Search Results for: Record Store Day

TORONTO – As music lovers approach a new decade in this still-young century, a recording technology once considered old and obsolete — vinyl — has been making a strong comeback.

Green Day has the most popular CD in the country, but you won’t be able to find it at your local Wal-Mart. The band says the giant superstore chain refused to stock its latest CD “21st Century Breakdown” because Wal-Mart wanted the album edited for language and content, and they refused. “Wal-Mart has become the biggest retail outlet in the country, but they won’t carry our record because they wanted us to censor it,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said in a recent interview. While Wal-Mart sells CDs from acts known for raunchy content, they offer customers the “clean” version of… Read more »

NEW YORK – You can forgive some of the Green Day fans packed inside a Manhattan Best Buy if they got a little bit pushy. After all, some of them had been waiting in line for nearly 30 hours for this moment. On May 15th, 500 lucky GD fanatics who had spent the night camping out on the sidewalk finally got a chance to see their idols at a raucous meet-and-greet filled with tears, screams and lots of hugs. There were autographs signed, pictures snapped and terrified-looking Best Buy employees trying their very, uh, best to keep order. Amid all… Read more »

At 4:20 p.m. yesterday, while moe. doodled on a series of winding tunes, those close to the stage at the Earth Day on the Mall concert in Washington, DC, got a glimpse of some unusual items being frantically unloaded: a giant pair of hands, a massive orange ring. There was no mistaking it – the Flaming Lips‘ gear had finally arrived, just 25 minutes before they were due to hit the stage in front of the gleaming Capitol. While techs scrambled, Coyne vamped by chatting with fans and amping up Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson’s speech, waving… Read more »

Green Day played the biggest show of its week-long tour of the San Francisco Bay Area April 14th, performing its upcoming album, 21st Century Breakdown, in its entirety. After only eight full rehearsals of the opera and those two club dates, the six-piece Green Day – Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool with guitarist Jason White, keyboardist Jason Freese and guitarist Jeff Matika – had the Quadrophenia-like hang of 21st Century Breakdown’s classic rock melodies and lifetime-punk drive down solid. “I”m not fuckin’ around,” Armstrong crowed in “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” and there was no insecurity in the way… Read more »

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 »

Last week’s news that Virgin Megastores in New York’s Union Square and San Francisco were closing was evidently the tip of a very sharp iceberg. Billboard reports today that the multi-media chain’s only three remaining stores in Denver, Orlando and Los Angeles will also be shuttered by this summer. In a move that almost predicated the closures of the Virgin chain, Virgin Entertainment Group North America was acquired by a pair of real estate companies in 2007, Vornado and Related Cos., mostly because those companies were interested in Virgin’s prime locations. The music stores were paying well below-market value per-square-foot… Read more »

When Barack Obama moved into the White House on January 20th, he gained access to five chefs, a private bowling alley – and a killer collection of classic LPs. Stored in the basement of the executive mansion is the official White House Record Library: several hundred LPs that include landmark albums in rock (Led Zeppelin IV, the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed), punk (the Ramones’ Rocket to Russia, the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols), cult classics (Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, the Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin) and disco. Not to mention… Read more »

Hoping to cater to everyone from the garage guitarist to a recording musician, Best Buy Co. Inc. is announcing a massive new initiative that sets aside store space for an array of musical instruments and gear in dozens of sites nationwide. The nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer will announce Tuesday that it plans to open as many as 85 of the music centers inside its stores by the end of the year and could add even more locations in the future, executives told Each site will use about 2,500 square feet of retail space and include roughly 1,000 different products… Read more »

Back in 2001, Pennywise called their album Land Of The Free? (the question mark pointed out the inequities of modern existence). Now, in 2008, Pennywise–one of punk’s most credible and influential bands, who’ve sold over three million albums worldwide–will be giving away their next album for FREE. Beginning March 25, 2008, fans around the world will be able to obtain a high quality, DRM-free download from MySpace for a period of two weeks. Longtime PENNYWISE fan and seasoned producer Cameron Webb (Social Distortion, Motorhead, Sum 41) has signed on to produce and mix the upcoming CD. This music industry precedent… Read more »