Search Results for: one direction

NEW YORK —- The Killers are back, and this time they’ve brought the weird. The Las Vegas quartet’s third studio album “Day & Age” sees them tapping into a little of their hometown’s oddness in both new image and sound. They break out steel drums, harpsichords and horns. They sing about alien abduction. Their new stage outfits feature animal prints and plumage. “The word ‘playful’ keeps coming up,” says Brandon Flowers , the singer and keyboardist. “We just really had fun. And I think it shows in the album.” It’s a gaudy new direction for the synth-rock group that emerged… Read more »

Some of the biggest names in music are contributing exclusive songs to RED(WIRE), a digital music magazine that launches on World AIDS Day ( December 1). U2, Coldplay, the Killers, the Dixie Chicks, John Legend, R.E.M. and Bob Dylan are on board for the initiative, which is an outgrowth of the Bono-reared activist organization called (RED). All proceeds from subscriptions will benefit HIV-infected people in Africa; MSN.com will host a kickoff party December 1. For $5, users will receive a new issue of RED(WIRE) every Wednesday, featuring an exclusive song from a major musician, a song from a performer who… Read more »

It was another brush-with-an-icon moment for the Killers : back in May of this year, joining Duran Duran – the first name in ’80s fashionista Britpop  – onstage, aptly in Las Vegas, to perform the vets’ chestnut “Planet Earth.” Brandon Flowers, resplendent as ever in a tux, looked like a young James Bond. And you know he had to have been stirred, if not a little bit shaken. There are no more unabashed Anglophiles among U.S. pop-rockers than the Killers. From day one, they have made that clear: They took their name from a New Order video, they’ve covered Joy… Read more »

Backstage notes from the 25th annual MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday. 1. After winning three Moonmen, including video of the year, Britney Spears got cold feet before she met the press. She peeked into the media room with personal assistants and camera crew in tow, then promptly turned around and left. A few moments later, Chris Brown hurried in to take her place — prompting a round of disappointed “Awwwww!” from disappointed Britney-wannabe paparazzi (a reaction that seemed to miff Brown, who maybe didn’t understand that he wasn’t being booed personally.) Never fear, Britney returned after Brown; she said… Read more »

A year after vowing never to perform on the MTV Video Music Awards again, hip-hop star Kanye West will close the show’s 25th annual ceremony in Hollywood on Sunday, joining a lineup that includes Christina Aguilera and the Jonas Brothers, organizers said. The outspoken rapper was upset by his treatment at last year’s show, when his performance was relegated to a small stage in the Las Vegas venue. West also failed to win any prizes, and accused the music cable network of exploiting Britney Spears, who inadvertently stole the show by badly lip-synching and dancing to her new tune. The… Read more »

DELETED SCENES HAVE been working on their debut album, “Birdseed Shirt,” for a long time – at least in indie-rock years. Having recorded the basic tracks at Magpie Cage studio in Baltimore in September 2007, the D.C.-born quartet spent roughly 10 months mixing, tweaking and re-tweaking the album. In that time, three members of Deleted Scenes relocated to Brooklyn and two of them have come a few hairs away from completing graduate degrees. Luckily, “Birdseed Shirt” was worth the group’s relative struggle to finish it. The songs Deleted Scenes recently posted to their MySpace page are surprisingly ambitious – delicately… Read more »

Just about every week, there’s speculation on how Miley Cyrus will transition into adulthood. This week, MSNBC’s Scoop decided to go with a promiscuous role in an R-rated movie, where “you’d be seeing a lot more of Cyrus than what appeared in the Vanity Fair photos.” Ooh, naughty! However, Miles called B.S. on this report in her own lovable way on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM morning show. The actress, who sometimes goes by Hannah Montana, said, “I’m not even allowed to see R-rated movies!” Oh, Miley, so funny. In other words, “Yeah, FALSE!” Now that we’ve got that mess settled, let’s… Read more »

The red carpet swiftly turned into a red river, but we knew it would take more than a soggy strip of flooring material to put a damper on the MuchMusic Video Awards. An early-evening deluge timed perfectly to truncate the annual, big pre-show build-up to last night’s MMVAs ceremony at Much headquarters on Queen West nevertheless added a new urgency to the usual hysteria that splays around Queen and John at this time of year. There was a real sense of brewing terror in the air on the carpet while everyone who’d gathered outside the old CHUM-City building — the… Read more »

Honestly, given the amount I write about Digital Rights Management, you’d think that I’d rather the industry kept using it, just so I’d continue to have fodder for writing and writing–and occasionally talking–about it. As I was looking into the trajectory of DRM in this past year for my latest look at DRM, a pattern began to emerge. We’ve seen the prevalence of DRM-free music skyrocket over the last twelve months, with vendors like iTunes, Amazon, and Napster all joining the legions of the undamned. In fact, it’s practically gotten to the point where it’s news when a company launches… Read more »

What David Archuleta wants to know is, why in the world wouldn’t he be able to fetch a glass of water for himself? “I heard one thing where [his dad, Jeff] refused to give me water or something like that and that’s the weirdest thing,” the American Idol runner-up said Friday in a conference call with reporters. “I mean, I am 17 and you know, if I want water, I am pretty sure I would just go get it anyway.” Archuleta, who lost to David Cook by a reported 12 million votes Wednesday despite being the apple of the judges’… Read more »