Katy Perry’s tour rider has leaked and boy is she a diva. The singer’s 45-page rider, which lists all her demands and needs for live performances, is a lengthy document that not only bans carnations from her dressing room but offers a 23-point “principle driver policy†for chauffeurs who may be driving her around.
The 13-track set contains collaborations with an eclectic roster of guest vocalists, including Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Kid Rock, Ian Astbury and Iggy Pop.
Recently news broke that Will.i.am will be part of the Super Bowl halftime show starring The Who, but in a very unusual way.
Over the last few decades, a veteran music act’s best shot at platinum magic usually consisted of pairing up with younger hitmakers (a la Santana) or covering treasured classics (like Rod Stewart. These days, another kind of vehicle has become a path to best-selling success – teaming up with box store chains. Garth Brooks ‘ started the trend in earnest back in 2005, with an exclusive Wal-Mart deal, and the Eagles and AC/DC had multiplatinum-plus success over the last two years by exclusively selling new CDs at Wal-Mart. Guns ‘N Roses sold about a million copies with a special Best… Read more »
Music merchandisers weren’t sharing the general optimism of most retailers during Thanksgiving weekend. Music sales were down from 10 percent to 30 percent, and big-name albums released for Black Friday, the post-Thanksgiving kickoff to the holiday retail season, didn’t perform up to expectations, according to merchants contacted by Billboard. Sources said that Kanye West’s “808s & Heartbreak” will sell in the range of 425,000-450,000 units, significantly down from 700,000-975,000 units previously projected. Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” is expected to clock in at 250,000-260,000, not the predicted 300,000-784,000 units. At music specialty stores Newbury Comics, sales were down 21 percent… Read more »
All is fair in Chinese Democracy, except when the citizens are denied the opportunity to drink what the Dr. ordered. Axl Rose, wholely mum when Dr. Pepper announced that it would bestow a free 20-ounce bottle to all Americans when Guns N’ Roses’ years-in-the-making album finally dropped, is taking the company to task via his attorney after learning that not all customers were served. The soft-drink slinger had arranged to bestow online coupons to any thirsty freebie-seeker who visited its website on Nov. 23, but the site crashed due to…well, high traffic brought on by people’s insatiable desire for free… Read more »
Velvet Revolver bass player Duff McKagan has denied a report that former Spacehog frontman Royston Langdon is in line to become the band’s new singer. McKagan told Billboard.com that Velvet Revolver did play with Langdon, and that he’s “he’s f–king awesome,” but “at this point I’d have to say no” on him replacing ousted singer Scott Weiland. “We just have to make sure it’s the right guy,” he said. “Karmically, we deserve the right guy. It’s a tough thing, man. We make a pretty big noise.” Entertainment Weekly reported this week that Langdon, the estranged husband of actress Liv Tyler,… Read more »
After Velvet Revolver wraps a spring tour in support of its second album, “Libertad,” frontman Scott Weiland will rejoin his former bandmates in Stone Temple Pilots for a handful of summer reunion shows, guitarist Slash told Billboard.com. STP broke up in late 2002; the band’s last album was the previous year’s “Shangri-La Dee Da.” No other details have yet been revealed about STP’s plans. In the meantime, Weiland and his Velvet Revolver bandmates are still plugging away in support of “Libertad” with dates that run through early April. There’s also the hope that recording for album No. 3 could begin… Read more »
After more than two years on the road in support of their Move Along album, the All-American Rejects finally wrapped things up in early 2007, with everyone returning home for a much-deserved break. So how did frontman Tyson Ritter spend his time away from the spotlight?”I’ve had a place for nearly three years now, but I was never home, so I finally got around to hanging some pictures up,” he said. “And now I just wake up, stay in my bathrobe all day and sit at my piano. It’s pretty nice, actually.” He’s being modest. Because ever since the Rejects… Read more »
Recently, Maureen Callahan wrote a piece for the New York Post about Crush Management, the NYC cadre that shepherds the careers of Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, the Academy Is … , Boys Like Girls and Armor for Sleep (or, as Callahan puts it, “basically any band that a 13-year-old girl with a blog and a Hot Topic habit obsesses over”). Aside from providing readers with some genuinely bananas quotes from songwriter/ rock-and-roll vampire Butch Walker about credibility (especially considering this is on his résumé), the article is excellent primarily because it floats the hypothesis that the artists… Read more »
