Search Results for: atlantic records

Sir Richard Branson offered to buy back Virgin Records, the label which set him on the road to a fortune, from its owners EMI, it emerged yesterday. A spokesman confirmed that Sir Richard was still hankering to bring the business which launched his career back into the Virgin stable, “if the opportunity arose”. Set up in 1973, when Branson was prescient enough to guess that Mike Oldfield’s quirky Tubular Bells album would sell like hotcakes, Virgin Records went on to sign the Sex Pistols in 1977. It was sold to EMI for £650m in 1992, and the proceeds used to… Read more »

Jive Recording Artists Three Days Grace are gearing to tour the U.S. opening for Roadrunner recording artists Nickelback. The tour, which will hit over 20 markets nationwide, begins October 14th in Lubbock, TX and ends in November. Hailing from Canada, this exceptional band is poised to take over the U.S. with their relentless harmonies and sharp-edged lyrics. Their debut self-titled CD was produced by Gavin Brown, of Big Sugar. Standout hits include “Home” with it’s desolate intonations bonded with lead singer Adam Gontier’s guttural shrieks. “I Hate Everything About You,” the first single from Three Days Grace continues to make… Read more »

More than a quarter-century after his death, Elvis Presley has something new to get his fans all shook up. A never-before-released song recorded by Presley nearly 40 years ago was recently unearthed and will be issued this fall by RCA Records as part of a new collection of favorites from the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, the label said on Friday. The announcement comes on the eve of the 26th anniversary of Presley’s death, on Aug. 16, 1977, at age 42. The song, “I’m a Roustabout,” originally was written for the 1964 Presley film “Roustabout,” co-starring Barbara Stanwyck, and was… 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 »

The five major record label groups and the three largest music retailers have agreed to pay $143 million in cash and CDs to resolve a long-standing class action price-fixing case. The settlement, announced Monday, brings to a close allegations that the major labels and retailers had violated antitrust laws and illegally inflated the cost of CDs. At issue was a policy called “minimum advertised pricing,” or MAP, under which the major labels would jointly pay for advertising if a retailer agreed to sell CDs above a certain price. This pricing practice began nearly a decade ago as a way for… Read more »

Bruce Springsteen kept a firm grip on the top spot on the album charts for the second straight week, despite a 55% slide in sales. “Rising” (Columbia), Springsteen’s first disc of new material since 1995, sold just under 239,000 units, according to numbers released Wednesday by Nielsen SoundScan. The Jersey-born rock legend recently launched a U.S. tour to support the release, backed for the first time in a decade by the E Street Band. The Boss was followed in the rankings by a trio of Universal Music Group hip-hop stars. Nelly rebounded one spot to second with “Nellyville” (Universal), selling… Read more »

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 »