Search Results for: Record Store Day

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 »

While Floridian metalcore sextet Underoath were recording 2006’s Define the Great Line a little more than a year ago, the band’s drummer, Aaron Gillespie, found himself writing straight-up rock tunes, material that he realized wouldn’t fit with Underoath’s vicious style. If these songs were to be heard someday, he knew he’d have to release them himself. So before Define ’s June release, Gillespie hit the studio alone to track the songs, playing all of the instruments himself and even tackling vocalist duties, like how Trent Reznor records Nine Inch Nails albums. This spring, Gillespie’s as-yet-untitled solo debut, which he’ll release… Read more »

Kelly Osbourne is in trouble deep and back in rehab. The 20-year-old spawn of Ozzy has checked into a drug-treatment center in Pasadena, California, according to Us Weekly. Calls to an Osbourne publicist were not immediately returned late Friday night, but a family rep is quoted in the magazine saying, “Kelly is in a facility dealing with some personal issues. She’ll be back in a few weeks.” An unnamed source close to Osbourne tells Us Weekly, “She’s slipped into some of her old problems and is not doing so well. Everyone is supporting her.” This is the youngest Osbourne’s second… Read more »

Matt Skiba, lead singer and guitarist for Chicago punk purists Alkaline Trio, feels that there are a lot of misconceptions out there regarding Satanism, and, as a longtime member of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, can tell you that it’s not all fire, brimstone and threats of eternal damnation. Really, the faith’s simply about theatrics, how to comport yourself when you’re out and about (for instance, one of the church’s Ten Commandment-like mandates forbids followers from bothering others in open territory, but “if someone bothers you, ask him to stop – if he does not stop, destroy him”) and maintaining… Read more »

When writing the lyrics for “From Under the Cork Tree,” Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, far right, shifted his focus from a romance gone horribly wrong to a more introspective vew of the world. After writing an album’s worth of lyrics about a girl who shattered his heart, Pete Wentz realized that the world is a bigger place than a cold-hearted woman and he needed to pen tunes that reflected that – a world where tsunamis could devastate parts of Asia, a war in Iraq could affect people on a global scale and the Molly Ringwald vs. Samantha Fox debate… Read more »

Hawthorne Heights frontman JT Woodruff can scream like nobody’s business, but when he’s speaking to you one-on-one, it’s in soft, hushed tones, like his voice has been wrapped in a woolen scarf. And his voice gets even softer when he’s asked about his band’s recent successes: the record that’s climbing the charts, the headlining slot on this summer’s Warped Tour and the video that’s just been added to MTV’s rotation. It’s one thing to be uncomfortable in the spotlight, but Woodruff’s aversion to sudden fame is downright Rivers Cuomo-esque. “Uh, well, it means more kids are coming to our shows.… Read more »

New York power-pop combo Fountains of Wayne will give fans a musical travelogue of their near-decade together with the release of Out-of-State Plates. Due on June 28, the double-disc set contains a whopping 26 non-album tracks recorded at various stages during the band’s career. Intended to appeal to both die-hard fans and newbies snared by the hit “Stacy’s Mom,” the set is a motherlode of rarities and unreleased tracks; there are also five covers and two brand-new songs. The title might seem to continue the automotive theme that the band used on its last two albums, 1999’s Utopia Parkway and… Read more »

Los Angeles – Rob Thomas jokes that his label, Melisma/Atlantic, is seeing a different side of him as it prepares for the launch of his solo debut, “… Something to Be.” In the multiplatinum group Matchbox Twenty, drummer Paul Doucette was the “bad cop. I was good cop,” Thomas says. “Now I’m good cop and bad cop. A lot of people who thought I was easygoing, pot-smoking Rob don’t think that anymore. Now they see I’m not so easy.” Fans of Matchbox Twenty will also hear a different side of Thomas on the album, which ranges from familiar Matchbox Twenty… Read more »