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Berlin film festival gloats over Rolling Stones coup


Snatching Martin Scorsese’s eagerly awaited documentary about the Rolling Stones away from rival film festivals for the Berlinale next month is a career highlight for festival director Dieter Kosslick. The Berlin boss, humiliated when great rival Cannes poached “Motorcycle Diaries” at the last minute four years ago, said on Wednesday the buzz hasn’t even begun to wear off since he secured Scorsese’s “Shine a Light” for the February 7 opening. “We’ve been talking about this film for a year and obviously every festival director was trying to get it,” Kosslick said, adding the British band will join the American director… Read more »

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Rock stars try new tune as Hollywood composers


For the typically rowdy rock band on the road, “scoring” might not necessarily have anything to do with film music. Yet over the last couple of decades of making music, a number of rock talents have made the career leap from arenas to scoring stages, and the ranks of today’s A-list composers include many with rock ‘n’ roll pedigrees. Randy Newman had a successful career as a songwriter and solo artist; Mark Mothersbaugh was a founder of Devo; and Danny Elfman started out in Oingo Boingo (a band that also included future composers Steve Bartek and Richard Gibbs). Trevor Rabin… Read more »

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Bif Naked says fighting breast cancer


Canadian punk rock singer Bif Naked has gone public after being diagnosed with breast cancer, saying she is facing the fight of her life and urging other women to ensure they regularly check for cancer. The 36-year-old tattooed singer, who was married three months ago, broke the news in a radio interview on Sunday with her record label Bodog Music issuing a statement on Monday. “It is a very surreal situation for (my husband) Ian and I at this time,” she said. Bif Naked, who was born Beth Torbert in India and adopted by American missionaries with whom she moved… Read more »

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Radiohead ruled in 2007, at any price


2007 was a year of duality for music. While the industry continued to tank, it was quietly a very good year for rock ‘n’ roll and indie music. The Boss returned with his old band, the Police actually got along and even Led Zeppelin reunited. The most exciting music was busy breaking down barriers. Arcade Fire played in intimate churches; Web site TakeAwayShows.com and the film “Once” returned music to the streets; and a certain British band eliminated a very big middle man. “In Rainbows,” Radiohead: The much-ballyhooed online release of “In Rainbows” in some ways obscured what an excellent… Read more »

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Music business ends year on another weak note


Just when it seemed erosion of music sales during the holiday season couldn’t get worse, December snowstorms compounded the retail industry’s misery. Album sales for 2007 are now down 15.3% for the year, compared with 2006. But for the four weeks beginning with Thanksgiving week and ending December 26, U.S. album sales were down 20% to 84.2 million units from 105.3 million a year ago, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The last week before Christmas didn’t help matters much, with sales totaling 25.6 million vs. 31.3 million units in the same period last year. The season got off on the wrong… Read more »

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Celine Dion, Leaving Las Vegas


Las Vegas lore is littered with many end-of-an-era instances. The dissolution of the Rat Pack. The razing of the Sands Hotel. The annulment of Britney Spears and Jason Alexander’s 57-hour quickie marriage. And on December 15, 2007, Sin City bid yet another bittersweet goodbye: to Celine Dion, who ended her historic five-year, 717-show, $400 million-grossing run at Caesar’s Palace. Yes, apparently not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, as Celine has finally decided to move on after five years. (After all, she does have a new pop album, Taking Chances, to promote.) But it seems like only yesterday… Read more »

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Forgotten gems reissued for music connoisseurs


Every record collector’s library contains a handful of forgotten classics, great records mismanaged by labels and lost to the annals of history. In recent years, some specialty labels have started reissuing these records for new audiences. Among them, Hacktone Records, founded in 2005 by Rhino Records veterans David Gorman and Michael Nieves. “Our goal is not to cater to completists or to be a legacy label,” Gorman said. “We’re not putting out lost demos by famous acts or throwing a few bonus tracks on a well-known record and putting it back out.” Rather, they acquire the rights to lesser-known works… Read more »

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An apologetic Imus is back on the air


Getting fired wasn’t the first time Don Imus had hit rock bottom. Like his stumble into addiction in the 1980s, Imus fell into a personal purgatory after calling the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” “I analogize it to being an alcoholic and a drug addict, which I also am,” the talk-show host said during an apologetic return to the airwaves Monday. “If you get into recovery, as I am for 20-some years now, you have the opportunity to be a better person, to have a better life than you ordinarily would have had. And that’s true in this… Read more »

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Pregnant Aguilera poses for Marie Claire


Christina Aguilera flaunts her pregnancy in an upcoming issue of Marie Claire magazine. The 26-year-old singer is shown wearing a cropped jacket, hoop earrings and a ring on the cover of the January issue, on newsstands Dec. 11. Excerpts from the story were released Wednesday. Aguilera and her husband, Jordan Bratman, were married in 2005. The singer says she learned she was pregnant while on her recent “Back to Basics” tour. “We were planning on starting to try after the tour. And so, I had gone off the Pill to prepare my body, because I didn’t know how much time… Read more »

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Apple's iPod ads are the new music-star makers


Nick Haley took just 30 minutes to pluck the Brazilian band CSS from obscurity and hurl it into the national spotlight. In September, Haley paired the band’s dance-pop song “Music is My Hot, Hot Sex” with his 30-second amateur video, displaying the capabilities of Apple’s new iPod Touch. The video ends with the lyrics, “My music is where I’d like you to touch.” “I was like, ‘This song is too perfect,’ ” said Haley, 18, by phone from the University of Leeds in England, where he studies politics. “It’s punchy, loud, fast and naughty.” Marketers at Apple headquarters in Cupertino… Read more »

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