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Struggling music company EMI Group PLC, beset by profit warnings and an accounting scandal in Brazil, was thrown a potential lifeline Tuesday with a possible new takeover bid by former suitor Warner Music Group. A tie-up would bring a badly needed infusion of top U.S. artists including Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to London-based EMI – whose Beatles remix album has dropped off Billboard’s top 40 and whose great hope for cross-Atlantic appeal, Robbie Williams, has drawn more publicity for rehab than music. EMI confirmed Tuesday it had been approached by Warner, but that it has received no… Read more »

Warner Music Group Corp., home to recording artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, James Blunt and Daniel Powter, said Thursday its first-quarter profit fell 74 percent due to fewer albums released during the period and soft domestic and European sales. Its shares fell nearly 5 percent. The New York-based recording company said net income declined to $18 million, or 12 cents per share, from $69 million, or 46 cents per share, during the same period a year ago. Total revenue fell 11 percent to $928 million from $1.04 billion during the prior-year period. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected… Read more »

Warner Music Group has signed a deal to allow its entire catalog to be played over the fast-growing social networking music service Last.fm, the innovative site that links music fans to new and old hits. With more than 15 million active users per month, Last.fm has earned glowing praise for its system which recommends songs by tracking a listener’s music-playing habits and automatically linking them to fans with similar tastes. The deal with Warner, the world’s fourth-largest music company, is the first with one of the major labels and the network’s co-founder Martin Stiksel said they were in talks with… Read more »

With the decade fast approaching it’s musical climax, 2006 proved to be a big winner for an industry hit by piracy. The live music scene proved to be the biggest release for most acts, with top grossing tours for some of the world’s biggest bands, and an explosion in music festivals across the globe. Firstly, let’s recap on albums were still waiting on from last year; OutKast’s first studio album since 2004’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” (which was one of the year’s biggest releases) is rumoured now for the spring, and Guns N’ Roses failed to deliver on their promise of… Read more »

OAKLAND, Calif. – Music retailers are turning to high-tech firms that combine computer analysis with the art of listening to come up with new music suggestions for consumers based on what they already like. In a computer-crammed space at Savage Beast Technologies, divergent melodies seep softly from headphones worn by young men and women who listen to music with the intensity of submarine sonar operators. Their job is to discern and define attributes in tunes by artists as diverse as teen diva Hilary Duff and jazz legend Miles Davis. The listeners classify hundreds of characteristics about each song, including beat,… Read more »

Washington – Underwriters for Warner Music Group Corp. on Monday set the terms of the record company’s pending initial public offering at 32.6 million shares with an estimated price range of $22 to $24 a share. According to an amended prospectus filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, 5.43 million of the total shares are being offered by selling holders. Warner Music Group acquired substantially all of Time Warner Inc.’s music division in March 2004 for $2.6 billion. The company is backed by a group of investors that includes the company’s chief executive, Edgar Bronfman Jr., as well as… Read more »

New York – Warner Music Group Corp., one of the world’s largest record companies, on Friday disclosed plans to go public, filing with regulators to sell up to $750 million worth of common stock. In a Securities and Exchange Commission statement, the company did not estimate how many shares or at what price it planned to offer its stock in the initial public offering, but said shares will be sold by both the company and several shareholders. Proceeds from the deal will be used to repay debt and for general corporate purposes, according to the SEC document. New York-based Warner… Read more »

New York – Christina Aguilera says she was shocked when a Valentine surprise turned into a marriage proposal. The 24-year-old pop diva says music executive Jordan Bratman, her boyfriend of two years, popped the question at Big Sur, Calif., last Friday after recreating a romantic dinner the two had while touring India in the fall. “It was unbelievable,” Aguilera told Us Weekly magazine. “Every cute thing he did, I totally thought was just a Valentine’s Day surprise – he got me!” “He sent me on a scavenger hunt,” she said. “My mom used to do scavenger hunts for me when… Read more »

Los Angeles – Pop star Britney Spears won the first Grammy Award of her brief but colorful career on Sunday, taking the prize in the best dance recording category. Spears, 23, was honored for her chart-topping song “Toxic,” which appeared on her 2003 album “In the Zone.” The other nominated songs were “Good Luck,” by Basement Jaxx featuring Lisa Kekaula; “Get Yourself High,” by the Chemical Brothers; “Slow,” by Kylie Minogue ; and “Comfortably Numb,” by Scissor Sisters. Spears was previously nominated six times: twice each in 2000, 2001 and 2003. With her record sales tapering off in recent years,… Read more »

New York – In 2001, Martin Amis, Rick Moody and other authors and artists gathered in New York to honor a peer they regarded as a giant of the times. They compared him to Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and Arthur Rimbaud. They called him a bard, a shaman and a master of “art as revenge.” That man was Bob Dylan. Had he lived in England, he’d be Sir Bob Dylan, maybe even Lord. Scholarly books have compared him to Dante and Keats; admirers lobby for him to get the Nobel Prize. At a 1997 Kennedy Center ceremony, where fellow honorees… Read more »