Search Results for: from first to last

In an industry that obsesses over first-week album sales, heavy MTV rotation and radio airplay, the Shortlist Music Prize is trying to help offbeat or niche recording artists find a wider audience. Now in its second year, the contest taps successful musicians to champion the work of peers who have yet to make an impact on the charts. Among this year’s “listmakers” are India.Arie, Alanis Morissette (news), U2’s Larry Mullen Jr., and filmmakers Baz Luhrmann (news) and Spike Jonze (news). “Most of the attention that records get as far as awards and all that stuff is based on record sales,… Read more »

Pearl Jam will on Dec. 8 play its first hometown show since October 2001 with a benefit concert at Seattle’s Key Arena. Guitarist Mike McCready told local radio station KNDD today (Oct. 23) that proceeds will aid a variety of charities. He wouldn’t comment on rumors that Queens Of The Stone Age and Audioslave will also be on the bill or that another show may be added. Tickets go on sale Nov. 2 at 9 a.m. PT; members of Pearl Jam’s Ten Club fan organization can enter a lottery for specially reserved seats. Pearl Jam, whose new Epic album “Riot… Read more »

Viacom Inc., owner of CBS, MTV and the Paramount movie studio, reported a solid third-quarter profit Thursday, helped by strong advertising revenues at the company’s broadcast, cable, TV and radio properties. For the three months ending Sept. 30, the media conglomerate said net earnings were $640 million, or 36 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $190 million, or 11 cents per share, a year earlier. The results beat the forecast of 32 cents a share by analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. “We are confident in our ability to deliver on our full-year financial targets for 2002,… Read more »

Elvis rolled the Stones on the U.S. pop album charts, depriving the veteran rockers of what would have been their first No. 1 album in 21 years, according to sales data issued on Wednesday. The Elvis Presley (news) retrospective “Elvis: 30 #1 Hits” sold nearly 337,000 copies in the week ended Oct. 6, its second week of release, while the Rolling Stones’ hits package “Forty Licks” opened at No. 2 with sales of 310,000 units, according to tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan. The Stones’ tally marks the best album debut of their career since SoundScan started tabulating the charts with point-of-sales… Read more »

Rock stars Bob Dylan (news), Billy Joel (news) and James Taylor (news) filed a lawsuit against Vivendi Universal’s MP3.com music Web site for allegedly distributing their songs without authorization, sources familiar with the suit said on Tuesday. A spokesman for MP3.com declined comment. Sources familiar with both the artists and the company said they had been made aware of the lawsuit in the last few days. The artists are not the first to sue MP3.com, which was the target of major litigation brought against it on behalf of the world’s major record labels in January 2000 for infringement. MP3.com settled… Read more »

Sometimes success can be a double-edged sword. Just ask Crazy Town, the rap metal act that scored a major radio hit in 2000 with the lightweight pop song “Butterfly” and then suffered the consequences. “Drowning,” the first single from the band’s new album, Darkhorse (out November 12), was written on Ozzfest 2000, and at the time, Crazy Town felt as if they were underwater gasping for air. The group’s lineup was unstable, vocalists Brad “Epic” Mazur and Seth “Shifty” Binzer felt uncertain about the path they had taken and some metal audiences were greeting Crazy Town with showers of water… Read more »

With songs like “Fat Lip” and “Motivation,” Sum 41 developed a reputation for cheekiness and tomfoolery. Their new album doesn’t exactly transform them into tree-hugging environmentalists or pulpit-preaching activists, but it shows the bandmembers leaning toward maybe growing up just a little… kinda. Many songs on Does This Look Infected?, due November 26, aren’t about downing brews, scamming chicks or teenage angst. Instead, Sum 41 singer and lyricist Deryck Whibley addresses issues a little more sobering. “I guess I watched too much CNN while making this record,” he said. “Also, I guess I’m getting older. When you’re young you have… Read more »

Rock veteran Eric Clapton has organized an all-star tribute concert for his late friend and fellow guitarist, George Harrison, with the former Beatle’s two surviving bandmates slated to perform. The benefit concert, planned with the help of Harrison’s wife, Olivia, is scheduled to be held at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Nov. 29, the first anniversary of Harrison’s death, organizers said in a statement issued on Thursday in Los Angeles. Joining Clapton on the bill will be former Beatles Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and two other recording stars who performed with Harrison in the 1980s supergroup The Traveling Wilburys… Read more »

A year after Michael Jackson gathered Britney Spears, ‘NSYNC, Destiny’s Child and dozens of other superstars to record “What More Can I Give,” the September 11 benefit single is finally being heard. New York radio station WKTU-FM debuted the song on Friday at 6 p.m. and has been playing it about six times a day since, albeit without permission. Program Director Frankie Blue, a longtime friend of Jackson’s, won’t say how he got the song, but he insists the King of Pop had nothing to do with it. Marc Schaffel, the executive producer of the single, said at least 200… Read more »

The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has tapped veteran label executive Neil Portnow as president – a post that had been vacant since the former chief, Michael Greene, left amid a swirl of controversy last spring. Reporting to Recording Academy chairman Garth Fundis, Portnow will guide the music organization’s biggest public event – the Grammy Awards – as well as other awards shows and charity efforts, including the Latin Grammys, MusiCares and the Grammy Foundation. The NARAS board settled on Portnow after a four-month search inside and outside the organization; Portnow himself has extensive background on both sides.… Read more »