Search Results for: Alan Day

Are they or aren’t they? Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck won’t say, but it sure looks like they’re engaged. The couple, who’ve been photographed kissing everywhere over the past few months, have been coy about whether they’re getting married. People magazine, quoting friends and sources, reports in its Nov. 18 issue that they plan to tie the knot on Valentine’s Day. The marriage would be the third for Lopez, 32, and the first for Affleck, 30. Lopez’s publicist, Alan Nierob, declined to comment on the report Thursday. Affleck’s publicist didn’t immediately return a phone call. The singer-actress has been wearing… Read more »

In an industry that obsesses over first-week album sales, heavy MTV rotation and radio airplay, the Shortlist Music Prize is trying to help offbeat or niche recording artists find a wider audience. Now in its second year, the contest taps successful musicians to champion the work of peers who have yet to make an impact on the charts. Among this year’s “listmakers” are India.Arie, Alanis Morissette (news), U2’s Larry Mullen Jr., and filmmakers Baz Luhrmann (news) and Spike Jonze (news). “Most of the attention that records get as far as awards and all that stuff is based on record sales,… Read more »

Concert tours to Southeast Asia have become the latest casualty of recent bomb blasts in Bali and the Philippines with veteran jazz guitarist George Benson and rock groups Red Hot Chili Peppers and Oasis canceling shows. “George Benson did cancel some dates that he had lined up for Indonesia,” promoter Nigel Peters said on Tuesday. “It’s obviously a direct relation to the Bali bombing. That’s the only reason this decision was taken.” A bomb attack at a nightclub on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali on October 12 killed more than 180 people, most of them Australian. Ten people were… Read more »

Mickey Mouse’s days at Disney could be numbered and paying royalties for warbling George Gershwin tunes could become a thing of the past if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with an Internet publisher in a landmark copyright case this week. The high court will hear the case Wednesday that could plunge the earliest images of Disney’s mascot and other closely held creative property into the public domain as early as next year. If upheld, the precedent-setting challenge could cost movie studios and heirs of authors and composers millions of dollars in revenue as previously protected material becomes available free of… Read more »

Record labels and artists were out in force Thursday to reiterate their blunt assessment of digital piracy’s effects on their financial well-being at a state government hearing in Sacramento. “I would like to begin with a simple proposition,” said Recording Industry Assn. of America president Cary Sherman. “The one-two punch of physical and digital piracy is threatening the livelihood of the music industry.” The hearing, convened by the California State Assembly’s Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media, was the second piracy gripefest in as many weeks for the industry, which is increasingly turning to the government for… Read more »

The five major record label groups and the three largest music retailers have agreed to pay $143 million in cash and CDs to resolve a long-standing class action price-fixing case. The settlement, announced Monday, brings to a close allegations that the major labels and retailers had violated antitrust laws and illegally inflated the cost of CDs. At issue was a policy called “minimum advertised pricing,” or MAP, under which the major labels would jointly pay for advertising if a retailer agreed to sell CDs above a certain price. This pricing practice began nearly a decade ago as a way for… Read more »

*NSYNC singer Justin Timberlake-who is prepping for the November 5 release of his debut solo album, Justified-recently admitted that he performed oral sex on his ex-girlfriend Britney Spears. The pop singer made the admission while visiting New York radio hosts Star And Buc Wild during the WQHT-FM morning show on Monday (September 23). Timberlake was pressed into making the admission after Star offered to provide the singer’s latest single, “Like I Love You” featuring Clipse, with 30 additional spins a week in exchange. When asked if he performed oral sex on Spears, Timberlake begrudgingly responded, “OK, I did it…I’m in… Read more »

Three girls with three different personalities, giving three dimensions to the group, all coming at you on wax. That’s the way Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes perceived herself and friends Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, and that’s how she conceived the title of TLC’s fourth album, 3D. On Friday (September 13), Arista Records previewed tracks from the LP, which is due on November 12. Completing the album, which was unfinished when Left Eye was killed in April, was an emotional task for T-Boz and Chilli. “We promised to deliver the album, but it was a little bit of lip… Read more »

Terrorism struck the United States on a Tuesday, the day labels release albums, and that day had its share of potential blockbusters: Jay-Z, Bob Dylan and Mariah Carey were among the artists who released records on September 11, 2001. The first anniversary of the attacks, by contrast, will pass quietly in the nation’s record stores, with no big-name releases hitting shelves this week and retailers predicting that new records will be the furthest thing from fans’ minds. “It just seems to be in bad taste,” said bassist Joe Escalante of veteran punk band the Vandals, who chose a September 17… Read more »

Jackson Browne has spent a fair amount of the past several years trying to heed his own advice and take it easy. He’s still got a world of trouble on his mind, dismayed by the poverty and politics of the United States, concerned about his relationships with friends and family. But he is also full of enthusiasm for, among other things, the band he is on the road again with this summer and for Spain, a country he reckons has found the secret of life. This fall Browne will release his first album since 1996, titled “The Naked Ride Home.”… Read more »