Search Results for: GERMANY

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 »

Strahov Stadium has had it all – communist rallies, anti-globalization protests, gymnastics exhibitions, drive-through movies and, now, Ozzfest. The crumbling structure, which stands as the largest stadium in the world per square foot, lent itself well to Ozzy Osbourne and his latest touring comrades, who hit the venue Thursday night for the seventh stop on the metal tour. With their stage parked in the middle of the field, the hard rockers used only half of the 200,000-capacity stadium, carving out an almost cozy cradle for Bohemia’s metalheads within the concrete monolith. While the tour got off to a less-than-grand beginning… Read more »

Elton John has announced that he is going to donate the proceeds of his June 16 concert at Messehalle in Erfurt, Germany, to the victim fund for the families of those killed when a 19-year-old student went on a shooting rampage in the local Johann Gutenberg Gymnasium high school on April 26. John received word of the tragedy while on his recent Australian tour. The singer-songwriter was aware that he would be performing in Erfurt in several weeks, and wanted to do whatever he could to help. “I wanted to show my solidarity with the victims and their families, when… Read more »

The Hives begin swarming the U.S. next week. Even though the Swedish rock band have been playing since they were seventeen-years-old, they are just now finding themselves pinned as rock’s next critical darling, alongside bands like the Strokes and the White Stripes. “We get asked a lot of times if we compare ourselves to those bands, but it’s hard to say,” says guitarist Vigilante Carlstroem. “We might have some of the same influences but we come to different conclusions.” And the Hives certainly are not an overnight success – their most recent album, Veni, Vidi, Vicious was recorded over two… Read more »

Her collarbone may be broken, but her spirit seems barely bruised, given Jewel’s plans to resume touring earlier than expected. She’ll return to the stage Monday for shows that looked as though they wouldn’t happen after she fell from a horse on April 24, according to an Atlantic Records spokesperson. Doctors had suggested she not perform for at least a month. The singer’s first day back in the saddle, so to speak, will be May 13 in Stuttgart, Germany. Although she’s capable of singing, she won’t be able to play guitar. Only two dates of her European tour – May… Read more »