Search Results for: 2003

British rock band Radiohead scored its second No. 1 album on the U.S. pop charts on Wednesday with a release that was initially sold on the Internet under a revolutionary “name-your-own-price” system. “In Rainbows” also topped the charts in Britain, Canada, France, Japan and Ireland, a representative for the group said. The critically acclaimed album sold a relatively modest 122,000 copies during its first official week in U.S. stores, according to Nielsen SoundScan data for the week ended January 6. It sold an additional 10,000 copies the week before, when some retailers put it on shelves ahead of its January… Read more »

Rock band Yellowcard will soon travel to the Persian Gulf and perform for service men and women as part of a USO/MNC-I expeditionary entertainment tour.   This is the first USO tour for Yellowcard, who will hang out with armed forces, sign autographs and treat U.S. troops to a selection of hit songs from all their albums.   Their latest album “Paper Walls” debuted at no. 13 on the Billboard charts and sold more than 40,000 copies in its first week. Recognized for their trademark sound infused with entwined guitar lines, airtight vocal harmonies and flourishes of violin, Yellowcard has… Read more »

Universal Music Group said on Monday that rap artist and hip-hop mogul Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter is stepping down as president of its Def Jam Records unit, effective by the end of the year. Carter, 38, has been president of the rap label since 2005, and has signed acts including R&B singers Rihanna and Ne-Yo. Universal said Carter, a top-selling rapper who performs as Jay-Z, will continue recording for its Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam label. But the company did not give a reason for his decision to quit the executive suite. “Now it’s time for me to take on new challenges,” he said… Read more »

Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg died Sunday (Dec. 16) at his home in Maine after fighting prostate cancer for several years. He was 56. Although he made his biggest impact in pop music — via such hits as “Longer,” “Same Old Lang Syne,” “Hard to Say” and “Leader of the Band” — he had strong ties to Nashville and country music.Daniel Grayling Fogelberg was born Aug. 13, 1951, in Peoria, Ill. His father, whom he would immortalize in song, was a band leader, his mother a classically trained singer. Fogelberg dabbled in art and acting at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana… Read more »

Bianca Jagger has been evicted from her rent-stabilized Park Avenue apartment after several years of quarreling with her landlord over claims of toxic mold and questions about her residency, her lawyer said. After a recent appeals court ruling against her, Jagger knew the eviction was coming. She found out from a neighbor’s phone call that a sheriff had arrived Wednesday to move her possessions to storage, lawyer Daniel Bryson said. “This is an absolute travesty,” he said. A lawyer for landlord Katz Park Avenue Corp. didn’t immediately return a telephone call early Thursday. Lawyers for the 62-year-old Jagger, who was… Read more »

Rocker Scott Weiland was charged Wednesday with driving under the influence of drugs in a car crash last month, prosecutors said. The 40-year-old rocker was arrested Nov. 21 after crashing his car on a highway. He refused to take a blood or urine test as required by law, city attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan said. The Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver singer, who had a DUI conviction in 2004, could face eight days to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted of the misdemeanor count, Mateljan said. Weiland, who is free on $40,000 bail, was to be… Read more »

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have depressingly opined that “there are no second acts in American lives,” but Nada Surf is certainly making the case for second acts in indie rock. The band had an accidental alt-rock radio hit in 1996 with “Popular,” only to be signed and then summarily dropped by Elektra. This sort of rise and fall would spell the end for many bands, but Nada Surf kept on going, buying back and reissuing its shelved major-label album, “The Proximity Effect,” in 1998. Since then, the band released two records on Seattle-based indie Barsuk: 2003’s “Let Go,” which has… Read more »

Japan’s probably feeling a little psychic right about now. The week after Velvet Revolver announced the Japanese leg of its tour was off because the Asian nation had “tak[en] exception with the backgrounds of various band members,” lead singer Scott Weiland was busted for DUI. The Nov. 21 arrest, the latest for the oft-arrested, oft-rehabbed rocker, was uncovered Monday by TMZ.com. Weiland, 40, is due in a Los Angeles court Dec. 13 to answer to the misdemeanor charge. It was on Nov. 16 that Weiland’s band announced it had been denied visas for four scheduled Japan dates, Nov. 26-30. “The… Read more »

The Grinch might be stealing Christmas from music retailers, but thanks to Josh Groban and Oprah, there’s still some singing in Whoville. For the sales week kicked off by Super Tuesday–the release date before Thanksgiving when record labels typically schedule their big guns–the figures were abnormally bad, with only one Top 10 bow and a seven-week-old album topping the charts. Still, that album, Groban’s Noël, can thank last week’s performance on The Oprah Winfrey Show for driving it past Alicia Keys and into the number one spot. Noël crowned the Billboard 200 by selling 405,000 copies for the week ended… Read more »