Search Results for: Record Store Day

New York – As rap stars go, Jin has the typical look down cold: Hoodie, baggy sweats, chunky diamond stud earring, a Chinese character tattooed on his neck and a large blingy necklace. Not everything’s typical, though. “Yeah, I’m Chinese. And what?” he asks with mock exasperation. At just 22, the Miami-bred, New York-based rapper is something of a pioneer – the first Asian-American hip-hop artist to get a major solo record deal. At the same time, he worries that it’s his race, not his rhymes, generating all the attention. “Being Asian helps me so much,” he says. “It definitely… Read more »

Los Angeles – Kelly Osbourne has one word for you and, no, it’s not an obscenity. “‘One Word’ is a song about how one thing can change your whole perspective on life,” Osbourne explained of her new single. “And it has a little to do with Nostradamus and how he predicted all the things that were gonna happen and that did end up happening.” Kelly expects the song to surface in January, followed by her as-yet-untitled next album in March. Linda Perry, the former 4 Non Blondes singer who has reinvented herself as a producer for Christina Aguilera and Gwen… Read more »

I’m about to save the music industry from shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for consultants and research reports, by revealing the marketing secret behind the five-year-long surge in illegal online swapping of songs: People like to get things for free that would otherwise cost them money. And they won’t stop taking them for free just because there’s a convenient legal alternative, if that alternative requires opening their wallets. Stunned by my unique powers of insight? You shouldn’t be, yet this obvious lesson seems lost in the squabbling among record labels, quasi-legal peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and start-up companies hoping… Read more »

DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS, Texas – For many fans who came to pay respects Thursday to slain rock star “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, the hand-painted red sign on the mailbox said it all. “You were the peoples rock-star. We love you bro!” The guitarist for the North Texas heavy-metal band Damageplan was shot to death Wednesday night during a concert at an Ohio nightclub. Authorities and witnesses said the gunman jumped onto the stage and also killed three others before he was fatally shot by police. Abbott – who along with his brother Vinnie Paul Abbott formed Damageplan last year after the breakup… Read more »

Record labels are embracing new technologies in search of music’s next big thing Joe Berman looks for new bands. Typically, that means hanging out in dive bars, enduring hours of unlistenable music by groups whose rock-and-roll dreams far exceed their talent, praying for the occasional act that shows promise. About 16 months ago, however, the Los Angeles-based talent-finder sat at home scouting the globe for groups. He typed “New Zealand indie rock bands” into his computer search engine and found Steriogram, five lads from the town of Whangarei in New Zealand. They had a song and a video posted on… Read more »

Five years after an ugly divorce, the original lineup of 1980s hair-metal legends Mötley Crüe are reuniting for a world tour. The first date of the Red, White & Crüe Tour… Better Live Than Dead is February 17 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and will be followed by dates in South America and Europe. Singer Vince Neil, drummer Tommy Lee, bassist Nikki Sixx and guitarist Mick Mars, arriving together in a hearse, announced the reunion Monday night in Los Angeles, marking their first tour together since Lee left the group in 1999. A 37-song retrospective, Red, White & Crüe, will hit… Read more »

Do they know it’s Christmas? Maybe, maybe not. The bigger question is: Do we care? Band Aid 20’s new version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is selling at a record pace-in England, anyway. The story, though, is different on this side of the Pond. The updated take on the 1984 Christmas charity smash features some of Britain’s biggest names, including Dido, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Joss Stone, Paul McCartney and, for good measure, one Irish megastar in the form of U2’s Bono. The performers, checking their egos at the door (in theory, anyway), gathered together to help victims in… Read more »

Linkin Park love to mix things up. Their two albums, Hybrid Theory and Meteora, consistently and seamlessly blend different styles of music together, melding rap and rock with just enough electronic flourish to keep the ears burning and turning that blend into a digestible, accessible pop formula for millions of hungry fans to eat up. In the last three years the band have sold several million albums worldwide, sold out arenas around the globe, toured with Metallica and progressed further than all their long-since-disappeared rap-rock contemporaries. They are (as our May 2003 issue featuring ’em on them cover declares) the… Read more »

New York – Rock ‘n’ roll fans with deep pockets can buy a Beatles guitar or a mugshot of the pop star formerly known as Cat Stevens at what Christie’s said on Wednesday was its biggest auction of show business memorabilia. The Gibson SG electric guitar, played by George Harrison from 1966-1969, is the star attraction among over 400 lots, ranging from Britney Spears’ book report to a handwritten 1991 letter from the late Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love. The guitar, expected to fetch around $500,000, was used while recording the Beatles’ “Revolver” album and in two Beatles films “Paperback… Read more »

Seattle – Nirvana’s box set, delayed three years by litigation, was finally released Tuesday, introducing hundreds of thousands of fans to rare recordings and even living-room video of the grunge rockers. The four-disc set, “With the Lights Out,” includes 81 tracks, 68 of them previously unreleased. It was initially planned for release in 2001 – for the 10th anniversary of the album “Nevermind” – but a dispute between Courtney Love, the widow of frontman Kurt Cobain, and the surviving bandmates delayed the project. The sides settled their legal issues in September 2002, allowing work on the box set to resume.… Read more »