Search Results for: columbia records

Norio Ohga, chairman of the Sony Corp. board of directors, was hospitalized Wednesday after suffering a “fainting spell” while conducting the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra at the Beijing International Festival, a company spokeswoman said. Ohga was in stable condition and conscious, the spokeswoman said. Further details were not available. Ohga, credited with spearheading Sony’s development of the compact disc and its push into music and movies in the 1980s, assumed the largely ceremonial post of chairman of the Sony board in June 2000. Nobuyuki Idei is Sony’s chief executive officer and has more direct operational responsibility. Shares of Sony fell 6… Read more »

Rapper DMX and hard rockers Incubus landed one-two this week atop the SoundScan album charts for the week ended Oct. 29, the last week before the heavy-hitters start flooding the marketplace in time for the holidays. DMX’s latest for Universal/Def Jam, “Great Depression,” sold 440,000 units in its first week out, topping Incubus’ fourth album, “Morning View” (Epic), which logged 266,000 in sales. The Dave Matthews Band’s live disc, “Live in Chicago 12-19-98 at the United Center” (RCA) was the only other debut to crack the top 10, landing at No. 6 on sales of nearly 131,000. Last week’s No.… Read more »

Brooklyn-born rapper Jay-Z’s latest LP, “Blueprint,” led a torrent of new releases at the top of the album charts this week as America’s record buyers continued to shop despite Sept. 11’s terrorist attacks. The Island/Def Jam release flew off shelves last week, shifting nearly 427,000 units, according to data compiled by SoundScan. Sales of “Blueprint” were powered by the near-ubiquity of its first single, “H.O.V.A. (Izzo),” on both urban radio and music television. Island/Def Jam’s chart dominance continued in the latest session with Nickelback’s “Silver Side Up,” which came in at No. 2 with 178,000 copies sold. “Silver Side Up”… Read more »

Alice Cooper has been named the recipient of this year’s Living Legend Award from the International Horror Guild, marking the first time the Guild has reached beyond the literary world to give someone the honor. Previous winners have included authors Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, and Clive Barker, among others. The award is given to those “who have made a meritorious and notable contribution and/or have substantially influenced the field of horror and dark fantasy.” Cooper’s award will be handed out Saturday (September 1) at Atlanta’s Hyatt Regency Hotel as part of the weekend-long Dragon*Con, one of the largest conventions in… Read more »

Columbia Recording artist Maxwell’s eagerly-awaited third full-length album, Now, is debuting at the #1 slot on the Billboard Top 200 Album Sales chart with first week’s sales of more than 296,000 units, according to SoundScan. It’s Maxwell’s first #1 debut (his last full-length studio album, 1998’s Embrya debuted at #3) and best single week’s sales figures to-date. In celebration of the release of Now, Maxwell is following up his recent SRO New York 7 concerts-a precedent-setting series of seven sold-out performances in seven different venues across Manhattan (for a total of 20,000 tickets sold)-with his first major national tour in… Read more »

Rumors of teen-pop’s death have been greatly exaggerated, as genre standard-bearers ‘N Sync showed convincingly by posting the second-best debut-week sales numbers in history. Nearly 1.9 million copies of the superstar quintet’s Jive release “Celebrity” flew from retail shelves in the week ended Sunday, according to data compiled by SoundScan. That’s about a half-million short of the group’s record-breaking sales week with its prior LP “No Strings Attached,” which bowed in March 2000 and has sold 10.6 million copies nationwide to date. It’s more than enough, however, to top 2001’s second biggest bow, the Dave Matthews Band’s “Everyday” (RCA). The… Read more »

Radio airplay is and has been the primary driver of retail record sales in the United States. Some estimate that nearly 90 percent of sales is the direct result of an artist being exposed on radio. But today, radio is joined by an array of other media choices: MTV, BET, and VH1, digital downloads, and streamed audio. Consumers borrow friend’s CDs and tapes, and see live performance. Any record label or promoter would be remiss by ignoring any one of these outlets since they all help to sell music. In the first-ever project of its kind, James Schureck at Jeff… Read more »

Alicia Keys says her expectations for her debut album, “Songs in A Minor,” never had anything to do with how well it sold. “Being connected with people, that’s what I hope for,” the 20-year-old Manhattan native says. “Numbers I leave for everyone else to count and calculate.” Well, everyone else has had a lot of calculating to do. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart after its release June 26. “We were stunned by the sales,” said Clive Davis, the music-industry veteran who heads up Keys’ label, J records. “Stunned” pretty much sums up the music world’s… Read more »

For the first time in almost four years, one of Australia’s most successful rock bands, INXS, is playing a few shows in North America. But the crowd at their recent Los Angeles stop consisted of about 70 Rhino Records employees and a few reporters, just two of the band’s six members were on stage, and the bespectacled singer looked nothing like Michael Hutchence, the group’s charismatic vocalist. Hutchence committed suicide in November 1997, and his bandmates are having a hard time deciding whether to carry on. In the meantime, they have released a two-CD anthology, “Shine Like It Does,” via… Read more »

Janet Jackson is calling it her “All For You” tour, but the pop diva may have trouble convincing thousands of Canadian fans that it’s all for them. The day before she was due to open her world tour in Vancouver, British Columbia, Jackson and her managers decided to postpone Thursday night’s show until Monday, July 9, blaming the late arrival of stage equipment for the abrupt schedule change. As a result, Jackson’s tour will kick off Saturday, July 7, in Portland, Ore., and a planned July 10 stop in Edmonton, Alberta, will be canceled altogether, organizers said. “This production is… Read more »