Search Results for: between you & me

New York – At a time when reality and youth lifestyle shows – not videos – dominate MTV’s main programming hours, the network is looking to music-related contests, tour sponsorships and other off-channel marketing initiatives to drive its identity as a music brand. Case in point: MTV in February is sending eight contest winners on a private island getaway with Columbia Records act Destiny’s Child in a stunt it is billing as Destiny’s Isle. The promotion – which MTV has been plotting since last August and was aggressively promoting last fall – will culminate with clips from an afternoon meeting… Read more »

Alexisonfire inherited the screamo crown of Canada this year, knocking it right off the emotionally hardcore heads of their peers. Their sophomore disc, Watch Out!, which the band describes as sounding like “two Catholic high-school girls in mid-knife-fight,” went gold in under three months, even though the band received little radio play. We caught up with lead screamer George Pettit to talk about the finer points of fronting the band and how his success is finally allowing him the chance to move out of his parents’ house. You guys have had a crazy-good year. Has the success been any different… Read more »

Washington – Some people can’t understand why Butch Walker would give Avril Lavigne a hit like “My Happy Ending” instead of keeping it for his own album, but the songwriter-musician says it’s all part of his plan. Known for penning Lavigne’s recent single, as well as “Girl All the Bad Guys Want” by Bowling for Soup, Walker says he wants to be known for more than a throwaway hit song. “There’s a difference between a hit song and your best song and a lot of people don’t get that,” he recently told AP Radio. “The same people saying that are… Read more »

They endured unpredictable weather on a Spanish plain for their “Vertigo” video and traffic on the streets of New York for “All Because of You,” so U2 thought they were keeping it simple by shooting their next clip in a Dublin, Ireland, theater. That is, until they were put at the mercy of the venue’s Christmas production of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” The group shot the video for the track “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” on Monday at the Gaiety Theater, according to a band spokesperson. The theater, which is currently housing the children’s story production, gave… Read more »

Just like in professional wrestling, a band’s entrance music provides a pretty good forecast of what’s to follow. When Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” filled an arena, Hulk Hogan’s irrepressible fortitude wasn’t far behind. The sound of glass shattering typically prefaced a Stone Cold-style beat-down. And this past summer, when Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best,” off “The Karate Kid” soundtrack, rained down upon an unsuspecting rock club, it meant that one of the most immodest bands around was about to deliver its musical equivalent of a jump-front kick to the head. “We thought it was the funniest thing,” explained Fall… Read more »

The day filmmaker Joe Berlinger, co-creator of the documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster,” asked the band permission to write a book about his experience working on the movie, he wasn’t even sure there would be a movie. The band had just been shown a rough cut of the film and was concerned about how intimate and personal some of the scenes were. Metallica had never really let their feelings out before and were unsure how much of themselves they wanted to reveal – and they had revealed plenty. During the film, Metallica are captured from the time bassist Jason… Read more »

Multiplatinum acts Jay-Z and Linkin Park are the latest to merge musical forces in a legally sanctioned mash-up. With the help of MTV, the two acts have taken the concept – which intertwines two songs, often placing the vocals of one track atop an instrumental section of another track – one step further. Instead of simply doing a mash-up remix of one track, as other artists have done, Jay-Z and Linkin Park have created an entire CD/DVD project based on the mash-up concept. The result, “MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups Presents Jay-Z/Linkin Park: Collision Course,” arrived Nov. 30 from Warner Bros. The… Read more »

Seattle – Nirvana’s box set, delayed three years by litigation, was finally released Tuesday, introducing hundreds of thousands of fans to rare recordings and even living-room video of the grunge rockers. The four-disc set, “With the Lights Out,” includes 81 tracks, 68 of them previously unreleased. It was initially planned for release in 2001 – for the 10th anniversary of the album “Nevermind” – but a dispute between Courtney Love, the widow of frontman Kurt Cobain, and the surviving bandmates delayed the project. The sides settled their legal issues in September 2002, allowing work on the box set to resume.… Read more »

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The evolution of digital downloads marks another milestone on November 23, 2004, with the debut of UMe Digital, the world’s first all-digital download label from a major music company. UMe Digital product – individual songs, EPs, and full-length albums – will be distributed exclusively online. With its unparalleled music and video marketing capabilities and the power and scope of UMe to place songs in films and TV shows and commercials, UMe Digital offers unprecedented access and exposure for artists. The releases on UMe Digital will be consistent with UMe’s philosophy of marketing established acts and acts… Read more »

New York – Jerry Wexler is the classic record business guy. For more than three decades, Wexler, as co-owner of Atlantic Records and later senior VP at Warner Bros. Records, signed and worked with scores of vocalists and instrumentalists, and produced some of the greatest rock and soul records ever made. Now 86 and long retired, Wexler is still applauded as an insightful producer, crafty deal-maker and promoter, divining rod of hit songs and occasional writer of songs and liner notes. “He is one of my greatest heroes,” Sire Records founder Seymour Stein says. “Jerry is a consummate record man… Read more »