Search Results for: GOLD

Los Angeles – A few days ago, a colleague asked if it would be possible to get a Green Day poster for his 12-year-old daughter. “She’s always listened to nothing but rap and hip-hop,” the editor said, “but lately she’s been obsessed with the Green Day album ‘American Idiot.”‘ Warner Bros. Records chairman/CEO Tom Whalley relates a similar story. He says a couple of his teenage daughter’s friends who stopped by the house were evidently unaware that the red-hot punk trio is the prize act of the moment on Whalley’s label. But they knew the band was cool. “They said,… Read more »

New York – Rock singer Kristin Hersh had something else entirely in mind when she named her new band 50 Foot Wave. Sometimes there’s just not much you can do about bad timing. “It’s either on my part or God’s, I’m not so sure,” Hersh, a heroine of the alternative rock scene with her longtime band Throwing Muses, told The Associated Press in an interview. The band’s first full CD, which is being released in March, was mailed to rock critics about a week before Asia’s devastating tsunami, which killed more than 160,000 people. Hersh named the band after the… Read more »

Alexisonfire inherited the screamo crown of Canada this year, knocking it right off the emotionally hardcore heads of their peers. Their sophomore disc, Watch Out!, which the band describes as sounding like “two Catholic high-school girls in mid-knife-fight,” went gold in under three months, even though the band received little radio play. We caught up with lead screamer George Pettit to talk about the finer points of fronting the band and how his success is finally allowing him the chance to move out of his parents’ house. You guys have had a crazy-good year. Has the success been any different… Read more »

New York – When Casey Stratton was a struggling singer-songwriter a few years ago, he had idealistic notions about artistic integrity. High on his list of what would jeopardize it: licensing his music to television. “When I was younger, I used to be really weird about stuff like that, like, ‘I will not cheapen my work by putting it on TELEVISION!’” he recalls with a chuckle. That was before the producers of the teen-oriented drama “Tarzan” called and asked to use the bittersweet ballad “Hollow,” from his debut album, on the WB show. Stratton gave the go-ahead, and while the… Read more »

Los Angeles – Los Angeles-based Collectors’ Choice Music is carving a very successful niche with the rerelease of some old albums that probably aren’t in your record collection. Among 24 titles pouring forth this month from CCM – which issues its sets through its mail-order operation before taking them to stores – are the late producer Terry Melcher’s 1974 solo album, singer-songwriter Jamie Brockett’s 1969 cult favorite “Remember the Wind and the Rain,” four collections by ’70s L.A. pop tunesmith Andrew Gold, Sonny Bono’s 1967 solo record “Inner Views” and three entries by the ’80s cowpunk act Rank & File.… Read more »

Los Angeles – NBC hasn’t received any calls about the F-word that Motley Crue rocker Vince Neil dropped during the live New Year’s Eve broadcast of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” “Happy f–ing New Year, Tommy!” Neil said to bandmate Tommy Lee shortly after midnight Friday. The remark was carried to viewers on the East Coast but was edited out before it was broadcast in the West, according to the entertainment trade paper Variety, which reported the incident on its Web site Monday night. Leno normally tapes his show for broadcast later in the evening but does a live… Read more »

Washington – Members of the rock band The Donnas were kind of glad when Ashlee Simpson was caught lip synching on Saturday Night Live. They were hoping it would show the world the difference between acts like them who never use backing tracks and acts who are all style over substance. Boy, were they disappointed. “We thought, ‘Finally she got caught and she’s going to get punished an everyone’s going to figure it out and it would be like Milli Vanilli, and everyone would return her CDs,’” said guitarist Allison Robertson. Sales of Simpson’s album “Autobiography” dipped for a week… Read more »

2004 may go down in history as the year of the runaway breast. Yes, there was Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl flash, but don’t forget Tara Reid’s absent-minded red carpet dress-drop or the uproar over a sexy “Desperate Housewives” promo for Monday Night Football. Add in Colin Farrell’s missing manhood from the movie “A Home at the End of the World” and the curtailed puppet sex in “Team America: World Police,” and this was the year of nudity both seen and imagined. MOST INFAMOUS WARDROBE MALFUNCTION: Janet is disqualified because nobody believes it was an accident. So the prize goes to… Read more »

Los Angeles – To his eight Grammy nominations and slew of No. 1 singles, R&B singer Usher has added the honor of most-shipped U.S. album of 2004 for “Confessions,” according to year-end certifications from the Recording Industry Assn. of America. With 8 million units shipped to retailers (but not necessarily sold through to consumers), the set is the highest-certified album in the star’s catalog. His previous best was 1997’s “My Way,” which is six times platinum. Usher also picked up three honors under the RIAA’s new digital awards program. “Yeah!” featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris, which spent 12 weeks atop… Read more »

If you came anywhere near a radio this year, it should be no surprise that Usher’s Confessions was named the most-shipped album of 2004. The Recording Industry Association of America gave the singer credit for shipping (but not necessarily selling) 8 million copies of his third album, two million more than his six-times platinum My Way from 1997, according to Billboard magazine. The smash single “Yeah!” also took honors in the RIAA’s digital-awards program, earning a digital platinum certification for more than 200,000 downloads. “Burn” and “My Boo” were awarded digital gold for more than 100,000 downloads. Country star George… Read more »