Search Results for: decade

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney (news) said on Sunday he would postpone the final and biggest concert of his current world tour in Melbourne out of respect for the victims of the Bali bomb blasts. The only Australian show on November 23 in front of over 30,000 fans was to be McCartney’s first date Down Under in more than a decade, but the singer’s spokesman said a nationwide tour was now under consideration for 2003. “As a mark of respect to both the families who have lost loved ones and to the families of the injured, I have decided to… Read more »

In an industry that obsesses over first-week album sales, heavy MTV rotation and radio airplay, the Shortlist Music Prize is trying to help offbeat or niche recording artists find a wider audience. Now in its second year, the contest taps successful musicians to champion the work of peers who have yet to make an impact on the charts. Among this year’s “listmakers” are India.Arie, Alanis Morissette (news), U2’s Larry Mullen Jr., and filmmakers Baz Luhrmann (news) and Spike Jonze (news). “Most of the attention that records get as far as awards and all that stuff is based on record sales,… Read more »

Any band that continues playing while one of its members bleeds profusely has gotta be punk rock, regardless of how poppy its harmony-filled songs are. Montreal’s Simple Plan did just that during a recent show in Detroit when a member of the crowd expressed his love by flinging a bottle of water at drummer Chuck Comeau’s head. “I stopped playing for a minute and took a towel to wipe my face, and it was just covered in blood,” Comeau recalled. “But we had two songs left, so I kept going. Every break I would just stop and pull out the… Read more »

Elvis rolled the Stones on the U.S. pop album charts, depriving the veteran rockers of what would have been their first No. 1 album in 21 years, according to sales data issued on Wednesday. The Elvis Presley (news) retrospective “Elvis: 30 #1 Hits” sold nearly 337,000 copies in the week ended Oct. 6, its second week of release, while the Rolling Stones’ hits package “Forty Licks” opened at No. 2 with sales of 310,000 units, according to tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan. The Stones’ tally marks the best album debut of their career since SoundScan started tabulating the charts with point-of-sales… Read more »

Anyone old enough to remember spinning vinyl records also remembers relegating them to the nostalgia pile when CDs became the listening standard more than a decade ago. Now, CDs may be headed for the same fate. Over the last couple of years, manufacturers and record companies have rolled out two new musical formats – DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Discsthat they hope will replace the CD. “It’s really getting rolling. The number of titles is increasing rapidly,” says John Trickett, chairman of the 5.1 Entertainment Group, which has produced almost 100 DVD-Audio titles. “If you compare it to the launch… Read more »

The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has tapped veteran label executive Neil Portnow as president – a post that had been vacant since the former chief, Michael Greene, left amid a swirl of controversy last spring. Reporting to Recording Academy chairman Garth Fundis, Portnow will guide the music organization’s biggest public event – the Grammy Awards – as well as other awards shows and charity efforts, including the Latin Grammys, MusiCares and the Grammy Foundation. The NARAS board settled on Portnow after a four-month search inside and outside the organization; Portnow himself has extensive background on both sides.… 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 »

The second annual “Plea for Peace: Take Action” tour, which benefits National Hopeline Network 1-800-SUICIDE, features different lineups on different legs of the trek. The D.C. show is headlined by Thursday, which is apt, since the New Jersey quintet derives its anguished post-hardcore sound – which one wag has dubbed “screamo” – from such D.C. trailblazers as Rites of Spring. If anything, Thursday’s “Full Collapse” is even more morbidly sensitive than the work of its inspirations. “I think it’s going to rain, rain down/ Here in this collapsed lung of a borough,” muses singer Geoff Rickly midway through “Paris in… Read more »

Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler attended the funeral of his ex-wife Cyrinda Foxe-Tyler on Monday (September 9) in New York City. She was known as the inspiration for David Bowie’s 1973 song, “The Jean Genie.” Born Kathleen Hetzekian in Santa Monica, California, Foxe-Tyler died at 51 of a cancerous brain tumor. In the 1970s, she was a legendary scenester, making the in-crowd music and avant garde art rounds with Andy Warhol, turning up at nightspots like Max’s Kansas City. She also became an actress and appeared in Warhol’s movie Bad. She was later romantically linked with both Bowie and his former wife,… Read more »

Like the greatest-hits package that preceded it, the upcoming U2: The Best of 1990-2000 will include a limited edition B-sides album. When it hits stores on November 5, the follow-up to U2: The Best of 1980-1990 will be accompanied by The Best of the B-Sides, a collection of 14 non-album favorites including “Summer Rain” and “Your Blue Room.” Ten of the tracks on the B-sides album are remixes, including Paul Oakenfold’s popular take on “Even Better Than the Real Thing.” William Orbit’s remix of the new single “Electrical Storm” is featured on U2: The Best of 1990-2000, while the original… Read more »