“The Voice” has crowned its third-season champion, pop singer Cassadee Pope, and it’s clear from her victory, won after the most votes ever cast for a “Voice” finale, that America wants her to have a long and successful singing career. But as those who’ve followed Pope’s pre-“Voice” career know, the sweet and personable singer has been working hard to make it in the music industry for quite some time now.

The Florida native discovered her love of singing at a young age and cultivated her talent as part of her middle school’s award-winning jazz band. Things didn’t get serious until 2008, when she became lead singer of the newly formed pop punk band Hey Monday. The band was discovered by Fall Out Boy frontman Pete Wentz, and they later signed a joint record deal with Wentz’s label Decaydance and Columbia Records. Read more here

With Ke$ha’s “Die Young” pulled from a number of radio stations in the wake of the shooting tragedy in Newtown, Conn., the RCA Records the singer had her own criticism for the hit song on Tuesday.

“i understand. I had my very own issue with ‘die young’ for this reason,” she wrote on Twitter on Tuesday evening. “I did NOT want to sing those lyrics and I was FORCED TO.”

The tweet was deleted not long after. An RCA rep had not returned a request for comment at press time. It was unclear at press time who she might have been claiming to have “forced” her to sing the lyrics. Ke$ha has a writing credit on the song, alongside Fun.’s Nate Reuss and producers Dr. Luke, Cirkut and Benny Blanco. Luke is also the head of Kemosabe, the label that releases her albums through RCA. She is managed by Vector Management.

She addressed the Connecticut events more directly with her next tweet, which remains published.

“I’m so so so sorry for anyone who has been effected by this tragedy.and I understand why my song is now inappropriate. words cannot express,” she tweeted. (Billboard)

Total Gross: $228,406,085 Number of Shows: 72
Total Attendance: 1,635,176 Number of Sell-Outs: 72
Artists are ranked by gross, compiled from Billboard Boxscores reported from Nov. 9, 2011, to Nov. 13, 2012. Read more here

Music Investment Tops $600 Million In 2012 according to Digital Music News.

“Anyone who thinks investment in music is ‘drying up’ clearly hasn’t looked at the numbers. Because with less than two weeks left in 2012, investment in music-related startups and companies has reached $619.3 million, a near-34 percent gain over 2011.

Spotify wasn’t the biggest catch, either. Deezer claimed a monstrous $130 million round, while Sonos received a handsome $135 million in financing. Those rounds, coupled with Spotify’s $100 million, accounted for roughly half the total pot.

Here’s the rundown of every financing round that we reported in 2012, typically confirmed by the participants (company, investors, or both), or filed publicly. Other times, figures were reaffirmed by publications like the Wall Street Journal. If we couldn’t solidly confirm the round, it wasn’t included.” Check out the chart here

The life of a celebrity can be quite alarming. In fact, cops have closed in on a real life ‘Justin Bieber’ kidnapping case.

“Investigators say two would-be hit men from Albuquerque may have had their sights set on the teen mega star; Justin Bieber. They had it planned down to the ties they were going to use to strangle to the pop star and three other people. A warning, the details are pretty graphic. Justin Bieber played for a sold out house just a few weeks at Madison Square Garden in New York City.That’s where investigators say Mark Staake and his nephew Tanner Ruane planned to take down the teen sensation.Turns out their Bieber fever started long ago, at the state prison near Las Cruces.” Read more here