Being an EDM DJ is definitely a cool job. You get paid tons of money. You get to travel the world. Also, doing drugs is basically part of your career. But sometimes you can probably do too many drugs and all of a sudden you find yourself in front of hundreds of thousands of people as deafening music blares and hoooooly shit whaaaaat is happening.

The American Music Awards aired last night. It was every bit the waste of time that you'd expect from a ceremony that, like the Billboard Music Awards, gives out trophies based on sales and presence (airplay, streaming, social networks, etc.) but fosters the illusion that it is awarding its already awarded stars based on merit (whatever that is). Notable moments included:

This week, the music industry looks something like Christmas. It's not that the new music releases are gifts, per se (quite the contrary), but there are so damn many high-profile albums after a relatively dormant summer. This kind of flurry is usually reserved for the holidays. And what's more, together they give as full of a picture of the state of label-based pop music in 2012 as any recent concurrent set of albums. Really, all this week is missing is a neo-boy band. Let's explore:

The great American pastime of reading musicians' touring demands now encompasses the current crop of electronic producer/DJs under the stylistic umbrella of "EDM." The blog EDMsnob has leaked a host of riders from the likes of David Guetta, Afrojack, Paul Van Dyk, DJ Pauly D and current Rolling Stone cover mask-wearer deadmau5. Some of these are years old, and most of them are not unreasonable at all, but there are amusing tidbits to be gleaned. Here are a few: