Search Results for: erra

A new sort of Pepsi Generation will get air time on the Super Bowl: music downloaders. Some 20 teens sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, which accuses them of unauthorized downloads, will appear in a Pepsi-Cola (PEP) ad that kicks off a two-month offer of up to 100 million free – and legal – downloads from Apple’s iTunes, the leading online music seller. The sassy ad, to be seen by Super Bowl’s 88 million viewers on Feb 1, is a wink at the download hot button. Pepsi hopes the promotion will connect its flagship cola, as well as… Read more »

The controversial issue of The Source purporting Eminem to be a racist hit newsstands last week, so it’s no surprise that the rapper has already fired back at the magazine. In an untitled freestyle on the Green Lantern mixtape The Invasion Part Three: Countdown to Armageddon, Eminem aims to both elaborate on and get past the controversy stirred up by an old song in which he spit offensive lyrics directed at black women. He raps: “Oh, sorry, yo so sorry, whoa/ But that was a long time ago/ When I was a Joe Schmo/ Rapping in Joe Blow’s basement/ I… Read more »

Antonio “L.A.” Reid, who took the helm at Arista Records nearly four years ago and oversaw platinum successes from acts including OutKast, Pink and Avril Lavigne, has left the label, it was announced Tuesday. Reid became president and CEO of Arista in May 2000 after the company’s founder and CEO, Clive Davis, left because of parent company BMG’s mandatory retirement policy. Reid was not available to comment, according to an Arista spokeswoman. Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, chairman and CEO of BMG, called Reid “one of the music industry’s top record men.” “His passion for working with and developing some of the world’s… Read more »

After more than 20 years of seeking and destroying, Metallica are releasing an authorized book of their conquests titled “So What! The Metallibook by Metallica,” which should be in stores by August. The 272-page oversized book won’t be an authorized biography, it’ll be a comprehensive scrapbook featuring more than 1,000 photos, bandmembers’ drawings and roundtable discussions with Metallica. It will also include archival interviews from the band’s official fan club magazine, So What! An introduction will be written by Metallica, who will also provide notes and commentary throughout.So What! editor and longtimeKerrang! magazine journalist Steffan Chirazi will edit the tome,… Read more »

Ozzy Osbourne fractured several bones including a neck vertebra in an all-terrain vehicle accident but the injuries are “not a major problem,” a doctor said Tuesday. Osbourne, 55, was “stable and comfortable” after emergency surgery that restored the flow to a blood vessel damaged in Monday’s accident, said Dr. Dick Jack, the medical director at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, west of London. “When he was admitted, he had a fractured left collarbone, he had some damage to the blood vessel that is underneath it, he had eight fractured ribs on the left side and, in addition to that, an… Read more »

Pepsi has a new affiliation with a hot, rising music star. But this time, Apple Computer’s iTunes is shoving aside the likes of Britney Spears and Beyonce. The soft-drink giant plans to give away 100 million downloads from iTunes next year and plug the service in a Super Bowl commercial. The relationship between Pepsi and Apple – the brainchild of Interscope chief executive Jimmy Iovine – is an effort to drive consumer interest in the iTunes service, which is now available for Windows-based computers. The offer kicks off Feb. 1 with the Super Bowl ad, and it will run until… Read more »

British rock band The Darkness struck a blow for the big hair, skin-tight catsuits and wailing guitar solos of the 1980s Thursday, outshining rivals at Britain’s biggest heavy metal awards. The much-hyped quartet won two awards, for best album and best live act, at music magazine Kerrang!’s 10th annual ceremony in London. It was a far cry from the band’s humble roots in rural Suffolk, eastern England, where lead singer Justin Hawkins and the band used to perform before tiny audiences in bars. “We’ve always behaved like stadium rockers, even at the beginning when we were playing in pubs,” Hawkins… Read more »

Sheryl Crow, Lenny Kravitz, Jakob Dylan, Willie Nelson and T-Bone Burnett have leant a hand to the debut album from Rusty Truck, the brainchild of former Rolling Stone photographer Mark Seliger. Coda Terra Entertainment will release the 12-song effort on Sept. 24. Seliger met the artists while working for Rolling Stone, but Rusty Truck only began to take shape when a pair of Wallflowers encouraged Seliger’s musical endeavors. Band leader Dylan invited Seliger into the studio to cut a demo. Later, keyboardist Rami Jaffee asked Seliger to play a show with him in Los Angeles. Seliger agreed and later relocated… Read more »

We feel like MTV felt twenty years ago,” says Marc Juris, the president of Fuse, a small but flourishing cable channel that’s staking its future on a simple idea: Music television should play music videos. So far, the results are encouraging: Fuse more than doubled its reach to 31 million households in the last twelve months, though that’s a long way from the 86 million homes MTV reaches or the 49 million households of MTV’s music-video spin-off MTV2. Fuse, which debuted in 1994 as a tiny U.S. offshoot of the Canadian music station MuchMusic, hired TV vet Juris away from… Read more »

While former Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland thinks he will soon find a lead singer for his new outfit Eat The Day, Borland does not believe that his new band will ever be as big as Limp Bizkit. Borland, who recently traveled to England in the ongoing search for a vocalist for Eat The Day, said in an interview in Kerrang! magazine that he has narrowed down the list to three potential frontmen. According to Borland, the three candidates are all fantastic singers. The guitarist said, “My favorite singers are PJ Harvey, Fiona Apple, Trent Reznor, Maynard James Keenan, Perry… Read more »