Search Results for: christmas

The tension is palpable at Universal Studios as USA Networks CEO Barry Diller considers merging his media empire with the studio’s Vivendi Universal parent. “All we know for sure is that Barry Diller is going to be a helluva lot richer a week from now,” said one senior studio executive who was about to attend the Universal Christmas Party. Vivendi Universal, seeking an elusive U.S. distribution outlet for its array of television and film assets, said on Tuesday it was in talks to buy the entertainment assets of USA, which is about 40%-owned by the French company. Whatever Diller does,… Read more »

The third time turned out to be not so charming for Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 8. For three consecutive weeks, the latest installment in the hits-laden compilation series couldn’t occupy the #1 slot three of its predecessors (volumes 7, 6 and 4) have enjoyed, thanks to Creed’s Weathered, which will remain reigning king of the mountain on next week’s Billboard 200 albums chart. The band’s third album continues to meet staggering sales, moving more than 458,000 copies last week, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday (December 12). Weathered’s three-week total stands at more than 1.7 million. Now… Read more »

Recipients of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and Trustees Awards were announced today by Michael Greene, President/CEO of the Recording Academy. Pianist and band leader Count Basie and recording artists Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Al Green, and Joni Mitchell will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards. Engineer/producer Tom Dowd and original rock disc jockey Alan Freed will be honored with Trustees Awards. Formal acknowledgment of the awards will be made in conjunction with the 44th Annual GRAMMY ® Awards ceremony, which willbe held at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The show will be a prime-time television special on… Read more »

After the Ramones said “Adios amigos” for the final time in 1996, singer Joey Ramone wasted no time in starting the recording of what would unfortunately turn out to be his posthumous solo album, Don’t Worry About Me, due out February 18th on Sanctuary Records. Ramone died April 15th of lymphatic cancer. “We started right after the Ramones’ last show,” says producer Daniel Rey, who has also worked with the Ramones themselves and White Zombie. “We cut the music pretty quickly, and then Joey just took his time on the vocals. We recorded a couple songs at a time. We… Read more »

George Harrison’s No. 1 hit “My Sweet Lord” will be re-released soon and proceeds given to charity, a spokesman for record company EMI Group Plc said Friday. “We are definitely re-releasing it, and it will be for charity. It is the original version,” spokesman Murray Chalmers said. “But so far we have no date and no name for the charity.” He said the company, which took the decision to re-release the single in consultation with Harrison’s widow Olivia and son Dhani, had not yet decided whether to reissue the spiritually tinged hit before or after Christmas. The former Beatle died… Read more »

“My Sweet Lord,” the 1970s hit by former Beatle George Harrison who died of cancer last week, is to be re-released, Britain’s Sun tabloid reported on Friday. If the mystical hit is out in time for Christmas, it is widely expected to top the lucrative festive singles chart. “We will be re-releasing ‘My Sweet Lord’,” the Sun quoted a spokesman for record company EMI as saying. The company could not be reached immediately for comment. “My Sweet Lord” was the first number one single by a solo Beatle and appeared on Harrison’s album “All Things Must Pass” after being digitally… Read more »

A Beatles’ shop in Liverpool, the birthplace of the world’s most famous band, has put what it says is a previously unreleased audio version of the last public recording by guitarist George Harrison on its Web site. A music industry source told Reuters he gave his recording of “If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going,” which he said Harrison played for an audience at music studios in Michigan in 1997, to the “From Me To You” shop in the northern English port. “I just thought it was a fitting tribute, a ray of light for the fans at this time,”… Read more »

XM Satellite Radio, the leading satellite radio provider, capped its national launch today with celebrations in New York and Seattle in a coast-to-coast culmination of XM’s final 25-city “Power of X” “listen and ride” rollout tour. XM broadcast live today from blues legend B.B. King’s club in New York, where XM presented jazz great Wynton Marsalis with the first New York XM radio as an early holiday gift, and from the Experience Music Project in Seattle, where XM presented the museum with the first Seattle XM radio. The radios can enable any car or home stereo to receive XM’s 100… Read more »

The three “bootylicious” vocalists from the Grammy-winning R&B act Destiny’s Child are parting ways to pursue solo projects for the near future, they said in a television interview aired on Wednesday. “Well, Destiny’s Child put out four albums in four years, which is unbelievable,” lead singer Beyonce Knowles told cable network E! Entertainment Television in an interview conducted last week. “We’ve been working… nonstop. So I think Destiny’s Child is gonna take a little break.” She added, “I think the great thing about us doing this is we will all have to develop individually. You’re in a group and it’s… Read more »

While the clock on Linkin Park’s Countdown to Revolution Tour is just about done ticking, the band is already lining up a new trek. The Projekt Revolution Tour, much like Linkin Park themselves, meshes rock and rap, with herbivores Cypress Hill, nü-metallers Adema and DJ Z-Trip slated to join the band on the bill, according to Linkin Park’s management. The tour is expected to begin in mid-January and run through the end of February. An itinerary has yet to be hammered out. The Countdown to Revolution tour, which also features (hed) pe, the X-ecutioners and the Apex Theory, winds down… Read more »