Now that Justin Bieber has put out a track that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the entertainment community at large has been gracious enough to halt its collective verbal immolation of the young pop star. Case in point: Vice, a famously subversive media outlet that takes every opportunity to challenge the status quo, has continually celebrated the "Where Are Ü Now" singer's recent releases in articles on its Thump channel - and has all but deified him in a recent interview on its i-D fashion channel.
Music streaming platform Spotify has announced that "Lean On" by Major Lazer and DJ Snake is now its most streamed song of all time. The song went platinum back in August, reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has garnered over 526 million global plays on the service since its release - and even though it's quickly become one of the most overplayed tracks of 2015, it's hard to deny that it's deserving of such accolades.
In news that was met with resounding anguish from the dance music community at large, global techno icon Carl Cox recently announced that he would conclude his fifteen-years-running Space Ibiza residency after 2016. Not one to let such a tun of events put a damper on things, though, the DJ/producer has announced that he will fill some of the time by curating a festival beginning the same year.
Between the release of his debut album and a highly publicized performance at the Ericcson Globe in his hometown of Stockholm, Sweden, it's safe to assert that 2015 was a landmark year for Alesso. While it seems like he may have been taking a breather for the latter portion of this year's festival season, announcements from his camp reveal that he plans to make moves next year as well.
After Tiësto's latest Clublife podcast, it's safe to say that a new name will be bouncing around the EDM blogosphere in the coming months: Jewelz & Sparks. After a relatively quiet 2015, the German DJ/producer duo has returned to the EDM world's consciousness with "I Can Fly," a track which had already generated considerable buzz before receiving support from one of the world's most influential DJs.
It's been so long since we've heard an original track come from Olwik's camp that I almost forgot what the Swedish DJ/producer even sounded like. He held us over with a couple of remixes over the past several months, but he's finally delivered "Velocity" - a fast-paced, high-energy progressive house track that unapologetically makes you tap your feet.
Several months after Disclosure put out "Omen" ahead of their sophomore album, Caracal, Dillon Francis has put a remix of the track with his own signature style written all over it. It's hard to improve upon the original, which stood out as the strongest track from the Surrey, England brothers' album, but Francis' changes aren't an unwelcome aberration from the source material.
With the release of Justin Bieber's new Skrillex-produced album, Purpose, almost upon us, the young EDM/pop crossover star has released a handful of tracks early - the most recent of which being "Love Yourself." The song was co-written by Ed Sheeran and features vocals by singer/songwriter Halsey, and although Skrillex's influence isn't as evident as the last two (if it's even there at all), the song better fits Bieber's style than those that preceded it.
Last month the organizers of Boom, Belgium festival Tomorrowland announced This Was Tomorrow - a documentary on perhaps the world's largest electronic music fest - and they've just followed it up with an official trailer. Clocking in at just over two minutes, the footage features many of the hallmarks of festival aftermovies, but an Armin Van Buuren quote near the end is what grabbed my attention the most.
Pierce Fulton's returned with his first track in a couple months, and it shows a markedly more mature approach to dance music than the last thing he put out. "No More" features enough main stage flair to wind up in plenty of world-class DJs' sets over the next few months, but it's tastefully buried in enough other sounds not to make purists turn their noses at the track.
