Search Results for: decade

Jon Bon Jovi and Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan will perform at this year’s Live Earth concert, when the music extravaganza aimed at raising awareness of climate change heads to India. Last year’s Live Earth spanned four continents and 150 acts were performed over a 24-hour period. But organizers Al Gore and Kevin Wall decided this year to stage only one event in India, in the hopes of bringing their message to the developing world. “India is not the country that created the climate crisis, but it is a developing nation and we need to open doors for local environmental organizations… Read more »

John Lennon’s killer told parole officials during his latest unsuccessful bid for release from prison that he is ashamed and sorry for gunning down the former Beatle nearly three decades ago. Mark David Chapman was interviewed by the parole board for a fifth time Aug. 12 and was immediately denied release. A transcript of the hearing was made public Tuesday. The 53-year-old Chapman told the parole panel that, over the years, he has come to realize the gravity of what he did, and how it affected not only Lennon, but his wife, children and anybody who knew him. “I recognized… Read more »

The Jonas Brothers will perform at this year’s Video Music Awards. It will be the wholesome pop group’s first-ever appearance at the event, known for its decadence and eye-popping water cooler moments (many involving Britney Spears). In a statement, brothers Kevin, Joe and Nick said: “This is an awesome opportunity. We have grown up watching all the amazing and iconic performances on the VMAs. It is an honor to be a part of something so incredible.” The 2008 MTV Video Music Awards will air live from Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles on Sept. 7. As previously announced, in a… Read more »

Among the most notorious on-screen gaffes ever, Janet Jackson’s breast-baring “wardrobe malfunction” on CBS during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show drew a $550,000 indecency fine from the Federal Communications Commission. Now a federal appeals court has thrown it out. A panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the FCC “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity, which it noted lasted just over half a second. An estimated 90 million people watching the Super Bowl heard Justin Timberlake sing, “Gonna have you naked by the end of this… Read more »

When the culture began to change in the late 1960s – when the old one-liner comics on the Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the War in Vietnam – George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America. By the time he died Sunday night (of heart failure at age 71), the transformation he helped bring about in stand-up had become so ingrained that it’s hard to think of Carlin as one of America’s most radical and courageous popular artists. But he was. Carlin started doing stand-up… Read more »

As the recorded music business seemingly careens toward oblivion, John Hiatt is standing on the sidelines having a good laugh. It’s not as if the singer-songwriter has been unscathed by the industry’s decade-long capitulation to piracy. Each of his last three albums sold 30,000 copies less than the one before. His last release, 2005’s “Master of Disaster,” moved 78,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But as he sagely pointed out during a recent breakfast, “I think I’m not the only one. I think we’re doing OK.” That very day his 18th album, “Same Old Man” (New… Read more »

When Hartmut Ostrowski was an up-and-comer in Bertelsmann’s printing and services division in the 1990s, his bosses were discouraged from speaking at meetings of the top executives. In the glamorous world of Bertelsmann, a global media empire with music, television, and publishing properties – Germany’s answer to Time Warner – services were viewed as strictly a backstage function. Now, with Mr. Ostrowski at the helm of Bertelsmann, the stagehands are striding into the spotlight. Two weeks ago, he named Markus Dohle, a 39-year-old German who runs the company’s printing operations, as chief executive of Random House, the world’s largest consumer… Read more »

It’s 4 a.m. on the last night of the South by Southwest music conference, and Jim James is belting out Rod Stewart’s “You’re in My Heart.” A few hours earlier, the My Morning Jacket frontman dazzled an intimate crowd at an Austin church with a mostly solo acoustic set, and the full band’s three other performances during the week were some of the most acclaimed of the industry event. But of all the places James could be right now, it’s a cozy terrace suite at Austin’s famed Driskill Hotel, surrounded by a few close friends, a bucket of Miller Lites… Read more »

Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, a poster boy for rock ‘n’ roll decadence in the 1970s, has entered a Los Angeles rehab facility after two decades as a passionate advocate of sobriety, according to an report. The Web site TMZ.com reported on Wednesday the 60-year-old rocker sought treatment for an unspecified substance abuse problem at Aurora Las Encinas Hospital. The Pasadena clinic’s physicians include high-profile addiction medicine specialist Drew Pinsky. A publicist for Aerosmith said she did not know about the report. Earlier this month, Tyler performed at a concert in Hollywood to raise money for a charity that helps addicts… Read more »