Search Results for: atlantic records

Warner Music Group’s Atlantic Group division on Thursday said it will expand its Lava Records label, home to such acts like Kid Rock, and increase its staff from about five to 35 people. The Los Angeles Times on Thursday said Warner will pay $50 million to Lava founder Jason Flom for the share of the label it does not already own. A Warner spokeswoman said no terms were available. Warner Music is a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc.. The expansion and investment at Lava comes after Warner Music has let go hundreds of staffers in the past couple of… Read more »

Sean Combs’ album “P. Diddy & Bad Boy Records Present… We Invented the Remix” bows at No. 1 atop the Billboard 200 on 255,550 units sold. The album marks the third No. 1 release during the past two months that has hit stores at a discounted price. Last week, Musiq’s “Juslisen,” which sold with a $2.50 rebate debuted at No. 1 on 260,150 copies scanned. The Def Jam album slips to No. 5 this week on 115,775 units scanned. Ashanti’s self-titled debut, offered with a new-artist discount and $2 rebate, sold more than half a million records during its first… Read more »

It’s been a heck of a year so far for Alicia Keys, who took home five Grammy Awards in February for her album Songs in A Minor, which has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide. And, with a multitude of appearances and a full summer tour on her schedule, her star should shine bright well through the year. Keys’ 35-date North American tour will begin in Milwaukee on July 2 at Summerfest and will run through August 30 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the American Music Festival. Keys will celebrate Independence Day in New Orleans at the Essence Festival;… Read more »

Singles feathered on MTV’s immensely popular “Total Request Live” (TRL) show will be available in compilation form March 26 via UTV Records’ “The Best of TRL Pop,” a single-disc set celebrating the stars whose videos have been the show’s staples. There are no exclusives or rarities here, just the show’s most popular singles in their original studio incarnations, from Smash Mouth’s ubiquitous “All Star” and Sisqo’s equally universal “Thong Song” to Enrique Iglesias’ No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 smash “Be With You” and Willa Ford’s “I Wanna Be Bad.” All the big boy bands are here too, including ‘N Sync,… Read more »

A week after paying Mariah Carey nearly $30 million to walk away from her contract, EMI Recorded Music CEO Alain Levy took the wraps off a massive restructuring at the top of the company’s North American unit, marking his most aggressive moves yet to yank the British music major out of a persistent financial slump. Levy’s plan infuses EMI’s U.S. executive suite with new blood: His longtime deputy David Munns becomes chairman and chief executive of EMI North America, overseeing the flagship Capitol Records and Virgin Records America imprints. Veteran producer Matt Serletic has been named chairman and CEO of… Read more »

Butch Walker, formerly of the Atlanta-based group Marvelous 3, has been signed by Arista Records to an exclusive worldwide contract, it was announced today by Antonio “L.A.” Reid, President and CEO, Arista Records. Underscoring his success with M3, Butch surfaced as co-writer of the #1 Billboard Modern Rock track “Right Now” by Baltimore’s SR-71, and as co-writer of four tracks on “Atomic,” the new album from Orange County alt-darlings Lit. Having produced upcoming records for Injected (on Island/Def Jam Records) and Bowling For Soup (Jive), Butch is turning his attention to the completion of his debut album as a solo… Read more »

Fresh from his blockbuster performance before U.S. military forces stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Lava/Atlantic recording artist Kid Rock has just scored RIAA platinum with his new album, “COCKY.” The announcement comes less than one month after the release of the Kid Rock-produced collection, which includes the current hit single, “Forever.” Recent weeks have seen Kid Rock continuing to demonstrate his support of American military personnel, including a very special appearance at San Diego’s Naval Base Coronado, where he signed autographs and posed for pictures with thousands of U.S. sailors. In early December, Kid Rock and his Twisted… Read more »

The music industry finally received the holiday gift it had been hoping for this week, as the album charts got a formidable one-two punch from alt-rock superstars Creed and the perennially popular “Now That’s What I Call Music” compilation series. “Weathered” (Wind-Up), Creed’s follow-up to the platinum blockbuster “Human Clay,” sold nearly 900,000 copies its first time out, according to SoundScan data for the week ended Nov. 27. Those numbers made “Weathered” the biggest bow since ‘N Sync’s “Celebrity” shifted 1.9 million out of the gate last summer. Nipping at Creed’s heels was the eighth installment of the “Now” series… Read more »

For certain punks, there was no Bad Religion from 1996 through 2001. During that dark period, co-songwriter Brett Gurewitz split the seminal act he co-created with his pals in high school. He was disenchanted with the band’s major-label deal (at Atlantic), overwhelmed by the sudden hugeness of Epitaph – the label he founded to release Bad Religion records and eventually home to Rancid and the Offspring – and increasingly strung out on smack. The band would release two albums in his absence, both guided solely by the vision of Gurewitz’s estranged collaborator, Greg Graffin. Both records – 1996’s Gray Race… Read more »

Rapper DMX and hard rockers Incubus landed one-two this week atop the SoundScan album charts for the week ended Oct. 29, the last week before the heavy-hitters start flooding the marketplace in time for the holidays. DMX’s latest for Universal/Def Jam, “Great Depression,” sold 440,000 units in its first week out, topping Incubus’ fourth album, “Morning View” (Epic), which logged 266,000 in sales. The Dave Matthews Band’s live disc, “Live in Chicago 12-19-98 at the United Center” (RCA) was the only other debut to crack the top 10, landing at No. 6 on sales of nearly 131,000. Last week’s No.… Read more »