Search Results for: vision video

Wal-Mart has lost the head of its digital media department. Kevin Swint, once the champion of the retail giant’s music and video services, has left one large empire to join another, according to a report by Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org. Swint is starting the first full week of February as the international head of movies and television at Apple, Inc, where he will be tasked with managing the company’s burgeoning digital video channels. Apple has made clear its intentions to build the reach of its visual content offerings in line with the scope of its successful music distribution efforts. Swint’s… Read more »

For the typically rowdy rock band on the road, “scoring” might not necessarily have anything to do with film music. Yet over the last couple of decades of making music, a number of rock talents have made the career leap from arenas to scoring stages, and the ranks of today’s A-list composers include many with rock ‘n’ roll pedigrees. Randy Newman had a successful career as a songwriter and solo artist; Mark Mothersbaugh was a founder of Devo; and Danny Elfman started out in Oingo Boingo (a band that also included future composers Steve Bartek and Richard Gibbs). Trevor Rabin… Read more »

Ashlee Simpson is no more of a threat to Fall Out Boy’s success than Pete Wentz’s affinity for eyeliner. So says the band’s guitarist Joe Trohman, who didn’t take kindly to a New York Daily News gossip item about a source telling OK! that the younger Simpson sis was “poison” to the pop-punk rockers, and could possibly be part of the reason why 2007’s Infinity on High didn’t score any Grammy nods. The group’s “pal” reportedly told the magazine that Grammy voters have been put off by Simpson since she was caught lip-synching on Saturday Night Live in 2004. “This… Read more »

Yahoo! Inc. and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL unit may shut down their Web radio services after being hit with a 38 percent increase in royalties to air music. “We’re not going to stay in the business if cost is more than we make long term,” Ian Rogers, general manager at Yahoo’s music unit, said in an interview. Yahoo and AOL stopped directing users to their radio sites after SoundExchange, the Washington-based group representing artists and record labels, began collecting the higher fees in July. Those royalties may stifle the growth of Internet radio, which increased listeners 39 percent in the… Read more »

Nick Haley took just 30 minutes to pluck the Brazilian band CSS from obscurity and hurl it into the national spotlight. In September, Haley paired the band’s dance-pop song “Music is My Hot, Hot Sex” with his 30-second amateur video, displaying the capabilities of Apple’s new iPod Touch. The video ends with the lyrics, “My music is where I’d like you to touch.” “I was like, ‘This song is too perfect,’ ” said Haley, 18, by phone from the University of Leeds in England, where he studies politics. “It’s punchy, loud, fast and naughty.” Marketers at Apple headquarters in Cupertino… Read more »

According to a report in the venerable entertainment industry trade rag Variety, Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, asked Apple for a cut of iPod revenue as part of the failed negotiations between the two companies over a contract extension for the right to sell NBC’s shows on iTunes. (Thanks, Valleywag.) If that’s true, wow. A source familiar with NBC Universal’s negotiations confirmed that the company asked for a slice of iPod revenue but only after Apple refused to budge on variable pricing. “Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made… Read more »

They’ve been called weirdoes, freaks and Satanists. Animal Collective’s otherworldly song structures, deconstructed harmonies and tribal rhythms aren’t always met with receptive ears, but there might not be a more progressive band in indie music. With two of the best-reviewed albums of the year – the band’s new “Strawberry Jam” and the solo disc by keyboardist Panda Bear, “Person Pitch” – Animal Collective has established itself as an act wildly separate from the many retro-oriented bands that populate today’s scene. The sound of the future, the psychedelic band acknowledges, is something they seek. “That’s kind of always been a goal,… Read more »

It has finally come to this: labels are simply giving their music away. A new Web site named SpiralFrog.com allows visitors – with label approval – to download music free of charge. It launched Monday in the U.S. and Canada after a beta-testing period. The fine site features more than 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos, and promises hundreds of thousands more soon. It makes money through advertising, rather than by the 99-cent downloads popularized by Apple’s iTunes. The service, founded by Joe Mohen, pays record companies part of its advertising revenue. Thus far, Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, the… Read more »

Nikki Sixx made history this past Thursday, September 6th, when he was recognized as the first member of the rock world to speak on Capitol Hill for NAADAC’s 18th Annual National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month luncheon. Senators and Congressmen waited in line to meet with Nikki and show their appreciation for his enormous efforts on drug and alcohol awareness. Tune in to VH1 News and VH1 Classic to see the video footage of Nikki Sixx from Capitol Hill this Thursday, September 13. Nikki Sixx begins his journey of advocating to the youth of today, all and sundry, with… Read more »

With an emphasis on the visual over the audio, MTV from its inception has never been “about the music.” But after seeing interest in its signature trophy show wane in recent years, the network put the spotlight where it belongs for a music awards show: on the concert stage. The result of this brainstorm, and a few other format changes to its Video Music Awards? The most watchable show in many a Moon Man outing. Even if that isn’t saying much. And this despite opening with an onstage career suicide by Britney Spears. More on that later. The 2007 VMAs… Read more »