Search Results for: decade

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 »

With a nod and a wink to their big-tongued logo, the Rolling Stones kicked off their “Licks” tour on Tuesday night in front of 16,000 roaring fans who lapped up every minute of it. Four decades after the Stones first took their blues-steeped soul to the stage, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the rest of the band launched what may be their most ambitious tour yet with a two-hour show at Boston’s Fleet Center. “There’s nothing so exciting as starting an American tour on the first night,” the 59-year-old Jagger told the audience. “And there’s nothing so exciting as starting… Read more »

As the Rolling Stones kickoff their “Licks” world tour in Boston this week, patience is finally paying off for fans who were driven out of their heads over the years by the woeful state of the band’s back catalog of 1960s albums. Key works have long been unavailable on CD, while the albums that are available sounded awful: not surprising since the product on the shelves was transferred to CD back in 1986 when the technology was still in its infancy. But satisfaction has arrived with the recent ABKCO Records release of 22 remastered albums, the fruits of a 10-year… Read more »

Axl Rose brought Guns N’ Roses back to the MTV Video Music Awards Thursday night for the first time in 10 years, but the frontman indicated that the wait for a new album from the band will continue. Click here for the complete 2002 MTV VMA Winners List. “You’ll see [the album], but I don’t know if ‘soon’ is the word,” Rose explained to MTV News immediately after unveiling the current GN’R lineup to an American television audience for the first time. “It will come out, and we’ll do some more recording and start the American leg of the tour,”… Read more »

A lawsuit against Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne may have been dismissed, but the former bandmembers who filed the case say it will go on. Bob Daisley, bassist and songwriter on the first two Osbourne solo albums (1980’s Blizzard Of Ozz and 1981’s Diary Of A Madman), released this statement concerning the court’s decision: “Obviously, this is a disappointing ruling, but it’s not over yet. This case has merit-Lee and I have been struggling for two decades just to receive the correct royalties and credit that’s due us-and we are confident that we will prevail in the end.” For some 20… Read more »