Search Results for: grammy

Self-proclaimed “king of pop” Michael Jackson will dust off a 13-year-old hit song during the American Music Awards Wednesday night – even though it might jeopardize his chances of performing at the more prestigious Grammys seven weeks later. Grammys boss Michael Greene, who is being sued for $10 million by American Music Awards producer Dick Clark for allegedly blackballing acts who appear on the earlier show, said Tuesday he would see what the Gloved One does during the ceremony before deciding whether to send him an invite. “We have 980 nominees and only 14 performance slots. So who in their… Read more »

Freddy Fender, nominated for a Grammy for Latin pop album of the year, will undergo surgery on Jan. 24 in Texas to receive a kidney donated by his 21-year-old daughter. The transplant surgery is scheduled at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. Fender is to receive the organ from daughter Marla Garcia of Jacksonville, Fla., the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences announced Saturday. Fender, whose hits include “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” and “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” is battling health problems including hepatitis C, NARAS said. The 44th annual Grammy Awards ceremony is… Read more »

A California state senator on Monday launched a legislative assault against the music industry on behalf of recording stars like Courtney Love and Don Henley who have been crusading to free artists from record company control. California State Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City) Monday introduced the bill to repeal an amendment won by the music industry in 1987 that keeps recording artists tied to personal contracts longer than talent in other industries like film and television. In announcing the bill at the Future of Music conference in Washington, D.C., Murray said the artist community should take its cue from the… Read more »

Fueled by a December surge in sales and the explosive singles “One Step Closer” and “In the End,” the rookie rockers out of California’s alternametal scene sold more than 4.8 million copies of their debut disc to top the list of best-selling albums for 2001, according to a year-end report from SoundScan, which has been keeping track of these things since 1991. Hybrid, which also earned the group a Best New Artist Grammy nomination Friday, actually debuted on the charts more than a year ago. But steady sales and word of mouth have since boosted it into the Top 10,… Read more »

The relationship between the Roots and its label MCA appeared estranged in October, when Philadelphia’s City Paper ran a cover story on the group lambasting its label over a number of creative conflicts. Months after the much-discussed article hit the newsstands, group member Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson says that the relationship has been improving. In the controversial expose, Roots members Black Thought and Thompson voiced their dissatisfaction with the staff of MCA, including president Jay Boberg. They were upset that the label strongly suggested that Erykah Badu replace the then-unknown Jill Scott on the group’s song “You Got Me,” which went… Read more »

Britney Spears, Kid Rock, Usher, Mick Jagger and Cher will all perform on next week’s American Music Awards, while Sean “P. Diddy” Combs tries his hand at being a television host. But none of that promises to be quite as fun as the backstage bickering that has consumed music’s two big awards shows. The bad feelings burst into the open last month when Dick Clark, executive producer of the American Music Awards, accused the Grammy Awards of essentially blacklisting artists who appear on Clark’s show. Clark said in a lawsuit that Michael Greene, head of the National Academy of Recording… Read more »

Despite ongoing litigation, Michael Jackson will be on the American Music Awards after all – just not as a performer. Jackson, who had agreed to sing at the AMAs, pulled out of the awards show last month, angering TV personality/producer Dick Clark enough to file a $10 million lawsuit against Michael Greene, president and CEO of the Recording Academy, alleging that Greene’s policy of refusing to book artists who perform at the AMAs for the Recording Academy’s Grammy Awards forced Jackson to back out of his agreement with Clark. While Jackson will now appear on the AMAs to accept his… Read more »

As Epic Records commitment to artist development continued to flourish in 2001, Epic will bring an entirely new group of exciting artists to the stage in 2002. The Epic team will work as one cohesive unit towards our common goal: helping our artists rise to the top of the marketplace. EPIC RECORDS 2001 RECAP Flickerstick – Winners of the breakthrough VH1 series Bands on the Run released their major label debut Welcoming Home The Astronauts. The album was re-mixed by Tom Lord Alge (Weezer, Blink-182, Marilyn Manson) and includes two new songs, “Execution By X-mas Lights” and “Smile.” Flickerstick will… Read more »

Though Michael Jackson won’t perform at the American Music Awards in early January after all, he’ll still be performing on television that same night – on another network. CBS plans to re-broadcast the singer’s concert special, “Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration,” with previously unseen footage of Britney Spears and Lil’ Romeo, to air against the AMAs on ABC January 9th. Jackson’s two-hour concert special, which originally aired November 13th, gave CBS some of its highest ratings this year – it was the network’s biggest Tuesday night, excluding sports programming, since 1994. According to Nielsen Media Research estimates, an estimated 45… Read more »

After three months of heartfelt September 11 benefits, lots of musicians, including Ozzy Osbourne, No Doubt, Korn, Weezer and Elton John, are starting to focus once again on their own financial concerns. A bunch of successful musicians from a variety of genres have united to organize four simultaneous benefit concerts for the Recording Artists Coalition (RAC), a group that seeks to create more equitable standards for recording musicians. Billed the Concerts for Artists Rights, the four shows will take place in the greater Los Angeles and Orange County, California, areas on February 26, the night before the 44th annual Grammy… Read more »