Search Results for: Arista Records

He may never win the Thug of the Year award, but his new friends the Patty Cake Man and the Pusha Man have vouched that Justin Timberlake knows the streets. “Working with Justin was crazy,” Malice, the older half of the Clipse affirmed last week in New York, the day before MTV’s 2002 Video Music Awards. The Patty Cake Man (a.k.a. Malice) and his brother Pusha T took to the stage at Radio City Music Hall as special guests for J.T.’s solo set of “Like I Love You.” “Justin recognized us,” Malice continued about working on the track. “He does… Read more »

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 »

With its drums of vehemence and old-school claps, there is no “bling” in the Neptunes’ sound on their latest beat offering, the Clipse’s “Grindin.’ ” “We just wanted to strip it down,” Chad Hugo said last month of the beat he and his Neptunes partner Pharrell Williams created. “Just a break[beat] and a rapper. That’s how hip-hop was born. We just wanted to bring that element back to the music scene.” Signed to the Tunes’ new label venture with Arista, Star Trak Entertainment, the Clipse, composed of brothers Malice and Pusha T, have been grinding on the music scene for… Read more »

The music industry finally received the holiday gift it had been hoping for this week, as the album charts got a formidable one-two punch from alt-rock superstars Creed and the perennially popular “Now That’s What I Call Music” compilation series. “Weathered” (Wind-Up), Creed’s follow-up to the platinum blockbuster “Human Clay,” sold nearly 900,000 copies its first time out, according to SoundScan data for the week ended Nov. 27. Those numbers made “Weathered” the biggest bow since ‘N Sync’s “Celebrity” shifted 1.9 million out of the gate last summer. Nipping at Creed’s heels was the eighth installment of the “Now” series… Read more »

LFO has announced that it will open for Britney Spears on select December dates of her Britney 2001 U.S. tour, including December 11 at the FleetCenter in Boston; December 14 at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina; December 15 at Philips Arena in Atlanta; and December 16 at the New Orleans Arena. O-Town is opening Spears’s current concerts. LAUNCH spoke to LFO singer Rich Cronin recently, and he said that LFO feels very comfortable with its new record label, J Records, a private joint venture between Clive Davis and BMG Entertainment. “It feels good. Like Brad always… Read more »

Rapper-entrepreneur Jay-Z settled in at the top of the heap in this week’s charts, but sales for all of the top performers ebbed from last week’s levels amid a general retail malaise nationwide. “Blueprint” (Def Jam) claimed the No. 1 spot with just under 174,000 units sold during the week ended Sept. 30, SoundScan reports indicated Wednesday. That’s down 36% from the album’s prior outing, but still good enough to put it within a week’s sales of platinum territory after less than a month inthe running. Holding strong at No. 2 was J Records’ Alicia Keys, who won raves for… Read more »

Brooklyn-born rapper Jay-Z’s latest LP, “Blueprint,” led a torrent of new releases at the top of the album charts this week as America’s record buyers continued to shop despite Sept. 11’s terrorist attacks. The Island/Def Jam release flew off shelves last week, shifting nearly 427,000 units, according to data compiled by SoundScan. Sales of “Blueprint” were powered by the near-ubiquity of its first single, “H.O.V.A. (Izzo),” on both urban radio and music television. Island/Def Jam’s chart dominance continued in the latest session with Nickelback’s “Silver Side Up,” which came in at No. 2 with 178,000 copies sold. “Silver Side Up”… Read more »

In times of trouble, people often turn to music for comfort. Right now, they can also turn to musicians and the music industry for direct aid, as the industry mobilizes to help victims of Tuesday’s terrorist attacks and their families. Most tours and performances scheduled for this week have either been canceled or postponed, but many of the artists who chose to carry on will be donating portions of their concert proceeds to relief efforts. Madonna pledged proceeds from Thursday’s performance at the Staples Center in Los Angeles to disaster victims and their families, according to the Associated Press, while… Read more »

The seemingly unsinkable ‘N Sync met their match in this week’s album rankings, as the teen phenoms ceded the top spot to the latest installment of blockbuster compilation series “Now That’s What I Call Music.” Sales of ‘N Sync’s “Celebrity” (Jive) dove 75% in their sophomore session to 460,000 units, blunting the giddy optimism generated the prior week when the record bowed with sales of nearly 2 million units. Filling the void on the music charts at No. 1 was “Now 7” (Virgin), the latest in a series that has had a virtual lock on multiplatinum status since its inception.… Read more »

Gracenote (formerly CDDB ®), a content delivery platform specializing in music recognition technology, today announced a service that can track PC-based music listening habits, thereby revealing the most popular albums on the Internet and what people are listening to regionally. Gracenote Data Services (GDS) aggregates this information weekly from over 27 million listeners worldwide, and 4,000 media players powered by the Gracenote CDDB Music Recognition Service(SM). Every time a music fan listens to a CD in a Gracenote CDDB-enabled player, the database recognizes the song or album and logs it into the GDS database. Gracenote Data Services then compiles this… Read more »