.A. “We may do some more B.S.O.D. stuff in the future,” says Zimmerman. “And we’re still working on software together.”

One of the first things Zimmerman wrote after Duda’s departure was Faxing Berlin. He released it under the moniker deadmau5, using the same name as his one-man web developing business, which itself was named after a dead mouse he found in his computer (the unusual alphanumeric spelling is so it can function as a user name for online chat-rooms). He sent Faxing Berlin to Chris Lake, who passed it to Pete Tong, who played it on his Radio 1 show. The subsequent exposure turned it into one of the biggest records of 2007. The fusion of trance chords and house beats spawned a series of imitators. “It was quite a buzz to know that I’d influenced the course of dance music,” says Zimmerman with a smile. In 2008, deadmau5 was the biggest selling artist on Beatport.

Zimmerman’s next masterstroke was to rework his image. Part of the deadmau5 logo was a grinning mouse head with oversized ears, which he decided to turn into a mask. The first time he wore it at a club, the audience were stunned. “I remember putting it on and looking out of the visor and seeing everyone in utter bewilderment,” he says. “They were like, ‘Who is this guy? Is he for real?’ But they warmed up to it real fast. When the lights came on in the helmet and they started blinking to the beat, the place went crazy.”

He wore a crystal encrusted variant of the mouse head to the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for Best Remixed Recording for his take on The Longest Road by Californian house producer Morgan Page. “Even though no one knew who I was, as I was walking up the red carpet, all these reporters and TV crews were stopping me. In the end I actually missed the award because it took so long.”

In 2009, he cracked the UK single chart when I Remember hit #14. This was followed by his second artist compilation album, For Lack Of A Better Name, which compiled the best of his single releases from the previous twelve months. The first single to be taken from the album was a new version of his underground hit Ghosts N Stuff, featuring vocals from Pendulum’s Rob Swire, which reached #12.

2010 saw his relentless work schedule continue unabated. In February he performed at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver during the medal presentations. In March, he won three International Dance Music Awards including Best Artist (Solo) and Best American DJ. In April he won Dance Recording of the Year for For Lack of a Better Name at the Juno Awards

In May, his sold out UK tour included three consecutive nights at the Brixton O2 Academy as he continued to redefine dance music in the live arena. Fans were treated to the visual orgy of his new stage show, and of course, the unveiling of his highly anticipated L.E.D ‘mau5ehead’. Like a mutant rodent Frankenstein, it had finally been given life!

In June, deadmau5 won Best Electro House Artist, Best Progressive House Artist, and “most influential, relevant and forward-thinking person in electronic music over the past twelve months” at the Beatport Music Awards. He also performed live at the Electric Daisy Carnival’s Kinetic Fields section in Los Angeles, made his main stage UK festival debut at Creamfields and also embarked upon an exclusive weekly resident for Cream @ Amnesia in Ibiza.

Ever expanding his horizons, deadmau5 also became a playable avatar within the DJ Hero 2 video game, which prompted MTV to commission him as the house artist for the 2010 Video Music Awards. Everything aligned to make 2010 an outstanding year for Zimmerman and it climaxed with a 17,000 capacity sell-out show at London’s Earls Court – making him the first ever electronic artist to headline the legendary venue.

deadmau5’s dizzying upward trajectory continues in 2011 with the news that he will headline his first ever outdoor UK show at London’s Victoria Park in June. A dancefloor icon, deadmau5 has made dance music exciting again.

Beatport Music Awards
2008
Best Electro House Artist
Best Progressive House Artist
Best Single

2009
Best Electro House Artist
Best Progressive House Artist

2010
Best Electro House Artist,
Best Progressive House Artist,
Most influential, relevant and forward-thinking person in electronic music over the past twelve months.

International Dance Music Awards
2010
Best American DJ
Best Artist
Best Electro Track – “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff” (feat. Rob Swire)

Juno Awards
2008 “All You Ever Want” (with Billy Newton-Davies) – Dance Recording of the Year
2009 Random Album Title- Dance Recording of the Year
2010 For Lack of a Better Name – Dance Recording of the Year

DJ Magazine Top 100 DJs
2008 – 11th Place
2009 – 6th Place
2010 – 4th Place

Grammy Awards Nominations
2009
Nominated for Grammy Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical (“The Longest Road” [deadmau5 Remix] by Morgan Page featuring Lissie).

Let’s say you’re an aspiring rapper. And let’s say you loved the Wu Tang Clan (so much that your only dream was join them). And let’s also say that your real name is Jimmy McFerson. Ah man that sucks! Well how can you get a cool name, like the real Wu-Tang names below.

-Method Man
-RZA
-GZA
-Ol’ Dirty Bastard
-Ghostface Killah
-Inspectah Deck
-Raekwon The Chef

There’s this site that has a WU TANG CLAN NAME GENERATOR. So to get your own personalized Wu-Tang name click HERE

Mine was Lucky Warrior

Deadmau5 along with the world’s most advanced 4D technology created an amazing free light show at Millbank Tower, London [UK]

Millbank was plunged into darkness with the iconic tower acting as the canvas for a never-before-seen spectacular. Each of the 120 meter high building’s 800 windows were covered with vinyl as 16 powerful projectors, stationed 300 meters away on the other side of the river, beamed 3D images onto the structure. Huge butterflies flew across the London skyline and the tower was twisted, pulsated and even fell down. Billed as the “future of live events” the spectacular show was accompanied by music from dance producer deadmau5, who created exclusive remixes for the performance — adding the 4th dimension.

This was all put together to promote the release of the much-anticipated Nokia Lumia 800.

You didn’t read that backward. Adele was willing to have her album “21″ available on the streaming music service. But Spotify would have had to change its whole strategy to accommodate her.

If you were one of the millions of fans who tuned into Sunday’s Grammy Awards, you likely saw Adele belt out “Rolling In The Deep” from her chart-topping album and take home a half-dozen trophies, including prizes for Song of the Year and Album of the Year for 21. But as many quickly pointed out, you couldn’t get the songs from that Album of the Year on Spotify. It is not available for streaming there.

Such jarring absences represent a constant criticism of the popular subscription-based music service’s catalog, and it’s a big reason why some consumers resist switching over from iTunes. Critics often highlight missing content on Spotify–say, albums from acts such as the Black Keys and the Beatles–implying that many big-name artists aren’t onboard with the streaming platform, or perhaps that the 3-million-subscriber-strong service with more than 15 million songs in its catalog isn’t yet ready for prime time. But, if it’s any indication of where the industry is headed, it turns out that Adele was indeed willing to have her album 21 available on Spotify–but given the option, Spotify ultimately decided not to stream the album, according to sources. Here’s why.

Multiple sources confirm that Adele was willing to play ball with the streaming service, as long as the content was accessible only to paying subscribers and not to its freemium users. Spotify has a freemium-to-premium model: Users can gain ad-supported access to Spotify’s entire music catalog for free; to remove the ads and gain mobile access, users have to pony up as much as $10 a month. Ultimately, Spotify decided it did not want to split up its content catalog, so as to create separate music libraries for paying subscribers and freemium users. Thus, it was essentially Spotify that decided against providing streaming access to Adele’s content for paying subscribers–not the other way around.

Instead, as some have noticed, Adele’s 21 eventually wound up on Rhapsody, which only offers paid subscriptions rather than a free, ad-supported service.

The various strategies are understandable depending on the perspective. For Adele, it’s clear she’s willing to make her content available for subscription streaming, but is not interested in giving away her music to free users in the slight hope of possibly helping to drive Spotify’s freemium-to-premium conversion rate. She is willing to provide her music to those who are willing to pay for it, plain and simple. And who can say her thinking is wrong? With more than 17 million albums sold worldwide, it’s no wonder why Adele wasn’t too concerned about gaining revenue from streaming services right up front, especially if it meant giving her music away to free users. (Coldplay, too, did not release its latest album, Mylo Xyloto, on Spotify until months after its release, anticipating that the most amount of revenue would come from traditional sales at the beginning, while windowing the streaming release for longer-term revenue.)

On the other hand, Spotify, which declined to comment on the matter, demonstrated its commitment to its freemium-to-premium business model here. Spotify believes its free service will drive subscriptions–and it’s willing to sacrifice access to the best-selling album of the year over that belief. And with the service growing by roughly 8,000 subscriptions per day, boasting a 20% conversion rate, and touting a successful Facebook partnership, it’s hard to knock that content strategy.

But most significantly, the insight proves that not all streaming services are built alike. The digital space is crowded with competitors–other players include MOG and Rdio–and they don’t all offer the same music in a different format. Adele’s 21 was available to Rhapsody’s paying subscribers; Adele’s 21 was not available on Spotify, even if you paid for a subscription.

If anything, it shows how complicated this emerging platform has become for the industry, and the different priorities involved for artists, labels, and the streaming services themselves.

by Austin Carr

[Image: Flickr user Ben Houdijk]

Adele swept the Grammy Awards last night. The singer made her post-surgery comeback by winning all six of her nominations at the 2012 Grammy Awards, topping the ceremony with Album of the Year for “21″ and taking home both Song and Record of the Year for “Rolling in the Deep.” She teared up as she took the stage for the final award, crediting the album’s inspiration to a “rubbish relationship.”

The first award of the broadcast, Best Pop Solo Performance, went to the Brit’s “Someone Like You,” the singer’s second win of the evening. “21″ picked up Best Pop Vocal Album during the afternoon pre-telecast portion of the awards, while her “Rolling in the Deep” producer Paul Epworth picked up Producer of the Year.