The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 shifted hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet.
All eyes on the red carpet at Sunday’s Grammy Awards went straight to Lady Gaga and her solar-system gown that was totally out of this world.
TV stations across the U.S. started cutting their analog signals Friday morning, ending a 60-year run for the technology and likely stranding more than 1 million unprepared homes without TV service. The Federal Communications Commission put 4,000 operators on standby for calls from confused viewers, and set up demonstration centers in several cities. Volunteer groups and local government agencies were helping elderly viewers set up digital converter boxes that keep older TVs functioning. Any set hooked up to cable or a satellite dish is unaffected. “When you’re alone like me, that’s my partner,” Patricia Bruchalski, 82, said about her TV.… Read more »
As Internet reports suggested, Pearl Jam was indeed recording a Target commercial under the direction of Cameron Crowe last week at Seattle’s Showbox theater. But there is more to the story than an exclusive retail relationship. It has been known that Pearl Jam is no longer under contract after 18 years of recording for Sony-affiliated labels, and there has been a good deal of speculation about who would release the rock act’s next album. Kelly Curtis, who has managed Pearl Jam since its inception, conducted a wide-ranging interview Sunday night, confirming that the band’s next album — rumored to be… Read more »
Not much rattles Apple. Disciplined and focused, the company lavishes attention on its own elegant products and rarely deigns to discuss rivals. Yet here was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer and designated stand-in for ailing CEO Steve Jobs, erupting during an earnings call in late January at the mere mention of a pip-squeak competitor. The pest in question was Palm, the fallen pioneer of handheld digital organizers, which two weeks earlier had unveiled a new smartphone, the Palm Pre, to rave reviews. Not only did the Pre have features the iPhone couldn’t match – snazzy multitasking, universal search, a… Read more »
Anchored from President-elect Obama’s official Youth Inaugural Ball, MTV and ServiceNation announced “Be the Change: Live From the Inaugural” on Sunday (January 11), which will celebrate the huge youth-voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election and ongoing youth community service. The show will feature live remarks from the newly inaugurated president as he addresses young people across the globe from the Youth Inaugural Ball, and call on them to continue to engage in national and community service. Obama’s remarks will be made available to viewers around the world, reaching a potential global youth audience of 1 billion people in 162… Read more »
He had one of the biggest opening sales weeks of 2008, and now, Lil Wayne is the year’s most-nominated Grammy contender. Wayne and his latest LP, “Tha Carter III,” lead the pack with a total of eight nominations, while one of the year’s other biggest sellers, Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends,” garnered seven nods. Jay-Z, Ne-Yo and Kanye West each earned six nods, while Alison Krauss, John Mayer, Robert Plant, Radiohead and Jazmine Sullivan received five each. Adele is up for four – including Best New Artist – as are Lupe Fiasco and T.I. The… Read more »
It was another brush-with-an-icon moment for the Killers : back in May of this year, joining Duran Duran – the first name in ’80s fashionista Britpop – onstage, aptly in Las Vegas, to perform the vets’ chestnut “Planet Earth.” Brandon Flowers, resplendent as ever in a tux, looked like a young James Bond. And you know he had to have been stirred, if not a little bit shaken. There are no more unabashed Anglophiles among U.S. pop-rockers than the Killers. From day one, they have made that clear: They took their name from a New Order video, they’ve covered Joy… Read more »
The pressure had been building up behind the scenes for longer than most music fans realized. But when the teen-pop explosion burst onto the charts in early 1999 it felt like the music world had been blindsided overnight by a flood of squeaky-clean acts who would dominate the charts for years to come. And in some cases, those ripples are still being felt today. It’s hard to believe it now, but over the course of a few months between late 1998 and early 1999, radio and MTV were inundated with the debuts and breakthroughs from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, ‘NSYNC,… Read more »
These days, the old west rail hub of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is little more than a dusty economic dead zone amid a boneyard of bare mesas. In national elections, the town overwhelmingly votes Democratic: More than 80 percent of all residents are Hispanic, and one in four lives below the poverty line. On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort… Read more »
