Search Results for: Record Store Day

In a rare open letter from CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday, Apple urged record companies to abandon digital rights management technologies. The letter, posted on Apple’s Web site and titled “Thoughts on Music,” is a long examination of Apple’s iTunes and what the future may hold for the online distribution of copy-protected music. In the letter, Jobs says Apple was forced to create a DRM system to get the world’s four largest record companies on board with the iTunes Store. But there are alternatives, Jobs wrote. Apple and the rest of the online music distributors could continue down a DRM… Read more »

During the first two weeks in January, the most popular album in the country was the soundtrack to “Dreamgirls.” But that statistic was less impressive than it might have been, because for those two weeks, “Dreamgirls” sold around 60,000 copies each week, which made for the two lowest totals for a #1 album in the history of the SoundScan era, which began in 1991. Granted, January is always a pretty slow month for album sales and releases. But around that same time, the new Fall Out Boy album, Infinity on High, leaked online and was one of the most eagerly… Read more »

By now, you might be aware that Fall Out Boy’s new album, Infinity on High, somehow leaked online over the weekend. What you might not know is what FOB’s label, Island Records, plans to do about it. You may have heard that the label was thinking about moving the album’s release date up a week, from February 6 to January 30. And you probably read the reports on various message boards that FOB mouthpiece/bassist Pete Wentz all but confirmed that move onstage at a Friends or Enemies Tour stop in Atlanta. Well, it turns out that none of that information… Read more »

In their never-ending quest to secure ‘hood status, Fall Out Boy have tapped Babyface as a producer on their Infinity on High album, recruited Def Jam honcho Jay-Z to drop a verse on the upcoming disc and spent copious interview space praising the lyrical skills of Lil Wayne. And yet, none of those things seemed to land them the cred they so desperately sought . So in a move that’s bound to leave fans on both sides of the aisle pumped yet flustered, they’ve turned to Kanye West to remix the first single from Infinity, “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s… Read more »

In the world of hip-hop few music executives have more influence than DJ Drama. His “Gangsta Grillz” compilations have helped define this decade’s Southern rap explosion. He has been instrumental in the careers of rappers like Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne. He appears on the cover of the March issue of the hip-hop magazine XXL, alongside his friend and business partner T.I., the top-selling rapper of 2006. And later this year DJ Drama is scheduled to make his Atlantic Records debut with “Gangsta Grillz: The Album.” Now DJ Drama is yet another symbol of the music industry’s turmoil and confusion.… Read more »

A surge in downloaded songs and mobile-phone ringtones failed to make up for declines in sales of compact discs last year, an industry group said. Music downloads almost doubled to about $2 billion last year, accounting for about 10 percent of the industry’s global sales, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a statement today. While that’s up from 5.5 percent in 2005, it’s still not enough to offset the revenue lost due to piracy and declining sales of physical media such as CDs. “I would like to be announcing that a fall in CD sales is being… Read more »

January 16 might go down as a day of infamy on the mixtape circuit. In a major development in the Recording Industry Association of America’s quest to stop what they believe to be the bootlegging of music, the Atlanta office of mixtape king DJ Drama’s Aphilliate Music Group was raided Tuesday by police. Drama (real name Tyree Simmons) and Aphilliate partner Donald “Don” Cannon were taken into custody along with 17 other individuals Tuesday. Police seized over 50,000 mixtapes in the raid, according to reports from Atlanta’s Fox affiliate, WAGA. In addition to housing the day-to-day operations of the Aphilliate… Read more »

As shock waves roared through the hip-hop community in the wake of the arrests of DJ Drama (Tyree Simmons), DJ Don Cannon (Donald Cannon) and 17 associates in Atlanta on Tuesday, more facts came to light regarding the nature and extent of the raid on Drama’s offices and reactions to it throughout the community. At press time, the pair, who were arrested on felony charges stemming from a magistrate’s warrant under the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, were in Fulton County Superior Court for a bail hearing, which will determine their bond . More than 50,000 mixtapes were seized in… Read more »

LOS ANGELES – Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris resents that MTV and other cable music channels built multibillion-dollar businesses around videos given away by record companies anxious to promote their artists. So when he saw his own grandson watching 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” video on Yahoo, it got him asking: “How much are we getting paid for that?” The answer – nothing – led Morris to pull all of Universal’s videos from the giant Web portal until it agreed to a licensing deal in 2005. He wrangled similar arrangements from Time Warner Inc.’s AOL and other Internet portals… Read more »

High School Musical officially graduated at the top of its class. The surprise monster hit soundtrack accompaniment to the Disney Channel’s tween song-and-dance fest, finished as 2006’s chart valedictorian, selling more than 3.7 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures released Thursday. In the SoundScan era, the only other soundtracks to finish atop the yearend chart were The Bodyguard in 1993 and Titanic in 1998. Remarkably, High School Musical debuted on the charts way down at number 143 in January 2006. The disc increased its position each week, eventually hitting the top spot on two nonconsecutive weeks in March. It… Read more »