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Today at noon, the popular modern rock station WHFS 99.1, founded in the 1960s and owned by Infinity Broadcasting, was reformatted to become “El Zol.” The new station features salsa, merengue, bacchata, Caribbean and Central American dance music in a Spanish-language format. “This is the first top 10 market that we’ve done this in,” said Karen Mateo, director of communications at Infinity. “We’re looking to expand into this marketplace and this is the first station that we’ve done this with.” El Zol is targeted at the growing population of Spanish-speaking residents in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, almost 10 percent… Read more »

Los Angeles – According to the Chinese calendar, 2005 will be the year of the rooster. Looking back at the year in music, 2004 goes down as the year of Usher, not only in pop, but certainly in R&B/hip-hop. The seemingly invincible singer-songwriter commandeers the top of the R&B and pop charts this year, thanks to his album “Confessions.” In the R&B realm, the Atlanta-based artist takes the No. 1 spot on year-end recaps including Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artists, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artists-Male and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. That’s in addition to his status on the pop recaps: Top Pop Artists, Top Pop… Read more »

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – In the last day before the election, Bush’s challenger John Kerry has opened up a more decisive lead (56% – 44%) in an online music poll tracking Republican and Democratic musical tastes conducted by free hi-fi digital radio service http://www.BlueBeat.com. More than 40,000 users have logged their choices for Republican and Democratic- themed musical playlists on the site. Users can still vote at: http://www.bluebeat.com/cgi-bin/pres_kp_vote.cgi. In addition to music by artists favored by the Bush/Cheney and Kerry/Edwards campaigns, as well as partisan musicians on both sides, the site features a reissue of Kerry’s original garage band album… Read more »

Miami – WHO: Multi-platinum superstar hip-hop artist/producer Missy Elliott WHAT: After 33 days and 26 cities in 10 states on the road, The Hip-Hop Team Vote GOTV Bus Tour, a national joint effort by HSAN and America Coming Together (ACT) to increase youth voter turnout in the presidential election, tomorrow November 2nd, the southern Bus will pick up youth from all over the Miami area and take them to the polls. Missy Elliott will get on the Hip-Hop Team Vote GOTV Bus and drive with some of the kids to a polling place where she will encourage young people to… Read more »

Though U.S. album sales were down last year for the third year in a row – the longest stretch in 20 years – Nielsen SoundScan numbers still contain some bright spots for 2003. For the full year, album sales declined 3.6% to 667.9 million units from the 693.1 scanned in 2002. But when looking at the fourth quarter, album sales rose 4.7% from the October-December period in 2002. That has caused some executives to proclaim that the industry has hit bottom. Indeed, at mid-year, sales were down 8.6%. That gap was closed by the fourth-quarter surge. What’s more, 2004 is… Read more »

Although industry-wide album sales were down from the same weeks of last year in the two stanzas prior to Christmas, an extra gift-shopping day during the holiday frame closed 2003 on an up note. With the holiday shifting back a day, from Wednesday in 2002 to Thursday, album sales are up a whopping 20.6% over the same week of the prior year. The final week’s splurge more than compensates for the 5.8% deficit seen the week before the Christmas frame or the 0.5% gap of the year’s 50th week. Further, the 31.3 million album units sold during this Christmas shopping… Read more »

Pink believes one of the best ways to make sure fur isn’t in vogue is to make sure it isn’t in Vogue. The singer has written to Anna Wintour, asking the famously fur-wearing editor to stop promoting fur in her trendsetting magazine. Pink’s handwritten note, faxed Tuesday afternoon, urges Wintour to “modernize your magazine and stop promoting fur.” If that isn’t possible, Pink asks that Vogue at least allow organizations such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to run anti-fur ads for balance. The singer also writes that “many designers, unaware of my respect for animals, have… Read more »

These days, try putting on a CD by your favorite rapper without hearing an endless series of plugs for Burberry, Air Force Ones, Alizé, Maybach, you name it. But are hip-hop’s ubiquitous product mentions just about artists chronicling their high-rollin’ lifestyles, or have the forces of marketing worked their way into your favorite rapper’s tunes? What’s next, a hit track written about Hummers paid for by the car’s manufacturer? Well, maybe. “Unless someone is paying me a billion dollars or offering equity, we don’t play that,” Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash said of writing products into a song on request.… Read more »

In a year fraught with political turmoil, turbulence and insecurity, music fans turned to their favorite songs to take them away from many of their problems and help them come to terms with others that were impossible to escape. Whether it was Eminem rapping, “Lose yourself in the music,” or Bruce Springsteen singing, “Come on up for the rising/ Come on up, lay your hands in mine,” the messages of unity were universal. At the 45th annual Grammy Awards, held Sunday (February 23) at New York’s Madison Square Garden, apolitical hedonists and social activists alike rallied together to celebrate the… Read more »

Former allies in the fight against music piracy, Internet access providers and the recording industry, are now headed to court in a dispute over how to target individuals who swap copyrighted material online. The recording industry wants telecommunications giant Verizon Communications to reveal the name of a customer it believes is “a hub for significant music piracy” as it pursues the Internet song-swappers it blames for declining CD sales. Verizon has refused, saying that such a move would violate customer privacy and force Internet providers to serve as the music industry’s online policeman. At issue is a 1998 digital-copyright law… Read more »