Russian-German producer and classically trained music sensation Zedd- multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. The Russian-German musician, DJ and record producer is a Grammy award winner who has been inspired from the classic music, but primarily produces and performs electro house music with diversified genre and musical style, drawing influences from progressive house, dubstep, Electropop, Progressive House, Electro House, Dance-Pop, Complextro, Tropical House and classical music. He currently resides in the United States with career beginning in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Anton Zaslavski popularly called Zed (from the first letter of his surname) but was born in Saratov, Russia on 2nd September 1989 to a Jewish as well as musical family. His mother is a piano teacher /piano instructor while his father – a schoolteacher and guitarist. Zed’s family relocated to Kaiserslautern, Germany when he was four years old (he’s got an older brother, Arkadi and a younger brother, Daniel). In his childhood, he learned the piano among other instrumentals as well as classic music. When he was 12, he tried to play drum. Zedd grew up and began his career in Kaiserslautern, Germany
In 2002, Zaslavski began playing for the German death core band Dioramic, signed by Life-force Records. Zaslavski’s interest in producing electronic music was piqued after hearing † by the French electronic duo Justice. In 2009, Zedd produced the electronic music after he was impressed with Justice, an electronic duo. In 2012, Zedd signed with Interscope Records and released his debut single Spectrum which shot to the top of Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Songs before dropping his debut studio album, Clarity in October 2012, with “Spectrum” being the album’s lead single,
Clarity – the album also has a track with the same title featuring British singer-songwriter Foxes, as the album’s third single. The single charted in the top 10 of Billboard Hot 100 as well as on various international charts. It sold 2,238,000 copies and was certified platinum and made it to the Grammy award 2014 making it Zedd’s first big win and most successful single to date. For clarity sake, we got that hit song sitting at the number 1spot already. But right now, we usher in number 4 song.
No 4 “I Want You to Know” with Selena Gomez (Off the Album- True Colors in 2015 peaked number four on the Billboard 200 on its release date)
When two rumoured lovers come together on a song. it was the highest charted song on the album peaking at number 17 . The song won Choice Theme Song and nominated for “Choice Party Song” at the Teen Choice Awards in 2015. #1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Songs and peaked at number 17 on Billboard Hot 100 in 2015. The song was certified platinum in the US for selling over one million copies. That song was before released in February 2015, before Zedd took a break
Yeah! After that the debut album and a few more works like “Stay the Night” (bonus track), featuring Hayley Williams – the deluxe version to the album in 2013, and world tour in 2013, “Find You” – the soundtrack for the film Divergent in January 2014 and of course Moment of Clarity- a documentary about him and his 2013 world tour in December 2014 through his YouTube channel and collaborations, he was off the scene for a period of six-month then returned in 2015 with second studio album -True Colors.
Right before the album, Zedd released his second single, “Beautiful Now” featuring Jon Bellion, on 13 May 2015 while True Colors two came in days later. True colour-the album peaked at number 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums, and has ranked at other various international charts. The third single “Papercut” off the album True Colors featured Troye Sivan and was released on 17 July 2015.
True Colors Zedd’s second studio album (won 2016 Billboard Music Awards for Top Dance/Electronic Album. Prior to the album release, in May 2015, Zedd had entered into an agreement with location-based social discovery application called Tinder. The partnership agreement will see Tinder offering Zedd’s album- True Colors to its users in the US. However, Tinder announced this deal in an official tweet on their timeline disclosing that the deal, is not a revenue generation deal but purely a marketing move.
He took a small break of three months during 2016. The reason why he took that break was to relax and focus on his career. He came back from his and then released, “Stay” on February 2017, Zedd released his collaboration along with Alessia Cara, “Stay” which debuted at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 33 on the UK Singles Chart. On 6 July 2017, Zedd released his single with Liam Payne, “Get Low”. On 23 January 2018, Zedd released his single -The Middle with Maren Morris and Grey.
No 3- Stay ft Alessia Cara’s
No 2 “The Middle” with Maren Morris and Grey
Stay (No 3 song) was nominated at 2018 Grammy under the category Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, won Dance Song song of the year at the iHeart Radio Music Award in March this year (2018) and MTV Video Music Award for Best Dance Video in 2017.
What a fantastic collab between Zedd and Alessia Cara’s. I mean Stay at iHeart Award was nominated alongside Cheat Codes & Demi Lovato’s “No Promises,” Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye” featuring Sean Paul & Anne-Marie, The Chainsmokers & Coldplay’s “Something Just Like This,” and Kygo & Selena Gomez’s “It Ain’t Me.”
The middle was raised to No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Songs radio chart and peaked at No. 5 spot on the Billboard Hot 100
Talking about music Zedd’s genre, he has been inspired from the classic music, dubstep and progressive house music. His main work is related to the production of electro house music. He had produced different kinds of originals and remixes and due to his amazing skills for producing remixes, Zedd has worked with many A-list artists like The Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and many more. He’s produced’s Lady Gaga’s third studio album -Born This Way (2011) the remix
SUMMARY
In 2012, Zedd released “Clarity” featuring Foxes, which propelled him to mainstream success, reaching the 8th position on the Billboard Hot 100. Other well-known productions include the songs “Stay” with Alessia Cara, peaking at number 7, and, as a featured artist, “Break Free” with Ariana Grande, peaking at number 4. Zedd won a Grammy for Best Dance Recording at the 56th Grammy Awards for “Clarity”. In March 2018, Billboard named Zedd as number seven on their 2018 ranking of dance musicians titled Billboard Dance 100. Studio albums: 2, EPs: 7, Compilation albums: 1, Singles: 26, one compilation album, 10 music videos, seven extended plays ..
CONCLUSION
He once disclosed in an interview that best thing about being a DJ is being able to play your favorite songs every night while worst thing about being a DJ is playing the worst songs every night and that he wished the slang word “lit”would go away.
No1 Clarity off the Grammy award winning album – clarity (debut album).
Won: the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording at the 56th Grammy Awards in 2014. Clarity became the #1 most played on American radio on 10 September 2013. It was so huge that Zedd concluded 2013 with his first world-wide tour, selling out venues across 5 continents.
AWARDS & NOMINATIONS
Awards won 11 and Nominations 76
Zedd has been nominated as an artist for three American Music Awards, two Billboard Music Awards, two DJ Awards, one Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award and five MTV Awards. He has released two studio albums: Clarity (2012), True Colors (2015)
