Search Results for: young the giant

Beyoncé Knowles, multiplatinum sweetheart of the music award show circuit this year, was exhausted. She’d just appeared on the Vibe Awards and breathlessly arrived across town just in time to change clothes and take bows at the VH1 Awards. “Too many,” she said as she leaned against a wall backstage. Bad planning by VH1 and Vibe? Not really, there were four award shows that week including the American Music Awards and they were bound to butt heads somewhere. With television networks relentlessly reaching for younger viewers, an unprecedented 26 music award shows are now on cable and network TV. “There’s… Read more »

On Jan. 6, San Francisco’s Moscone convention center pulses with all the energy of a rock concert. A crowd sprinkled with hip-hop teenagers, digerati, and aging hippies streams in to hear the annual state-of-the-Mac keynote from Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Steven P. Jobs. Every facet of the event bears the fingerprints of the obsessive Jobs – right down to the music that fills the air. This year, it’s the King himself, Elvis Presley. Later, Jobs rolls the tape of Apple’s famous “1984” ad that ran on Super Bowl Sunday that year – and hasn’t been broadcast since. Only this… Read more »

The great digital music giveaway is about to begin. In the new year, some of the world’s biggest brands will promote their products and services by doling out millions of free downloads through alliances with digital music services. “You’re going to see lots of free music given out via third-party companies,” buymusic.com founder Scott Blum says. “It’s not going to be Apple and iTunes driving the business. It’s going to be companies like Pepsi and other third parties that are promoting digital music on bottle caps and on labels.” Indeed, Apple Computer has inked a deal with Pepsi to give… Read more »

“You may know this song,” Evanescence singer Amy Lee uttered demurely nine songs into the group’s headlining set Tuesday night at the Congress Theatre. “It’s the song that got us here.” Understatement of the year. Without “Bring Me to Life,” the ubiquitous rap-rock confection featured on Fallen, the Little Rock, Arkansas, troupe would be far more concerned finding people who can pronounce “Evanescence” than finding wall space for their double-platinum album. Now, only five months after the release of Fallen, Evanescence are headlining the Nintendo Fusion Tour, a 20-date excursion that has the band performing after Cold, the group that’s… Read more »

Their profanity-laced rock shows in the 1970s and ’80s drew the ire of the U.S. Senate, where Al and Tipper Gore accused them of endangering the morals of America’s youth and undermining parental authority. Two decades later, Twisted Sister is playing New Jersey’s two most family friendly venues – the Meadowlands State Fair, and Six Flags Great Adventure – and the “F” word is strictly off limits, by mutual agreement. Lead singer Dee Snider, who uses it dozens of times in a 90-minute concert, said the costumed, mascara-wearing band best known for hits like “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and… Read more »

Ticket sales are down, and big tours are scaling back to smaller venues. It looks to be a long, hot summer for the touring industry. On the cusp of the industry’s peak period, a number of high-profile tours and festivals have already hit snags, among them highly touted outings from Mariah Carey, the Field Day Music Festival, Lollapalooza, and Beck and Dashboard Confessional. Faced with a crowded tour market combined with high ticket prices, permit hassles, a sluggish economy and poor buzz, these tours and a handful of others have either had to scale back the size of the venues… Read more »

EMI, the music group that includes Capitol Records, has sued Bertelsmann AG, saying the German giant’s support of the music-swapping service Napster led to the infringement of EMI’s copyrights. The suit is similar to one brought last month by the Universal Music Group. It claims Bertelsmann’s 2000 investment in Napster kept the service alive for another year, during which people illegally swapped and downloaded countless copies of songs by EMI artists. “By investing both millions of dollars and management resources in Napster – which was an illegal enterprise built on the unlawful distribution of copyrighted works – Bertelsmann enabled and… 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 »

Tower Records, the storied 1960s music chain that launched the music megastore and became a cultural retailing icon, strolls into its 43rd holiday shopping season this weekend struggling with debt and on the ropes. The West Sacramento, Calif.-based Tower hopes four weeks of strong sales will reverse a new image as the tottering giant inside a stumbling music industry. Among the chain’s troubles: deep-discounting rivals, changing consumer habits, lack of hits and its own missteps in the 1990s as the music business began a dramatic shift. Tower exemplifies the even deeper woes in a recording industry beset by piracy, computer… Read more »

The Blasters’ singer and guitarist Phil Alvin speaks like the band plays: short, fast and furious. “My father was very upset when I quit school,” he said, trying at breakneck speed to make his words catch up with his thoughts. “He took the neck of my guitar and screwed it to the dustpan. Then he scooped the dog crap with it, and left it in the garage. Every time I turned on the light on, I’d have to walk past it.” But Phil ignored his father’s exhortations, and with the help of his younger brother Dave, formed one of the… Read more »