Search Results for: against me

Chris Cornell, prepare to get your transcendence on. Audioslave are hitting the road in support of their upcoming second album beginning April 14 in Las Vegas, and from sound of things, opening night can’t come soon enough for Cornell. “I can just go out onstage and get lost in the music and get lost in whatever it is I am doing and it becomes transcendent, and it is kind of addictive now,” the singer said Wednesday (March 16). “With Audioslave, I’ve really started to like the road a lot. There is a certain dedication and work ethic that the band… Read more »

A French consumer group has initiated legal proceedings against Apple and Sony, claiming their online music sites violate European anti-trust legislation. We’ve seen this kind of silliness before. Like California resident Thomas Slattery, who filed a similar complaint against Apple in January, Paris-based UFC-Que Choisir claims that Apple’s iTunes Music Store and Sony’s Connect service are anti-competitive because they only work with the companies’ own music players. This is, of course, nonsense. In Apple’s case songs can be downloaded and played on any Windows PC – a kind of machine the company does not itself produce. Sony Connect songs can… Read more »

New York – On the day nominations for the music industry’s highest honors were announced, nobody could find Killswitch Engage. Most of the members were asleep after headlining a concert the night before, pumping out ear-shattering music and screeching lyrics for a tiny audience. At least it was tiny compared with audiences for previous metal Grammy nominees, like Metallica and Black Sabbath. “Everyone’s mouth was pretty much wide open” after the Grammy nods, lead singer Howard Jones recently told The Associated Press. “Everyone was like, ‘Did this really just happen. What sort of bizarro world is this?’” It’s the kind… Read more »

Washington, D.C. – With the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Bush, visitors to the capital won’t be able to swing a cat next week without hitting a ball or party. Although there will be free daytime festivities open to the public during inauguration week, the closed soirees are the hot tickets. The nine “official” nighttime balls, all sponsored by states’ societies, most set for Jan. 19, command most of the attention. All are closed affairs reserved for the Republican Party faithful, with campaign contributors flying in from all over the country. There are also boatloads of “unofficial” parties being thrown… Read more »

Los Angeles – Rappers love a good feud. Whether it’s East Coast vs. West Coast, or Eminem vs. everyone, the spats inspire spiteful lyrics that make for juicy listening. Alas for catfight aficionados everywhere, rapper Ludacris has decided to take the high road with his nemesis, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly, who cost him a lucrative endorsement deal two years ago by denouncing his lyrics as “garbage.” His new album, “The Red Light District,” which opened at No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts on Wednesday, mostly ignores O’Reilly’s recent legal battle with a woman television producer over telephone sex… Read more »

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 »

Washington – Viacom will pay a record $3.5 million to settle dozens of federal investigations into alleged indecency on TV and the radio, and introduce delays in more live programming to help catch troublesome material before it gets on the air. The settlement, announced Tuesday, closes investigations dating back to 2001. One involved shock jock Howard Stern, and two focused on Opie and Anthony, who lost their Viacom-owned New York radio show after it featured a couple purporting to have sex inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Greg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony Cumia went silent after the 2002 show until October, when… Read more »

New York – If there was an increase in the number of people who took the day off from work or stayed home from school Tuesday, it may not have been the flu that kept them at home and on the couch. “Halo 2,” the long-awaited sequel to the 2001 game that set the standard for first-person shooters, went on sale Tuesday (November 9) at midnight, and thousands of people around the country waited in line for hours, just to be among the first to get their hands on what promises to be the biggest video game of the year.… Read more »

Nashville – Billed as the Best of Both Worlds, the ill-fated co-headlining tour by Jay-Z and R. Kelly ended up with two worlds colliding. The tour’s implosion – at least as a co-headlining attraction – puts a damper on what could have been one of the year’s top-grossing R&B music outings, with a gross potential of about $30 million. Jay-Z is continuing without Kelly under the banner of Jay-Z & Friends. With such marquee artists as Mary J. Blige and P. Diddy in tow, the tour could still be a big winner. But few would argue that Best of Both… Read more »

London – The decision by a group of European labels to legally challenge the European Commission’s approval of the Sony/BMG merger could raise questions for future deals. Impala, the Brussels-based association of European independent labels, announced Nov. 3 that it would appeal the EC’s decision to authorize Sony BMG’s union before the court of First Instance in Luxembourg. The legal process is expected to last 12-24 months. Legal experts believe that during that period, it will be difficult for the EC to clear any other proposed merger in the music industry without knowing the outcome of the court case. Sources… Read more »