Meet the figurehead of the EDM movement (Created February 13, 2013)

Pop music's trendiest 'artists' aren't the ones you're going to find on the top of the Billboard 200. They also aren't the most-well known names heralded for selling out stadiums and arenas around the world. But EDM – electronic dance music – has hit the mainstream, thrusting names like Deadmau5 (pronounced "dead mouse") into the spotlight.

Joel Thomas Zimmerman, who is known by his Deadmau5 moniker, is a Canadian electro-house music producer and performer. He is also one of the stars most affected by the EDM movement, and not just because he's more noticeable by performing in a headdress, or mau5head, which resembles the famed Walt Disney Mickey Mouse icon. His career began with three self-released compilations that were finished in 2006, and the follower year Zimmerman began his own record label, "mau5trap."

Deadmau5's career took off when his collaboration with Kaskade, "Move for Me", reached No. 1 on Billboard magazine's Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart in September 2008. Two more of his tracks ("I Remember" with Kaskade and "Ghosts 'n' Stuff with Rob Swire) followed the same path, and in 2009 he was the best-selling artist in the online music store Beatport, with more than 30,000 digital downloads. By 2010, he had been named as the house DJ for the MTV Video Music Awards, where he performed with Jason Derulo and Travie McCoy.

A somewhat controversial figure, Deadmau5 made headlines for his comments about DJs by saying, "I don't really see the technical merit in playing two songs at the same speed together and it bores me to tears." He also used Twitter as a vehicle to accuse Madonna of promoting ecstasy at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami in 2012, and in early 2013 wore a hat to the Grammys that read "Your S*** Bums Me Out." However, he had the 'S' covered with tape within minutes, obscuring the expletive so it read "Your Hit Bums Me Out."