The debate of the many subgenre distinctions of metal goes on, this time focusing on Japanese band Babymetal. In this editorial, Brad Lopez argues that metal fans are wasting effort attacking or defending Babymetal.
Assembling the White Zombie boxed set ” Let Sleeping Corpses Lie ” was “weird” and somewhat bittersweet for Rob Zombie the frontman for the defunct metal group that broke up in 1996. “The funny thing was when I was putting it together, it seemed so long ago,” Zombie told Billboard.com. “It felt like I was putting together a box set of someone else’s band. It just seemed like forever ago, and some of the early songs are, like, 20 years ago or something. It just seemed weird.” The Geffen Records set, which boasts four CDs and one DVD, came out… Read more »
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed in Baghdad at 6:05 a.m. Saturday morning (December 30), 10:05 p.m. ET, less than a week after a death sentence against him was upheld for his role in the ordering the execution of 148 Shiite Muslims in 1982, CNN has confirmed. The execution was not shown on live television, although it was videotaped, CNN reports. Images of atrocities wreaked by his regime were broadcast on state TV leading up to the hanging, according to A source told CNN that people danced around Hussein’s body and engaged in Shiite chants in the room where… Read more »
One sunny afternoon not long ago, Dick Copaken sat in a booth at Daniel, one of those hushed, exclusive restaurants on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where the waiters glide spectrally fro table to table. He was wearing a starched button-down shirt and a blue blazer. Every strand of his thinning hair was in place, and he spoke calmly and slowly, his large pink Charlie Brow head bobbing along evenly as he did. Copaken spent many years as a partner at the white-shoe Washington, D.C., firm Covington & Burling, and he has a lawyer’s gravitas. One of his bes friends calls… Read more »
Some of the greatest hard-rock bands in history have thoroughly awesome – and thoroughly undead – mascots. Iron Maiden have toothy demon Eddie. Megadeth have a similarly toothy yet blind demon named Vic Rattlehead. And Motörhead unleash yet another toothy, snarling hellion: a bulldog/gorilla named Snaggletooth. So you can’t blame My Chemical Romance for wanting to get in on the act. By now, you’ve probably seen the video for “Helena,” in which MCR play pallbearers at a funeral for a young girl who just happens to rise from her casket about halfway through the clip to bust into a ballerina… Read more »
For an album about a mute, the latest Mars Volta opus sure has a lot to say. It’s a concept album of sorts, but since nothing with the Mars Volta is ever simple, Frances the Mute isn’t a concept easily explained. Not that the band won’t try. Instead of looking at the upcoming album as an idea, they see it as a character, a resurrected body based on the thoughts of a stranger seeking to find his adopted parents, written in a diary found by former bandmember Jeremy Ward (who later died in 2003) while working as a repo man.… Read more »
The owner of a Detroit studio where Eminem purportedly cut his best-selling debut album, The Slim Shady LP, was found dead Tuesday, the victim of an apparent vendetta, according to local authorities. A business acquaintance discovered the body of Amjed A. Abdallah lying in a pool his own blood on the floor of Studio 8. Investigators said the 36-year-old Jordanian engineer was shot at least twice, most likely on Sunday, based on the bloated condition of the corpse. A bullet casing from a.357-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. Police do not have a definitive motive in the slaying. Initially… Read more »
Ozzy crooned, mooned and squirted his water guns, Disturbed bellowed, and Marilyn Manson vamped it up, but Ozzfest has always been just as much about the lesser-known acts, and Sunday’s show was no exception. Though bands like Kilgore, Pushmonkey and the perhaps aptly named No One have proven that Ozzfest exposure alone won’t make you famous, second-stage alumni System of a Down and Slipknot can attest that it certainly doesn’t hurt. Killswitch Engage’s potential spot in the Slipknot category seemed all but assured even before they appeared at Dallas’ Smirnoff Music Centre. Even though it was only the second show… Read more »
Scott Stapp and humor hardly go hand in hand, but Joey Fatone is doing his best to change that. The ‘NSYNC singer is parodying Creed’s “Higher” on his upcoming comedy album. “I want to do ‘Can You Change My Tire?’ ” Fatone said Monday. “Just silly stuff, something stupid like that.” Creed are Fatone’s first victims outside of his own ‘NSYNC circle. He’s working on JC Chasez’s “Blowin’ Me Up (With Her Love)” and has already tackled Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River.” “I’m doing ‘Buy Me a Liver,’ about drinking too much alcohol,” he said. The as-yet-untitled album, which… Read more »
Linkin Park’s “Meteora” maintains its No. 1 standing on the Billboard 200 for a second-straight week, despite a hefty 67% drop in U.S. sales. The band’s sophomore Warner Bros. album sold 265,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, bringing its two-week sales total above the 1 million mark. The No. 1 entry of “Meteora” on The Billboard 200 followed a similar opening on the U.K. album chart. In addition, last week the album’s first single “Somewhere I Belong” took over the top slot Billboard’s Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock airplay charts. Detroit duo the White Stripes had a strong opening week… Read more »
