MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS
Adele, on a comeback from throat surgery, is a shoe-in for Record of the Year at the Grammys.THE GLOVES ARE OFF!: Steel-cage Grammy death match
Every day this week, Star music writer Ben Rayner takes a look at a Grammy category with the makings of an interesting race. And probably insults everyone involved. Today, we sort through the contenders for one of the biggest of the big awards: Record of the Year. Which, for trivia’s sake, is completely interchangeable with Song of the Year if you sub out Katy Perry’s “Firework” and replace it with Kanye West’s “All of the Lights.”
RECORD OF THE YEAR
NOMINEES: Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”; Bon Iver, “Holocene”; Bruno Mars, “Grenade”; Mumford & Sons, “The Cave”; Katy Perry, “Firework.”
WHO WILL WIN: The popular debate going into this year’s ceremony hasn’t so much centred on the question of whether or not soulful 23-year-old U.K. songstress Adele Laurie Blue Adkins — who picked up two career-establishing Grammys for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2009 after her debut album, 19, became a surprise sleeper hit on both sides of the Atlantic — will take home the three most coveted Grammy trophies for Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Record of the Year, but whether or not she can pull off a sweep in all six of the categories in which she’s nominated.
Adele’s 21 was the best-selling album of 2011 and “Rolling in the Deep” the biggest-selling ingle, so that’s a good start toward a victory. But she’s also a sympathetic, unmanufactured pop star who’s achieved success on the strength of her monstrous vocal talents and affectingly human songwriting and who’s now set to mount a no-doubt-emotional comeback from throat surgery onstage during the Grammy broadcast. She’s a lock.WHO SHOULD WIN: Adele. She’s a spectacularly unforeseen success story and a stern riposte to the usual trajectory taken to stardom by female pop singers of her stature, which is the sort of authenticity the Grammys love to celebrate even while extending manufactured moppets like Katy Perry the same degree of recognition.
THE DARK HORSE: “Firework” is a huge, impossible-to-shake anthem and the Katy Perry machine has worked hard to ensure her hit after hit after hit. Don’t rule her out.
The Grammys air Sunday, Feb. 12 on Global at 8 p.m.
Grammy Awards 2012: The deadmau5 that roared
Drew Ressler/Rukes.com
Daedmau5, in his "mau5-head," rocks the Rogers Centre in November.Electronic dance music will enjoy its highest profile ever at the Grammy Awards tonight (8 p.m. on CBS and Global), and much credit for that goes to a skinny chap from Niagara Falls named Joel Zimmerman who has a closetful of oversized mouse-head masks somewhere.
Zimmerman — better known by his production and performance alter ego, deadmau5 — heads into this evening’s Grammy ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles with perhaps not quite the commercial clout of Drake, but with the same number of nominations. And in addition to his three nods from the Recording Academy, he’s been drafted into one of those all-star performance numbers that have come to dominate the Grammy broadcast in recent years, a collaborative salute to electronic music that will also feature fellow dance producer and nominee David Guetta, along with pop-music A-listers Lil’ Wayne, Chris Brown and the Foo Fighters. It’s safe to say deadmau5 has arrived.
“It was just really funny. So we always had a chance to hang out on tour. We’d go to these big festivals and we were both playing super-late but we were there all day, so I’d just go hang with Dave and shoot the sh--. He’s a really good guy and it was really fun and he’s an amazing artist and singer and performer all around and we just get along good.
“So when it came to the Grammy thing, they were, like, ‘You have to work with someone and they have to be nominated. Oh, hey, you did a track with the Foo Fighters!’ It was perfect.”
The fact that Zimmerman spent the summer of 2011 co-headlining festivals in Europe and North America with the likes of the Foo Fighters — whom he played opposite once again on the final night of the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago last August, too — makes his high profile at this year’s Grammy Awards somewhat less of a surprise, yet deadmau5’s ascent over the last five years has still been remarkable for an act borne of Toronto’s oft-overlooked dance-music underground.
He’s only been releasing records for six years or so, but his penchant for pleasingly hard and grinding techno and electro-house, not to mention his peculiar habit of performing in a giant “mau5-head,” made him a popular live act from day one. And while Zimmerman is often sniffed at by dance purists for peddling cheap thrills to the masses, the steady upward curve in attendance at his gigs — which have grown ever more elaborate and high-tech in presentation in pace with the growing crowds — would suggest he’s doing something right.
He seems to be taking it all in stride, though.
“I’m just so emotionally detached from everything in life it’s not like I’m gonna go all Lady Gaga and break down in tears and thank the heavens for this crazy fate,” he shrugs. “I’m proud and I’ve patted myself on the back, but enough of that. Let’s do fun sh-- and introduce it into the mainstream culture as it should have happened 10 years ago, y’know?”
Zimmerman is old enough to have experienced Toronto’s once-mighty rave scene through its late-’90s peak, so he admits to mixed feelings about seeing himself, Skrillex and their ilk playing to crowds in the tens of thousands at massive, corporate-funded events. He will, however, concede that pulling off huge dance party at the former SkyDome (even somehow getting the venue to stay open three hours past it’s typical 11 p.m. curfew) was a pretty cool thing to do.
“I know, right? But like you, the only bad taste left in my mouth is that there’s no more grey area with electronic music anymore,” he says. “You buy your ticket to the big ‘rave’ at SkyDome through Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Dude, I really miss the meet-up points at Union Station and going to some dodgy thing that will very likely get shut down by the cops. That was fun, that was adventurous and it was a thing unique to you in your youth. And for kids today, that’s gone. I’ll always look back at it and be like: ‘Dammit, I wish I could get that back.’
“But what the (effing) else am I gonna do? Whine and bitch and be an elitist and go ‘Oh, this sucks. It’s not like it used to be and it’s not cool anymore’?”
There’s no going back, after all. And so deadmau5 — who was actually up for a Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical Grammy once before in 2009 but lost — is happy to get up onstage and play the Grammy game if it helps further the cause of electronic music in general.
“I don’t need a spraypainted piece of plastic to validate that I make music and that’s what I do and that’s my destiny, but it’s fun to play along,” he says. “And if playing along means it’s gonna get you exposure to a six-million-wide audience that might have, by chance, been blissfully ignorant to the music you make or to electronic music in general and then, in turn, tune in two million new fans and people who are gonna support new acts and new talent and just recognize it as a whole, well …
“If we get two million people turned onto EDM because me and a couple of others played the Grammys, that’s good for everyone.”
Zimmerman — better known by his production and performance alter ego, deadmau5 — heads into this evening’s Grammy ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles with perhaps not quite the commercial clout of Drake, but with the same number of nominations. And in addition to his three nods from the Recording Academy, he’s been drafted into one of those all-star performance numbers that have come to dominate the Grammy broadcast in recent years, a collaborative salute to electronic music that will also feature fellow dance producer and nominee David Guetta, along with pop-music A-listers Lil’ Wayne, Chris Brown and the Foo Fighters. It’s safe to say deadmau5 has arrived.
The performance thing makes absolutely zero sense on paper, mind you, given that three of the principles don’t really have anything to do with electronic dance music. Zimmerman — who is nominated in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category for his reworking of the Foos’ “Rope,” as well as in the Best Dance/Electronica category for 2010’s 4x4=12 album and the Best Dance Recording category for the inescapable single “Raise Your Weapon” — was nevertheless actually happier to do it than one might think a character with his reputation for churlishness would be. Turns out, he became friendly with Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters while making the festival rounds last summer.
“It’s cool, actually,” says Zimmerman, 32, during a hasty phone call between pre-Grammy duties from Los Angeles. “We kinda have a little bit of history so it’s less of a curveball for me. We did a European festival run and we would always be playing against the Foo Fighters at the same time — like, five shows in row. “It was just really funny. So we always had a chance to hang out on tour. We’d go to these big festivals and we were both playing super-late but we were there all day, so I’d just go hang with Dave and shoot the sh--. He’s a really good guy and it was really fun and he’s an amazing artist and singer and performer all around and we just get along good.
“So when it came to the Grammy thing, they were, like, ‘You have to work with someone and they have to be nominated. Oh, hey, you did a track with the Foo Fighters!’ It was perfect.”
The fact that Zimmerman spent the summer of 2011 co-headlining festivals in Europe and North America with the likes of the Foo Fighters — whom he played opposite once again on the final night of the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago last August, too — makes his high profile at this year’s Grammy Awards somewhat less of a surprise, yet deadmau5’s ascent over the last five years has still been remarkable for an act borne of Toronto’s oft-overlooked dance-music underground.
He’s only been releasing records for six years or so, but his penchant for pleasingly hard and grinding techno and electro-house, not to mention his peculiar habit of performing in a giant “mau5-head,” made him a popular live act from day one. And while Zimmerman is often sniffed at by dance purists for peddling cheap thrills to the masses, the steady upward curve in attendance at his gigs — which have grown ever more elaborate and high-tech in presentation in pace with the growing crowds — would suggest he’s doing something right.
Last November, he concluded a year that began with him playing the Vancouver Olympics (“Kind of awkward, but fun,” he says) by ending his world tour with a hometown(-ish) date at the Rogers Centre, selling the stadium out and drawing more than 20,000 fans to what was, essentially, an officially sanctioned rave. Before the gig, he was awarded the first platinum album award earned by a Canadian artist all year long for selling 100,000 copies of 4x4=12. A couple of days later, the local office of concert promoter Live Nation quietly announced it was forming a new electronic-music wing.
Zimmerman even has a hand in dance music’s other big Grammy player this year, 24-year-old dubstep DJ/producer Sonny “Skrillex” Moore, who is himself up for five awards, including Best New Artist. Deadmau5’s label, Mau5trap Recordings, was one of the first to release Skrillex’s material.He seems to be taking it all in stride, though.
“I’m just so emotionally detached from everything in life it’s not like I’m gonna go all Lady Gaga and break down in tears and thank the heavens for this crazy fate,” he shrugs. “I’m proud and I’ve patted myself on the back, but enough of that. Let’s do fun sh-- and introduce it into the mainstream culture as it should have happened 10 years ago, y’know?”
Zimmerman is old enough to have experienced Toronto’s once-mighty rave scene through its late-’90s peak, so he admits to mixed feelings about seeing himself, Skrillex and their ilk playing to crowds in the tens of thousands at massive, corporate-funded events. He will, however, concede that pulling off huge dance party at the former SkyDome (even somehow getting the venue to stay open three hours past it’s typical 11 p.m. curfew) was a pretty cool thing to do.
“I know, right? But like you, the only bad taste left in my mouth is that there’s no more grey area with electronic music anymore,” he says. “You buy your ticket to the big ‘rave’ at SkyDome through Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Dude, I really miss the meet-up points at Union Station and going to some dodgy thing that will very likely get shut down by the cops. That was fun, that was adventurous and it was a thing unique to you in your youth. And for kids today, that’s gone. I’ll always look back at it and be like: ‘Dammit, I wish I could get that back.’
“But what the (effing) else am I gonna do? Whine and bitch and be an elitist and go ‘Oh, this sucks. It’s not like it used to be and it’s not cool anymore’?”
There’s no going back, after all. And so deadmau5 — who was actually up for a Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical Grammy once before in 2009 but lost — is happy to get up onstage and play the Grammy game if it helps further the cause of electronic music in general.
“I don’t need a spraypainted piece of plastic to validate that I make music and that’s what I do and that’s my destiny, but it’s fun to play along,” he says. “And if playing along means it’s gonna get you exposure to a six-million-wide audience that might have, by chance, been blissfully ignorant to the music you make or to electronic music in general and then, in turn, tune in two million new fans and people who are gonna support new acts and new talent and just recognize it as a whole, well …
“If we get two million people turned onto EDM because me and a couple of others played the Grammys, that’s good for everyone.”
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