Search Results for: The Chicks

The Grammy Awards return to New York for the first time in five years on Sunday, with songs influenced by the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks on the city in the running for the music industry’s top annual prizes. Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” and country singer Alan Jackson’s emotional “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” are both nominated for Song of the Year. Young singer and pianist Norah Jones with her mellow mix of jazz, blues and country song and album “Come Away With Me,” is among eight stars most frequently mentioned by music critics as… Read more »

Hilary Rosen, who led the music industry’s fight against online piracy, turning an obscure trade group into a major player in the debate over copyright protection, said Wednesday she will quit as chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America. Rosen, who will resign by year-end after 17 years with the RIAA, led the group recently in victorious copyright infringement battles against Napster and Aimster and this week’s judgment against Verizon Communications to stem piracy on the Internet. But despite the wins on the legal front, the music industry finds itself entrenched in one of its most tumultuous periods,… Read more »

The biggest winners turned out to be MIAs at the 30th annual AMAs, including Eminem, winner of a leading four American Music Awards. Others absent when their names were called at Monday night’s American Music Awards were the bands Creed and the Dixie Chicks, who won two awards apiece. Tim McGraw, who sang a “Tiny Dancer” duet with Elton John at the start of the nationally televised show, left for Nashville before winning favorite male country artist, and Mary J. Blige – another absentee – was named favorite female hip-hop artist. Eminem won in every category in which he was… Read more »

Sony chose Andrew Lack, NBC’s president and chief operating officer, to take the helm of its music division on Friday, a day after Sony Music chief Tommy Mottola resigned to start a new label. The move was surprising, considering Lack has no experience in the music industry; a veteran newsman, he worked at CBS News from 1976 to 1993 before joining NBC News. He was named president of the entire network in May 2001. “We are delighted that Andy will join Sony and lead our music company,” Howard Stringer, chairman of Sony Corp. of America, said in a statement. “He… Read more »

Sony Music chairman and chief executive Tommy Mottola, who was responsible for building the careers of Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and other superstars, announced Thursday he was leaving the company to start his own music label. The departure ends Mottola’s 14-year tenure at Sony, though the new label is being created in partnership with Sony. Mottola joined the company back when it was CBS Records in 1987. Sony is letting him out of his contract two years early. “I have been thinking about taking up this new challenge for about a year, and really made the decision to go forward… Read more »

After scoring a hit in 2000 with their first single, “Flavor of the Weak,” American Hi-Fi were showered with praise and press. The experience of playing stadiums and landing mainstream radio play influenced frontman Stacy Jones to write the title track of the band’s new album, The Art of Losing. “We started out playing these sh-ty little clubs all over the country, and it was f-ing great,” explained Jones. “Then when ‘Flavor of the Weak’ started getting played, we found ourselves on these bills where we were playing between Dream and the ‘Moulin Rouge’ chicks. I just remember looking at… Read more »

Celine Dion will be part of the pre-game festivities at the Super Bowl. She’ll sing “God Bless America” before the game on Jan. 26. The Dixie Chicks will sing the National Anthem. “Anyone who tells you there’s no pressure to sing the national anthem live to one of the biggest television audiences on the planet is not telling the truth,” group member Emily Robison said Wednesday. The trio was nominated for four Grammy Awards this week, including album of the year for “Home.” They already have four other Grammys. The Grammy- and Oscar-winning Dion is to appear at Caesars Palace’s… Read more »

In more bad news for the music industry, album sales declined for the second straight year in 2002, down 10.7 percent from the previous year. Nielsen SoundScan reported this week that 2002 album sales fell from 763 million in 2001 to 681 million. Overall music sales in 2001 had been down 5 percent – the first decline since SoundScan began tracking music sales in 1991. Hilary Rosen, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, blamed the decline mainly on illegal downloading of music off the Internet. “There’s no question that the availability of free music on the… Read more »

Hip-hop phenomenon Eminem trounced all comers in 2002 and tentatively claimed top album of the year honors after selling more than 7.4 million copies of “The Eminem Show” (Interscope/Shady) in the U.S., according to figures released Thursday by Nielsen SoundScan. The album’s performance defied a sharply downward trend in the industry as a whole, as CD album sales tumbled by 9% to 624.2 million for the year through Dec. 22. In fact, Slim Shady beat his nearest rival, Universal Music Group label mate Nelly by more than 2.6 million discs. Nelly’s “Nellyville” (Universal) shifted just under 4.8 million albums and… Read more »

Eminem, Faith Hill, and Creed are among the artists nominated in the music categories for the 29th annual People’s Choice Awards, taking place in Pasadena, California on January 12. Eminem joins fellow rapper Nelly and country’s Alan Jackson in the category of favorite male musical performer while Hill squares off against diva Celine Dion and urban pop favorite Jennifer Lopez in the female category. Meanwhile, rockers Creed will battle the country trio the Dixie Chicks and teen pop giants *NSYNC for favorite musical group or band. People’s Choice nominees are determined by the public via polling by the Gallup Organization.… Read more »