Rising star Mike Posner is a student in more ways than one.
“Change will come,” Patrick Stump sings on “(Coffee’s for Closers),” a typically excitable cut from the new Fall Out Boy album. Considering that the Chicago band’s original plan to release “Folie a Deux” on Election Day, that lyric was likely intended as a tip of the hoodie to Barack Obama Now it plays more like an acknowledgement of the evolution of FOB’s sound, which since 2005’s breakthrough ” From Under the Cork Tree ” has taken on new complexities without losing the fist-pumping qualities that made Stump and his bandmates mall-punk superstars. “Folie” is easily the group’s most adventurous outing… Read more »
Gotta hand it to Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz and company: The hardworking, blue-collar Midwestern pop-punkers-with-an-emo-attitude have gotten ever savvier and, dare I say, more mature with their songwriting and song-arranging. Consequently, “Folie a Deux,” (French for “madness shared by two”) may be one of the year’s most surprising albums. A tactfully produced (Neil Avron/Pharell Williams) affair that steers the Chicago-area band more toward the pop mainstream without sacrificing Fall Out Boy’s anthemic brashness, the band’s fifth album represents the zenith of its seven-year career. Some tracks — “I Don’t Care” with its “Spirit in the Sky” guitars and the zippy… Read more »
Since MP3s first became popular a decade ago, music industry executives have obsessed over this question: when would digital music revenue finally surpass compact disc sales? For Atlantic Records, the label that in years past has delivered artists like Ray Charles, John Coltrane and Led Zeppelin, that time, apparently, is now. Atlantic, a unit of Warner Music Group, says it has reached a milestone that no other major record label has hit: more than half of its music sales in the United States are now from digital products, like downloads on iTunes and ring tones for cellphones. “We’re like a… Read more »
The Gym Class Heroes have experimented so much on their latest CD that even frontman Travis McCoy can’t quite describe the group’s newly formed sound. “It’s like our last two efforts combined in a sense, but pushed further. Hence the title ‘The Quilt.’ It’s like a patchwork of sounds, different arrangements (and) real lyrics,” says McCoy, trying to explain the CD, released earlier this month. “Musically, I think it’s a big cocktail of everything that’s inspired us over the past two years,” he said. “It is definitely rooted in hip-hop and hip-hop is like the main course on the plate,… Read more »
My Chemical Romance’s tour in support of its 2006 album “The Black Parade” forms the basis of “The Black Parade Is Dead!,” a CD/DVD package due June 24. The project was filmed October 7, 2007, at Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes, and October 24, 2007, at the tiny Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey. The CD portion of the Warner Bros. release sports 13 tracks, a track list it shares with disc one of the DVD, taped in Mexico City. The second DVD disc boasts 18 songs from the Hoboken show. In addition, “The Black Parade Is Dead!” can be… Read more »
The major music companies have been resistant to lowering their price on CDs, but now they may be dragged to that point: Wal-Mart, the largest retailer of music with an estimated 22 percent market share, has proposed a five-tiered pricing scheme that would allow the discounter to sell albums at even lower prices and require the labels to bear more of the costs. According to sources, the Wal-Mart proposal would allow for a promotional program that could comprise the top 15 to 20 hottest titles, each at $10. The rest of the pricing structure, according to several music executives who… Read more »
A previously unreleased Smashing Pumpkins song, “SuperChrist,” will be released on a CD featuring bands consisting of employees of Guitar Center. The album will be available from March 1 at Guitar Center outlets. The members of the Pumpkins chose the acts appearing on the compilation based on submissions from Guitar Center. “SuperChrist” did not make the cut for the Pumpkins’ 2007 album “Zeitgeist,” but has been performed on tour. It will be the subject of a new video, premiering February 27 on MySpace. “We didn’t feel we understood the song and thought playing it on tour would help us sort… Read more »
Testimony today in Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas quickly and inadvertently turned to the topic of fair use when Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to the stand to testify. Pariser said that file-sharing is extremely damaging to the music industry and that record labels are particularly affected. In doing so, she advocated a view of copyright that would turn many honest people into thieves. Pariser noted that music labels make no money on touring, radio, or merchandise, which leaves the company particularly exposed to the negative effects of file-sharing. “It’s my personal… Read more »
Executive said on Monday the music company’s business was poised to rebound as it tapped new revenue streams to counter the decline in sales of traditional CDs. Warner Music, the only publicly listed major music company in the United States, has seen its share price decline as CD sales have fallen. People are increasingly buying music through online downloads rather than physical CDs and records. The company’s third-quarter earnings report, for the three months to June 30, showed a 2 percent revenue decline as growth in digital revenue failed to make up for declining CD sales. To counter this, the… Read more »
