Search Results for: GERMANY

Michael Jackson, who arrived fours hours late to testify in a $21 million lawsuit against him, has asked the judge to delay next week’s scheduled testimony so he can travel to Germany to accept an award. “The award is of deep importance to me, it’s philanthropic,” he told Superior Court Judge Zel Canter. “I’ve done a lot of work for children.” The postponement isn’t the first that Jackson has requested. On Thursday, his second day of testimony, Jackson was granted permission to delay that day’s court appearance by several hours. He arrived Thursday without the surgical mask he had worn… Read more »

Papa Roach Kicks Off European Dates After a pair of shows in Japan this week, Papa Roach takes its tour in support of its latest album, Lovehatetragedy, to Europe beginning Sunday (October 6) in Helsinki, Finland. Dates on the continent and in the U.K. run through the first week of November. Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix said that the response overseas to his band has always been good, maybe even better than back home in the States. “In Europe people aren’t as jaded, you know? It’s like in the States every week you’ve got that cool tour coming through your… Read more »

Forty-six years after Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps helped define the rockabilly sound with their signature hit “Be Bop a Lula,” Vincent’s first two records, 1956’s Bluejean Bop! and 1957’s Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, will be re-released with bonus tracks on September 17th. Vincent himself died in 1971 at the age of thirty-six from a ruptured stomach ulcer, but bassist Jack Neal – one of two surviving members of the group, along with drummer Dickie Harrell – still remembers the early recording sessions vividly. “It was great to go ahead and cut a record where all the… Read more »

Zomba Music, the record label of Britney Spears and ‘N Sync, won European regulatory approval on Monday for its purchase by Bertelsmann Music Group. The European Commission said that BMG, part of German media giant Bertelsmann, could buy the U.S. record company in a deal that public records show is worth nearly $3 billion. “The transaction will result in relatively small increases of BMG’s market shares which will not significantly alter the competitive structure of the European music market,” the Commission said in a statement. The deal, announced in June, could boost BMG to one of the world’s top three… Read more »

A U.S. court hammered the final nail in the coffin of maverick music service Napster on Tuesday when it blocked a bid by German media group Bertelsmann AG to buy the one-time cult and now defunct Web site. Killing off a deal to revive the bankrupt service that millions of fans used to swap music over the Internet, a U.S. bankruptcy court rejected Napster’s sale to Bertelsmann after record labels and songwriters opposed the deal, saying the offer price was not fair. Faced with no financing, no revenues and no other buyers, Napster said it would most likely be forced… Read more »

Like so many one-hit wonders before it, the demise of the once iconic online song-swapping service Napster has failed to stir much sympathy. “Really, who cares?” Sebastian, a student at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, told Reuters as he heard that Napster would likely be forced into Chapter 7 liquidation as early as Thursday. “Everybody’s moved on to other file-sharing (services). The interest for Napster in the Internet community just wasn’t as high as everybody originally thought,” said the 28-year old student of IT engineering. During its heyday in 2000, Napster attracted tens of millions of music fans who… 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 »

Bruce Springsteen grabbed the top of the U.S. pop charts Wednesday with the debut of his somber, Sept. 11-influenced album, “The Rising,” the first all-new recording with his E Street Band since 1984. The critically hailed LP sold about 525,000 copies in its first week in stores, Springsteen’s best album debut in at least a decade, his publicists said as the veteran rocker and his band prepared to launch a world tour at the Continental Airlines Arena in his native New Jersey. Springsteen’s publicity firm, Shore Fire Media, said “The Rising,” released July 30, also was expected to open at… Read more »

A clash with shareholders cost Thomas Middelhoff his job at the helm of media giant Bertelsmann – even though the company made money while rivals like AOL Time Warner and Vivendi ran into trouble. Not even one of the deals of the decade – reaping billions from selling a stake in AOL Europe at the height of the Internet bubble – could save Middelhoff from the same fate as Vivendi’s former chief Jean-Marie Messier and Robert Pittman, ousted as head of AOL Time Warner’s AOL division in a management shakeup. Bertelsmann said Sunday that Middelhoff was leaving due to “differing… Read more »

The record industry pleaded on Wednesday with consumers to stop downloading and recording music for free because piracy was strangling the multi-billion-dollar industry. Profits have plummeted, especially in Europe. CD sales in Germany last year were 185 million whereas the number of blank CDs used to copy music was estimated at 182 million. Record executives also believe there are now more unauthorized music files available on the Internet than at the height of Napster ( news – web sites)’s success in the field. “Music for free means less new music, fewer new artists, less choice, thousands less jobs,” said Jay… Read more »