Search Results for: Record Store Day

In an industry that obsesses over first-week album sales, heavy MTV rotation and radio airplay, the Shortlist Music Prize is trying to help offbeat or niche recording artists find a wider audience. Now in its second year, the contest taps successful musicians to champion the work of peers who have yet to make an impact on the charts. Among this year’s “listmakers” are India.Arie, Alanis Morissette (news), U2’s Larry Mullen Jr., and filmmakers Baz Luhrmann (news) and Spike Jonze (news). “Most of the attention that records get as far as awards and all that stuff is based on record sales,… Read more »

A U2 album of all-new material could arrive by next summer, according to the band’s guitarist, the Edge. Speaking with Ireland’s Hot Press magazine, the guitar player, whose real name is Dave Evans, said the group plans to have a new album completed and in stores by mid-2003. He told the Dublin-based magazine that the band is on a roll in the studio, and likened the new recordings’ sound to U2’s early days, with “simple, stripped-down arrangements.” The band’s sessions at Hanover Quay studios have already resulted in two new songs, “Electrical Storm” and “The Hands That Built America,” both… Read more »

Anyone old enough to remember spinning vinyl records also remembers relegating them to the nostalgia pile when CDs became the listening standard more than a decade ago. Now, CDs may be headed for the same fate. Over the last couple of years, manufacturers and record companies have rolled out two new musical formats – DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Discsthat they hope will replace the CD. “It’s really getting rolling. The number of titles is increasing rapidly,” says John Trickett, chairman of the 5.1 Entertainment Group, which has produced almost 100 DVD-Audio titles. “If you compare it to the launch… Read more »

Record labels and artists were out in force Thursday to reiterate their blunt assessment of digital piracy’s effects on their financial well-being at a state government hearing in Sacramento. “I would like to begin with a simple proposition,” said Recording Industry Assn. of America president Cary Sherman. “The one-two punch of physical and digital piracy is threatening the livelihood of the music industry.” The hearing, convened by the California State Assembly’s Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media, was the second piracy gripefest in as many weeks for the industry, which is increasingly turning to the government for… Read more »

The five major record label groups and the three largest music retailers have agreed to pay $143 million in cash and CDs to resolve a long-standing class action price-fixing case. The settlement, announced Monday, brings to a close allegations that the major labels and retailers had violated antitrust laws and illegally inflated the cost of CDs. At issue was a policy called “minimum advertised pricing,” or MAP, under which the major labels would jointly pay for advertising if a retailer agreed to sell CDs above a certain price. This pricing practice began nearly a decade ago as a way for… Read more »

The world’s five largest music companies and the three largest music retailers will pay $143.1 million to settle a CD price-fixing case launched by New York and Florida two years ago, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Monday. In August 2000, most U.S. states joined in a lawsuit alleging that an industry practice called “minimum advertised pricing” (MAP) artificially inflated the price of CDs between 1995 and 2000, violating federal and state antitrust laws. Under MAP, the labels subsidized advertising for retailers that agreed not to sell CDs below a certain price. The five record labels –… Read more »

Grunge singer-turned-actress Courtney Love and Vivendi Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record conglomerate, announced settlement Monday of their lawsuits against each other with a deal that allows the music firm to release songs by her late husband’s band Nirvana. Universal sued Love in 2000 over five allegedly undelivered albums. She filed a countersuit last year in Los Angeles County Superior Court that sought to break her contract with Vivendi Universal and expose what she called unfair treatment of artists. Love – the widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994 – claimed Universal made about $40… Read more »

DataPlay, a company attempting to replace CDs as the music format of choice, has missed its announced release date and appears unlikely to survive. Employees were put on mandatory leave and told to call in Friday for a status update, according to a source close to the situation. Only those staff members with vacation days available will receive any payment. Zomba Recording Corp., Universal Music Group, EMI Group and BMG Entertainment in March announced plans to distribute music using DataPlay discs. DataPlay discs are about the size of a half-dollar and resemble a tiny CD encased in a translucent shell.… Read more »

Remember when Michael Greene, then-President of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, warned us all about the unlawful evils of Internet file sharing during the Grammy Awards back in February? Soon people will get an earful straight from those who make the music. Britney Spears, Missy Elliott and Nelly are among the artists set to appear in TV spots as part of an awareness campaign to educate people about the legal and financial ramifications of unauthorized file sharing, according to a Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) spokesperson. The ads were first shown Thursday at a congressional hearing… Read more »

Kurt Cobain fans are closer to Nirvana than they have been in years. A studio version of the unreleased Nirvana track “You Know You’re Right” has surfaced online in its entirety. The song, which was reportedly recorded in January 1994, less than three months before frontman Cobain took his own life with a shotgun in his Seattle home, is expected to a appear on the long-awaited Nirvana greatest-hits album, which, according to Courtney Love, is due by Christmas. A Universal Music Group spokesperson, however, said that while the LP would come out, there was no specific release date. By Monday… Read more »