Search Results for: folk

Bruce Springsteen kept a firm grip on the top spot on the album charts for the second straight week, despite a 55% slide in sales. “Rising” (Columbia), Springsteen’s first disc of new material since 1995, sold just under 239,000 units, according to numbers released Wednesday by Nielsen SoundScan. The Jersey-born rock legend recently launched a U.S. tour to support the release, backed for the first time in a decade by the E Street Band. The Boss was followed in the rankings by a trio of Universal Music Group hip-hop stars. Nelly rebounded one spot to second with “Nellyville” (Universal), selling… Read more »

Ever since their self-titled debut album came out in 1984, Bon Jovi have churned out songs about the triumphs and struggles of young working-class America. It’s where Jon Bon Jovi and his bandmates came from, and for many years the singer’s experiences and dreams provided abundant subject matter for rousing anthems and heartfelt ballads. But when former common folk turn into superstars, sometimes it’s hard for them to really still empathize with the everyman. That might explain why on his band’s new album, Bounce, due October 8, Jon Bon Jovi has once again tapped into what he knows, and it’s… Read more »

Marcos Curiel has long been a fan of Carlos Santana, so when the P.O.D. guitarist discovered that the jam rocker wanted P.O.D. to record a song for his upcoming album, Curiel felt so alive he thought he could… well, you know how the song goes. “Every chance we get, we try to go to a Santana show because they just rock live,” enthused Curiel. “We’ve always been a band that’s open to so many different styles of music, so when we got the opportunity to work with Santana, we jumped on it.” P.O.D. got that opportunity after their producer, Howard… Read more »

Neko Case will release her third solo album Blacklisted, on August 20th. Recorded at Wavelab in Tucson, Arizona, Case cited the title track as representative of the wistful mood of the disc. “I was in Iowa City, Iowa when I wrote it,” Case says of the song. “I was feeling pretty sad, and it was before our show so I went for a walk – Iowa City is a very beautiful town – and I found this old train depot that was closed down. I was just kind of looking around and was overwhelmed by the place, and a lot… Read more »

There will be no more drugs and violence on Mexican radio stations in and around Tijuana. Baja California state radio stations signed an agreement Thursday to ban songs known as narco-corridos, and instead have decided to play only songs that promote positive messages and good values. They also urged Spanish-language U.S. stations across the border in California to do the same. Casio Carlos Narvaez, a representative of the Radio and Television Industry Chamber, said stations will not be able to compete if their U.S. counterparts don’t take the same step. “We should promote this self-imposed regulation to avoid converting into… Read more »

Teddy Riley, who has produced albums for Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, ‘N Sync ( news – web sites) and other acts, filed for protection from creditors in bankruptcy court. The 34-year-old R&B recording artist hopes to reorganize his finances under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy law. Riley’s bankruptcy attorney, Michael Lehman, said Riley didn’t have enough money to pay mounting income-tax liabilities. The filing shows Riley owes $1.45 million in federal income taxes for 1998-2001 and $243,855 in Virginia taxes for 1996-98 and 2001. He also owes Virginia Beach $35,417 in real estate taxes. Riley listed his total liabilities… Read more »

Rock ‘n’ roll has turned music fans into rebels. Not only are they pirating tunes on the Internet rather than paying upwards of $20 for a compact disc, they are also increasingly reluctant to fork out for costly concert tickets. A survey of the North American concert industry by trade publication Pollstar showed the top 50 acts sold a combined 10.6 million tickets in the first half of the year, down about three percent from the year-ago period (10.9 million tickets) and off 18 percent from 2000 (12.9 million tickets). The average ticket price for those top 50 tours rose… Read more »

Thousands of music fans have begun the annual pilgrimage to the Glastonbury Music Festival, parking caravans and pitching tents on Michael Eavis’s sprawling farmland ahead of the party’s official kick-off Friday. The grounds were thrown open Wednesday night and by Thursday a few eager thousand had already settled in for a weekend orgy of rock, pop, dance, folk and reggae music. Coldplay, Spiritualized, Mercury Rev and Canadian singer Nelly Furtado were among the diverse array of top acts who will open this year’s festival Friday afternoon. The Charlatans, The Beta Band and a surprise special guest were scheduled for Saturday… Read more »

Rush drummer-lyricist Neil Peart hasn’t been giving interviews to promote the Canadian trio’s new album, Vapor Trails, because he doesn’t want to talk about the deaths of his wife and daughter, which sent the band into a five-year hiatus. However, he has issued a three-page statement via Universal Records Canada in which he talks about the record. Of the title, Peart writes: “A unifying theme sometimes appears in the collected songs and suggests an overall title, like Counterparts or Power Windows; other times a particular song seems emblematic, like Test For Echo or Roll The Bones. Neither approach seemed right… Read more »

It’s a long way from the stage of Madison Square Garden to an HIV clinic in South Africa, or from the thunderous roar of an adoring audience to the buttoned-down halls of the U.S. Senate. For most people, perhaps, but not for Bono. Rock and politics have been strange bedfellows for decades, from folkie Pete Seeger’s civil rights work in the ’60s to Frank Zappa’s censorship battles in the ’80s and Rage Against the Machine’s anti-sweatshop agitation in the ’90s. But whether it’s peace in Ireland or restructuring third-world debt, few rock stars have been able to devote as much… Read more »