Search Results for: ep

With the Hollywood-Washington war expected to be reignited today, Motion Picture Assn. of America prexy-CEO Jack Valenti on Monday warned lawmakers in no uncertain terms to back off. “May God save the First Amendment,” Valenti said during a keynote speech before the National Assn. of Broadcasters, which is meeting here for its annual confab. Valenti, like his counterparts in the music biz, was gearing up for the release this morning of a Federal Trade Commission report that will chart how well the entertainment biz has done in stopping the marketing of violent or suggestive fare to kids. The FTC reportedly… Read more »

A new federal report singles out the recording industry for doing virtually nothing to stop marketing violent materials to children, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The Federal Trade Commission report, due out Tuesday, finds that the film and video game industries have made some progress but have not yet eliminated the problem, the newspaper reported, citing sources familiar with the situation. The “snapshot” report, requested by staff members of the Senate Commerce Committee, will provide a preliminary review of the marketing practices of the film, movie and recording industries. It will be the first of two follow-ups to a… Read more »

After five albums for Atlantic, Bad Religion is returning to Epitaph Records, the label owned by Brett Gurewitz, a founding member of the 21-year-old punk band. Gurewitz has also rejoined the band in a writing capacity, according to a source. Bad Religion recorded its first seven studio albums for Epitaph before signing to Atlantic in 1993; Gurewitz left the L.A.-based act in 1994 to focus on Epitaph, which was enjoying its first mainstream success with the Offspring’s “Smash.” The group is writing and recording material for its next album, but no release date has yet been targeted. Bad Religion recently… Read more »

Epic Records President Polly Anthony has named Pete Ganbarg to the post of Senior Vice President, A&R. Ganbarg will report directly to Anthony and will be based in Epic’s New York office. Responsible for signing and developing new artists for Epic, Ganbarg will also work closely with artists already signed with the Group. Before joining Epic, Ganbarg served as Senior Director, A&R, Arista Records. “Pete Ganbarg brings to this position a truly committed approach to A&R and artist development,” Anthony commented. “He has a great set of ears and a unique ability to match the right song with the right… Read more »

Napster claims their filtering software is succeeding in blocking songs named by the RIAA. Napster filed its third compliance report with the U.S. District Court for Northern California this week, saying that the company’s enhanced filtering software is succeeding in blocking songs named by the RIAA. In the documents filed with the court, Napster boasted that it has taken extraordinary steps to meet the demands of the record labels. Napster says that it has added yet another layer of file-filtering, bringing the total number of policing levels to three. Additionally, Napster also hinted that the company would begin to challenge… Read more »

Stone Temple Pilots will let fans watch them make their fifth album – but don’t expect a personal invitation to their rented Malibu home. STP filmed a behind-the-scenes documentary as they recorded the LP in their beach villa-turned-recording studio. “It set out to be like a modern-day ‘Let It Be,’” Chapman Baehler, the film’s director, said Thursday (April 5), referring to Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 Beatles documentary. The film follows singer Scott Weiland, guitarist Dean DeLeo, bassist Robert DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz through the record-making process, from hammering out songs in preproduction to putting the tunes down on tape. “It’s… Read more »

Consumers are still downloading more songs through Napster according to recent research findings. Although many pundits expect users to abandon Napster now that it is blocking the transfer of thousands of titles, consumers are still downloading more songs through Napster according to recent research findings by Webnoize. The number of downloads using the Napster system rose to a total of 593 million songs during the last week of March, 25 percent more than the 473 million files downloaded during the previous week. According to Napster, more than 275,000 tracks were being blocked from the company’s file sharing system by month’s… Read more »

David Massey has been named Senior VP A&R at Sony Music International. The post will be in addition to his responsibilities as executive vp A&R at Epic Records Group. In his new role, Massey will report to SMI president Rick Dobbis and work with SMI’s subsidiaries to develop local repertoire and seek out talent that can cross over into other regions and territories. Additionally, Massey will oversee select global Sony Music Entertainment A&R projects. In this capacity, he will report to Sony Music chairman and CEO Thomas Mottola.

Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera have extended their rivalry to the shelves of 7-11. Aguilera and Spears, who have been slugging it out on the pop charts, will now wage their battle in the Cola wars. The Grammy-winning Aguilera just signed a U.S. sponsorship deal with soft drink giant Cola-Cola, only a month after Spears inked a deal to promote Pespi. Aguilera will star in a television ad for Coke that will air this summer. Spears’ first Pepsi spot debuted on the Academy Awards telecast on March 25th, and Pepsi is also underwriting her upcoming tour. The deal is not… Read more »

File-swapping company Napster has filed its second compliance report with a federal court and claims to have filtered out more than 1.3 million file names of copyrighted songs. But the Recording Industry Association of America maintains that Napster is falling short of its responsibilities and plans to file a reply to Napster’s report with the federal court Tuesday, a spokeswoman said. In the compliance report, which Napster filed this week, the company said it has filtered out 228,569 artist-song title pairs from its system and more than 1.3 million file names. Napster’s filtering actions come as a result of U.S.… Read more »