Search Results for: a whole new sound

It’s fitting that the title of the new Blink-182 single connotes permanence. The release of “Always” has given the band’s year-old untitled album unprecedented longevity. “It’s the first time we’ve ever had four singles,” singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge explained. “[This album] is like ‘The Little Engine That Could.’ We even talked about a fifth single. We’ve never done this before. It is kind of weird that we’re still around.” Since the band’s sixth album dropped last November, it’s yielded the singles “Feeling This,” “I Miss You,” “Down” and “Always,” which is expected to surface at radio next week. Should there be… Read more »

Music is a major aspect of the highly anticipated Xbox game “Halo 2,” due Nov. 9 at U.S. retail outlets. Beyond Incubus’ exclusive four-movement suite, “The Odyssey,” the game and companion soundtrack album feature a new Breaking Benjamin track, “Blow Me Away,” and Hoobastank’s “Connected.” The bulk of the “Halo 2” soundtrack features new symphonic compositions by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori. The pair penned the original “Halo: Combat Evolved” soundtrack, which has sold about 40,000 copies, according to Nile Rodgers, who assembled the music for the new game via his company Sumthing Else Music Works. Rodgers, who produced the… Read more »

When speaking this month to a representative from Soundscan, the company that provides much of the data for the Billboard Top 200 Chart, I learned things that would contradict reported statements by the RIAA. Mainly that US labels have had a significant reduction in sales over the past three years. Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, responded personally, put his rebuttals on the record and in the process exposed intriguing insight into the way the RIAA calculates “losses.” Soundscan is a service owned by Nielsen, the company that computes TV ratings. Soundscan uses the barcodes on CDs to register sales… Read more »

Jason Mraz’s year at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy is paying off after all. In the video for his new single, “You and I Both,” the singer/songwriter puts some of his musical-theater skills to use. “I’m in love with a bank teller,” Mraz said, explaining the clip. “I’m just trying to make a deposit and I’m misinterpreted, I’m misread going into the bank when I slip her a love letter. The bank manager thinks it’s like a robbery note, he sounds the alarm, all hell breaks loose and a big dance number breaks out. You know, that’s what usually… Read more »

It looks like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are reuniting for a concert tour. The former duo has reserved dates at concert arenas across the country, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a concert industry trade publication. And they were scheduled to make a “very special announcement” at a New York nightclub on Tuesday, publicists said. There has been talk of a tour since Simon & Garfunkel performed together to open the Grammy Awards ceremony in February, and they’ve done the logistical groundwork, Bongiovanni said. “Everyone’s been expecting it,” he said. “It was still in the speculative stages, because you… Read more »

Anyone who pegs Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba as a sad pompadoured sack based on heartbreakers like “Again I Go Unnoticed” and “Screaming Infidelities” should get ready to change their perception of him. His new album, A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar, portrays the man tagged by many as a poster boy for emo in a mood that contradicts his conventionally accepted disposition. “I’m actually excited about the fact that it’s a happier record,” Carrabba said. “If it dispels those conceptions that I’m like, ultra mopey, that would be great because anybody who’s met me can tell you… Read more »

The lyrics to the song “This Is My Life Story” by MXPX run through my head as I hopelessly scramble to the very back of the line. I left later than I had hoped, got caught up in D.C. traffic, and arrived about 5 minutes before doors were scheduled to open. Once inside, I rush to get as close to the stage as I possible. While mashed between about five teeny boppers and their “boyfriends,” anticipation runs through my bones as I eagerly await the first performance. First up is Further Seems Forever. I was a little skeptical about this… Read more »

They might have called their new album Sticks and Stones so that if critics trashed it they could retort by sneering, sticking out their tongues and saying, “names will never hurt me.” But that’s not the reason. For New Found Glory, names are as dangerous as flung fists, and throughout the record they reveal how damaged they’ve been by barbed words. “On the cover of the record we have a little girl beating up a guy,” guitarist Steve Klein explained recently. “When we were younger, relationships with girls were a lot easier. You could hit each other and it would… Read more »

In the city of sin, Britney Spears behaved. There was no dissing of Justin Timberlake during the opening night of the second leg of the Dream Within a Dream Tour. No cigarette smoking. No… whatever vice the rumor mills have her doing this week. Things may have changed in Britney’s well-chronicled life since the last time we saw her onstage – and that’s only if you believe the gossip – but there were no signs of it Friday at Mandalay Bay. The 20-year-old headliner was the same pop princess she was at 19. Nearly every part of Spears’ 90-minute show… Read more »

Considering their last album was released in 1993, you’d think the Breeders could have come up with an album title in that time. Instead, they named their new release Title TK, which in journalism jargon means “title to come” – used when information is still forthcoming. As coolly detached as she is, frontwoman Kim Deal wasn’t being a slacker. This title was conceived even before this album, due May 21, was. “I always thought Title TK sounded cool. Even when Last Splash didn’t have a name, I thought I’d call it Title TK, but I didn’t use it then. And… Read more »