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Jack White's Little Stripe


Is the hardest button to button the one when you’re on diaper duty? Such are the thoughts undoubtedly preoccupying Jack White and his British model missus, Karen Elson, as the couple welcomed a new son on Tuesday. “Karen Elson and Jack White are now the proud parents of a healthy baby boy,” said Chloe Walsh, publicist for the White Stripes frontman. “The new child and his mother are both feeling very healthy and happy.” The infant, named Henry Lee White, is the second ankle biter for the couple. Henry’s sister, Scarlett Teresa White, was born in May 2006. The 32-year-old… Read more »

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Musical Tastes Get High-Tech


OAKLAND, Calif. – Music retailers are turning to high-tech firms that combine computer analysis with the art of listening to come up with new music suggestions for consumers based on what they already like. In a computer-crammed space at Savage Beast Technologies, divergent melodies seep softly from headphones worn by young men and women who listen to music with the intensity of submarine sonar operators. Their job is to discern and define attributes in tunes by artists as diverse as teen diva Hilary Duff and jazz legend Miles Davis. The listeners classify hundreds of characteristics about each song, including beat,… Read more »

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WHFS Dumps Alt-Rock For Latin Format, Becomes El Sol


Today at noon, the popular modern rock station WHFS 99.1, founded in the 1960s and owned by Infinity Broadcasting, was reformatted to become “El Zol.” The new station features salsa, merengue, bacchata, Caribbean and Central American dance music in a Spanish-language format. “This is the first top 10 market that we’ve done this in,” said Karen Mateo, director of communications at Infinity. “We’re looking to expand into this marketplace and this is the first station that we’ve done this with.” El Zol is targeted at the growing population of Spanish-speaking residents in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, almost 10 percent… Read more »

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Infinity Cuts Ties with Independent Promoters


Infinity Broadcasting on Wednesday said it had severed ties with independent promoters, following the lead of other radio chains that have stopped the controversial practice of taking payments in return for playing new songs on their stations. The move comes just over three weeks after U.K. music giant EMI Group Plc confirmed that the New York Attorney General had begun a probe of how music companies influence what songs are played on the radio. “We’re not going to be utilizing independent promoters, effective immediately,” said Karen Mateo, a spokeswoman for Infinity Broadcasting, a unit of Viacom Inc. Infinity declined further… Read more »

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Iha Steps into Perfect Circle


When former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha got an email a month ago from A Perfect Circle’s Billy Howerdel asking if he’d like to audition for the group, the last thing on Iha’s mind was joining another band. “I really didn’t see myself joining another band too soon after the Pumpkins broke up,” said Iha, who has kept a low profile since the Pumpkins’ December 2000 split. “I was recently saying to someone that it would have to be a pretty good band to bring me back – this is the band.” Iha was also reluctant to hit the road… Read more »

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Vivendi Universal's Music Sites and Maverick Records Team to Sell First Major Label MP3


Maverick Records and the Music & Media Group of Vivendi Universal Net USA (VUNet USA) today announced that celebrated bass phenom Meshell Ndegeocello is the first major label recording artist to offer her fans a downloadable track for sale in the MP3 format. Starting today, a special dance version of the song “Earth” remixed by Lazy Dog (Ben Watt & Jay Hannan) will be available exclusively for purchase and download for 99 cents from VUNet USA’s music and media Web sites – MP3.com, RollingStone.com, GetMusic.com and MP4.com. Additionally, the 50,000 subscribers to VUNet USA’s EMusic MP3 music service will be… Read more »

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Copy-Protected CDs Not Compatible


Makers of a Charley Pride CD, the first known copy-protected compact disc released in the United States, have agreed to warn consumers that it’s not compatible with computer CD-ROM drives or DVD players. The agreement settles a lawsuit filed in a Marin County court by Karen DeLise, who was upset after she discovered her new “Charley Pride – A Tribute to Jim Reeves” CD contained a copy protection scheme from SunnComm Inc. that prevented the disc from being played in her PC. The technology deters consumers from swapping music over the Internet or making unlimited copies of a CD for… Read more »

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Pressplay hopes to run on Macintosh this year


Pressplay, a Web music service owned by Sony Corp. and Vivendi Universal Thursday said it hopes to make its online service available to Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh computers sometime this year. “We are hoping that sometime this year that Pressplay will be available (on Macs), although we can’t guarantee,” said Andy Schuon, chief executive officer of Pressplay, during a conference call hosted by research firm Jupiter Media Metrix. Heads of other subscription services such as Pressplay’s big label-backed rival MusicNet and independently owned FullAudio and Listen.com also joined the call. The commercial services are launching in hopes of tapping the… Read more »

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