Deadmau5 Brings Dance Music To The 'Masses,' Wolfgang Gartner Says

'He has a major role in the younger generation to this music,' producer/DJ tells MTV News of his collaborator.
By Adam Stewart


deadmau5
Photo: Charley Gallay/ Getty Images

It's no secret that 2010 was a pivotal year for electronic dance music here in the States. With deadmau5 and Swedish House Mafia becoming household names, the genre's momentum shows no signs of slowing down. Using a conduit of collaboration, artists such as deadmau5 (a.k.a. Joel Zimmerman) have paired up with various underground acts to further the rapid expansion of the genre.

Perhaps one of the most notable movers and shakers of the year is now-Grammy-Award-nominated producer and DJ Wolfgang Gartner, who recently sat down to chat with MTV News about deadmau5 and dance music's rise to the top.

"He has a major role in the younger generation to this music," Gartner says, "but there have been certain artists that have been instrumental in helping it cross over and reach the mainstream — which I think is a good thing. I think rap artists using dance beats is a great thing. I think it just brings more people towards this music that we all love."

Thanks to several key moments, such as deadmau5 taking the helm as house DJ (well, technically "House Artist") for the 2010 VMAs, dance music has been thrown into the forefront of America's youth, a key demographic for any genre.

"Everybody knows who he is now and he's kind of exposing the masses to dance music. These little five-, six- and seven-year-old kids latch on to this 'mau5head' logo — they get into the music and he's bringing this tiny young generation into this music that probably wouldn't be exposed to it."

Gartner certainly doesn't mind the exposure either. Unless you were living under a rock for the past six months, you probably heard one of this past summer's hottest anthems, "Animal Rights," a collaborative effort brought forth by deadmau5 and Gartner.

"It was interesting because I kind of had a preconceived notion about how he would be to work [with]," said Gartner. "I think our sounds are really similar, so I figured he would work in a similar way to me, but the way that he writes music is actually completely different to me. But he achieves kind of the same sound through a completely different process."

Recorded in deadmau5's favorite Los Angeles studio — that would be rocker Tommy Lee's House — "Animal Rights" is a thumping progressive house anthem that melds Wolfgang's unmistakable harmonics and funk riffs with the driving bass line and wobbly synths that make deadmau5 one of the unique forces in the dance music world.

"[Deadmau5] writes these rich complex chord progressions and he does it by drawing these little bars on a grid, which is just amazing that you can do that and get that result," Gartner goes on to say. "It just proves you don't have to be able to play keyboards to write amazing music."

The two sound pioneers never cease to stop pushing the limits on what they are able to produce. Using drastically difference production approaches, deadmau5 and Gartner had the ability to play off each other's strengths while recording the track.

"I'd say the biggest thing is that I play everything in on a keyboard, like even my drums," says Gartner. "I play everything in live and he draws it in with notes on a mouse, which blew me away because his music is very musical."

What do you think 2011 will hold for deadmau5 and Gartner? Let us know in the comments below!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1654857/deadmau5-brings-dance-music-masses-wolfgang-gartner.jhtml

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Michael Jackson Doctor Conrad Murray's Trial To Be Televised

Judge rules that camera will be allowed in the courtroom for manslaughter case.
By Gil Kaufman


Conrad Murray
Photo: AFP/ Getty Images

For what promises to be one of the most bizarre and riveting legal proceedings in years, a Los Angeles judge ruled on Monday that a television camera will be allowed in the courtroom when Michael Jackson's doctor goes on trial for involuntary manslaughter.

Reuters reported that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor, approved the presence of a camera in the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray as long as it does not interfere with the proceedings in the closely watched case.

The judge asked for the "absolute least-intrusive placement" of a TV camera in the courtroom, but blocked cameras from documenting jury selection.

Pastor also announced that he would bump up the opening date of the trail by four days to March 24, at which point jury selection will begin. Murray, who faces up to four years in prison if convicted, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the trial is expected to last around six weeks.

Cardiologist Murray was hired to be Jackson's personal physician in the run-up to the King of Pop's planned 50-date comeback series of shows at London's O2 arena in the summer of 2009. The doctor told police that he provided Jackson, 50, with sedatives and the surgical anesthetic propofol in order to combat the singer's chronic insomnia. He said he did so on the morning of June 25, 2009, when Jackson died of what a coroner deemed acute propofol poisoning.

TMZ reported on Tuesday (February 8) that Murray's lawyers plan to argue that Jackson was already in weak health before he died and that it's unfair to blame propofol for his passing. Unnamed sources close to the case told the gossip site that at the time of his death, Jackson's body was already failing him in part because concert promoter AEG Live had "driven [him] over the edge" with a rigorous rehearsal schedule for the shows.

Murray's lawyers reportedly plan to call witnesses to say that Jackson was not showing up for rehearsals and when he did he showed "clear signs" of frail health. They also reportedly plan to argue that it was Jackson who administered the final, fatal dose of propofol to himself while Murray was out of the room.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1657464/conrad-murray-trial.jhtml

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Justin Bieber Shows Off New Hairdo In 'That Should Be Me' Clip

Video features Bieber performing song with country band Rascal Flatts.
By Jocelyn Vena


Justin Bieber
Photo: Neil Mockford/ Getty Images

The weekend that Justin Bieber cut his hair, he also shot the music video for his "That Should Be Me" remix, featuring country band Rascal Flatts. This weekend, the full music video premiered, and it shows off that very famous cut.

The video is a meta-statement on making videos. The guys of Rascal Flatts pull up to the studio while Bieber sits in a room practicing the track. Bieber and the band sit and rehearse the song before they are brought to the room to shoot the lo-fi performance video.

We see the camera and lights filming the guys, who stand in front of a white backdrop performing the song. Bieber is occasionally seen in the sparse room alone singing the track, dressed in black. Shots of the finished performance are edited with those of Bieber and the band rehearsing the track, off his Never Say Never - The Remixes album, which was released last month. The video ends with Bieber walking off the set.

"They flipped out," lead singer Gary LeVox said of bringing his daughters to the set the day of the shoot with the teen star. "Brittany ended up singing one of his songs to him. He was hugging them and was so sweet to them. I've even got a low-grade Bieber fever. I think I'm in the running for dad of the year."

Bieber also tweeted about the video's runaway success on Sunday, writing, "And just saw... #ThatShouldBeMe vid with @rascalflatts is now #1 on ITUNES!! Thank u all so much. We are very proud of that song. #MuchLove."

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1659796/justin-bieber-that-should-be-me-clip.jhtml

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Lady Gaga Surprises Drag Queens At Louisville Bar

After performing her Monster Ball in Kentucky, the pop star joins a Gaga impersonator at a nearby club.
By Gil Kaufman


Lady Gaga performs in Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday
Photo: Gil Kaufman

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The concourse at the KFC YUM! Center was packed with Lady Gaga impersonators — male and female — during her show at the venue on Saturday night. There were drag queens in towering heels, caution tape and not much else, and an endless sea of ladies in neon-colored wigs strutting their stuff in a variety of homebrewed costumes based on Gaga video looks, from the soda-can-in-the-hair 'do to skull face-paint, hot pants, fishnets and lots of glitter.

One venue employee said that at a pre-show meeting to discuss appropriate attire for attendees, they were told "anything" goes, as long as underwear of some sort was involved.

But even after a nearly two-hour Monster Ball extravaganza that featured the usual compliment of fire-belching pianos, sexy, nun-stocked subway cars and an attack by a giant angler fish puppet, Gaga had still not had enough. According to a video posted on TMZ, Mother Monster popped up unexpectedly at a Louisville gay bar called Connections at around 1:15 a.m. to show the girls how "Born This Way" should sound.

The instantly iconic gay anthem — which she'd done onstage as both a moving piano ballad and as a show-stopping, night-capping encore — was being performed by a queen at the club when the Gaga walked out unannounced, wearing fishnets and a black leotard, and proceeded to make the club go nuts by singing the song live over a pounding remix.

Gaga performed an impromptu dance duet with her doppelganger, a 6-foot-plus queen in a spangled bikini and long blonde wig, and then did a mini-stage dive into the crowd before strutting off stage three minutes later amid screams of delight from her stunned followers.

Have you been to the Monster Ball? Share your favorite moments in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1659795/lady-gaga-louisville-impersonator-club.jhtml

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Justin Bieber Tweets Selena Gomez Message, Drake Lyrics

"I miss you," the Biebs posted to Gomez while on tour in Europe over the weekend.
By Jocelyn Vena


Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez
Photo: Kevin Mazur/ WireImage

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez hit Twitter over the weekend and the world let out a collective, "Awwww!"

The Biebs, who recently took his act to Europe for his tour, seemed like he was missing his lady love and was not afraid to show it. On Sunday, he tweeted this simple message for Gomez: "I miss you."

Selena didn't let the post go unnoticed, as she very publicly responded to her beau's online note just hours later. "I miss all of y'all," she wrote.

When he wasn't busy flirting with his lady on Twitter, Bieber was busy tweeting a series of lyrical snippets from Drake songs after posting a note that read, "favorite drizzy lines." He also solicited fans' favorite lines from the Canadian MC's tracks.

Among the Drake tracks Bieber tweeted quotes from were "Successful," "Shut It Down," "The Resistance" and "Over."

"I want it all thats y I strive 4 it, Diss me and you'll never hear a reply 4 it," he wrote. "This lost boy got fly without Peter Pan and my delivery just got me buzzing like the pizza man ... You feel the hours pass until you find somethin' I feel like when she moves, the time doesn't ... That's word to the millions that they puttin' up I'm tryna be better than good enough ... I could teach you how to speak my language; [Rosetta] Stone I swear this life is like the sweetest thing I've ever known."

In addition, Bieber took time to thank his fans for all their support and also shared his latest plans for his look. After causing a stir recently when he cut his hair, Justin revealed that he intended to undergo another hair-related style change. "Im not shaving for a month so you all can see my mustache... im pumped," he shared.

What do you think about Justin's latest series of tweets? Tell us in the comments.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1659319/justin-bieber-selena-gomez-twitter.jhtml

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