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Pete Wentz was treated to dinner a few months ago by Lyor Cohen, the renowned rap promoter and U.S. music chief of Warner Music Group. Wentz, 28, is the eyelinered heartthrob and bassist of punk band Fall Out Boy; but this dinner was in celebration of the hit single just released by another band, Panic! At the Disco, which records on Wentz’s own label, Decaydance. “He asked me, ‘What do you want out of life, Pete?’” Wentz says. His answer was flip: business cards. The next day he received a stack of cards listing his name and a new title:… Read more »

There comes a time in the career of nearly every band when they officially stop listening to what critics have to say about them. For Interpol, you’d think that time is now.See, recently, Britain’s fabulously, er, bandwagon-leaping music publication, the New Musical Express, wrote a fawning review of a live performance by Editors, a band that could charitably be described as “Interpol-esque.” And while the review itself wasn’t exactly newsworthy, the fact that its author chose to kick it off by calling Interpol “the worst band on the planet, a tuneless, talentless shower of Joy Division copyist f—wits” is. Not… Read more »

Recently, Maureen Callahan wrote a piece for the New York Post about Crush Management, the NYC cadre that shepherds the careers of Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, the Academy Is … , Boys Like Girls and Armor for Sleep (or, as Callahan puts it, “basically any band that a 13-year-old girl with a blog and a Hot Topic habit obsesses over”). Aside from providing readers with some genuinely bananas quotes from songwriter/ rock-and-roll vampire Butch Walker about credibility (especially considering this is on his résumé), the article is excellent primarily because it floats the hypothesis that the artists… Read more »

Everything must go! One day only! If you’re in the market for some ‘NSYNC gold records, a couple of Sea Doos, 10,000 jewel cases or a LFO signed poster, then you should get down to Orlando, Florida, before the end of the day. Those items are among the thousands up for auction Tuesday (June 12) that used to belong to disgraced boy-band mogul Lou Pearlman. The items are part of a liquidation of the remaining assets of Pearlman’s once-billion-dollar Trans Continental empire – which included a jet service and management of ‘NSYNC and Backstreet Boys – that has crumbled to… Read more »

The Spice Girls are still oceans apart when it comes to getting together. First, it was Live 8 in 2005, and this time it’s the July 1 tribute to Princess Diana that the ’90s-era British pop stars will not be performing at, sticking a fork in yet another rumor that Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger and Posh are ready to take the stage again. “Despite media speculation at this time, there is no confirmation of a Spice reunion,” Victoria Beckham’s rep, Cheryl Maisel, told E! News. “Victoria is moving to L.A., Emma is due to have a baby and Mel B… Read more »

Internet radio is not as big as terrestrial radio. In fact, it takes the combined audience of every station on shoutcast.com to equal the listener numbers KROQ, the nation’s top Rock station. That’s not to say that some station owners do not one day dream of becoming as large as their traditional terrestrial counterparts. However, the royalty rates being demanded by the RIAA will not only put many internet radio stations out of business, but will also ensure that internet radio will never, ever become that large. The process in which internet radio rates have been presented to the public… Read more »

Long known for their relatively epic waits between studio releases, the Beastie Boys surprised fans this spring with the announcement that their new record would arrive a scant three years after 2004’s “To the 5 Boroughs.” But the Beastie Boys are also long known for sudden stylistic left turns, and shortly thereafter, they revealed that the album would consist solely of instrumentals. As promised, “The Mix-Up,” due June 26 via Capitol, goes heavy on the groove, especially the splashing, crashing Meters-inflected funk the band has been consistently serving up since 1992’s “Check Your Head.” But there’s not a rhyme to… Read more »

With freedom comes responsibility. While fans and some critics cheered iTunes’ Friday roll-out of iTunes Plus – which offers songs from the EMI catalog sans digital rights management but at a premium price – you can bet that Apple wouldn’t give up DRM without getting something in return, and that something is information about you. Just days after the new downloads became available on iTunes, tech bloggers began furiously jumping on what seemed like a security system that embeds the customer’s name and Apple I.D./e-mail address in the purchased tracks. While Apple deferred comment on the matter, experts downplayed the… Read more »

She rode to popularity with the song “Sk8er Boi.” Now she’s a scooter chick rolling down a hill with her girls. On Saturday, Avril Lavigne hooked up with New York b-girl Lil Mama in L.A. to shoot a video for the “Girlfriend” remix . While Mama was drawn into Avril’s world for the song, on the video set, Lavigne was definitely drawn to Mama’s poppin’ hip-hop side. “My lip gloss is poppin’, my lip gloss is cool,” Avril, seated next to “Lip Gloss” rapper Lil Mama, began to rap . Then her co-star joined in and both ladies cracked up.… Read more »