Search Results for: The Maine

EMusic today announced it has signed a distribution agreement with the Beggars Group, which will provide subscribers access to hundreds of titles from nine high-profile UK labels. Today’s agreement builds on EMusic’s extensive catalog of more than 250,000 MP3s from over 900 leading independent labels. EMusic allows its 70,000 members unlimited access to its catalog of high- quality MP3s for one low monthly price. Unlike other subscription services that offer only streaming and significant restrictions, EMusic uses the popular MP3 format and allows members the flexibility to easily burn their music to CDs and transfer it to portable MP3 audio… Read more »

Dixie Chicks’ lead singer Natalie Maines says she spoke against President Bush and war with Iraq last month out of frustration and regrets her choice of words, but she makes no apologies for thinking critically. “I’m not truly embarrassed that, you know, President Bush is from my state, that’s not really what I care about,” Maines says in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer for “Primetime Thursday,” airing 10 p.m. EDT Thursday. “It was the wrong wording with genuine emotion and questions and concern behind it…. Am I sorry that I asked questions and that I just don’t follow? No.”… Read more »

Music fans have until Monday to register for their $5 to $20 share of a settlement involving major U.S. record distributors and retailers. All U.S. residents who purchased at least one compact disc, cassette or album between 1995 and 2000 can register online for a piece of the $44 million class-action settlement. The latest figures, from October through Tuesday, indicate 2.8 million people had signed up on the Web. That may seem like a lot, but it probably represents just a small fraction of Americans who purchased retail music during the late 1990s. Figures from the Recording Industry Association of… Read more »

They may have both won Grammy Awards but the editors at People magazine say that India.Arie and Kelly Rowland were big losers when it came to fashion. The magazine’s website list what it considers some of the fashion faux pas at the awards show, and Arie and Rowland didn’t make the cut. The magazine says it liked Arie’s haircut but her outfit needed improvement. Rowland’s outfit left much to be desired as well, according to the editors. India.Arie won Grammys for best R&B album and Urban/Alternative Performance. Kelly Rowland took home a statue for best Rap/Sung Collaboration, “Dilemma,” that she… Read more »

In a year fraught with political turmoil, turbulence and insecurity, music fans turned to their favorite songs to take them away from many of their problems and help them come to terms with others that were impossible to escape. Whether it was Eminem rapping, “Lose yourself in the music,” or Bruce Springsteen singing, “Come on up for the rising/ Come on up, lay your hands in mine,” the messages of unity were universal. At the 45th annual Grammy Awards, held Sunday (February 23) at New York’s Madison Square Garden, apolitical hedonists and social activists alike rallied together to celebrate the… Read more »

The music of pop-jazz chanteuse Norah Jones garnered seven Grammy awards Sunday night, catapulting her past crowd favorite Bruce Springsteen and his three awards for the Sept. 11-inspired “The Rising.” As unknown as Springsteen was acclaimed before the last year, Jones won four individual Grammys while her producer, engineers and the writer of her hit “Don’t Know Why” were honored as well. “I never ever thought that the music I made would become popular music, so this is amazing,” Jones said as she picked up an award for best pop vocal album. She also won for best female pop vocal,… Read more »

Ted Perry, whose Hyperion Records label explored a wide range of classical music, has died at age 71. Perry died Sunday in a London hospital of lung cancer, said Mike Spring of Hyperion. Perry, who had worked with several record companies in Britain and Australia, founded Hyperion in 1981 and drove a cab to keep the struggling operation going. While driving, he heard a broadcast performance of the songs of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century German abbess, and contacted the artists. The resulting 1981 recording, “A Feather on the Breath of God,” was a success and put the company on… Read more »

Six retail record store chains ? hurting from competition from CD burning, online music and large discount stores ? are teaming to offer consumers digital music downloads in their stores and over the Internet. The stores have formed a joint venture called Echo that will provide technology and allow them to offer individual tracks for downloading to portable devices and computers. The stores are Best Buy, Tower Records, Virgin Entertainment Group, Wherehouse Music, Hastings Entertainment Inc. and Trans World Entertainment Corp., operator of FYE, Strawberries and Coconuts stores. “We’re trying to make digital music work in a mass market way,… Read more »

Instead of visiting a bounty on any single artist, the nominations announced Tuesday for the 45th Annual Grammy Awards were sprinkled around in an unusually equitable manner-eight musicians tied for the most nominations with sounds as diverse the elegiac rock of Bruce Springsteen, the gossamer, jazzy blends of newcomer Norah Jones and the whipsaw rhymes of Eminem. In year’s past, a glut of nominations would push as single artist such as Lauryn Hill or Carlos Santana above the fold, but this year the flattened field presented more subtle story lines amid the sprawl of 104 categories. Among those themes: 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 »