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Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, on Wednesday announced it would make more than 43,000 song tracks available for download at retail outlets and music Web sites, opening a new front in the marketing of digital music. The initiative is aimed at attracting fans who may want to buy songs or albums on a one-off basis online rather than through monthly Internet subscriptions, the alternative the major labels have offered to peer-to-peer song swapping services. Universal Music, a unit of Vivendi Universal, said the downloads will be burnable to CD and transferable to secure portable devices. The digital… Read more »

The Eminem show was everywhere this week as two albums by the rapper commanded top spots on the U.S. sales charts ahead of the Friday opening of his highly anticipated debut movie. The newly released soundtrack to his film “8 Mile” – which features music by Eminem as well as other rappers such as Jay-Z, Nas and D-12 – debuted at No. 1 on the charts, selling an estimated 702,000 units in the week ended Nov. 3, according to music tracker Nielsen SoundScan. The album features three new solo songs by Eminem, who has the starring role in the movie… Read more »

Five men arrested on suspicion of plotting to kidnap singer Victoria Beckham were charged Monday with theft and conspiring to rob Sotheby’s auction house, police said. Scotland Yard said inquiries were continuing into the alleged plan to kidnap Victoria Beckham, the Spice Girl wife of England soccer captain David Beckham, for a reported 5 million pound (US$7.75 million) ransom. Nine people were arrested after a Sunday newspaper said undercover reporters had discovered the kidnap plot. Kosovo-born Azem Krifsha, 30; London-born Joseph Rivas, 24; and Rusu Sorin, 31 and originally from Romania, were charged with theft and handling of a jeweled… Read more »

In a fight to win back fans from the “gray zone” of online song-swapping services, the music industry is borrowing a trick from its nemeses: free music downloads. For one week beginning Thursday, music fans in Europe will be able to download, stream or burn onto their hard drives a selection of tracks from 6,000 artists including ColdPlay, Dido and Elvis Presley. It is part of a marketing ploy called “Digital Download Day” devised by British firm OD2, a technology company specializing in digital music distribution and co-founded by recording artist Peter Gabriel. Backed by record labels and music retailers,… Read more »

Singer Brian Littrell’s wife, actress Leighanne Wallace, has the couple’s baby on board. “We’re expecting a baby boy at the end of this year and we’re very excited,” the twosome said. The news comes almost exactly two years after Littrell, 27, and Wallace, 33, wed. (They celebrated their second anniversary on September 2.) “The only thing we have to deal with now is our puppies being jealous,” the couple added. “We’d like to thank the fans for all of their support and love.” Pending puppy problems notwithstanding, Littrell will become the first Backstreeter with his very own brood. His bandmate… Read more »

Digital-music subscription service Pressplay will offer subscribers access to exclusive new online tracks to stream or download from forthcoming albums well in advance of their release on CD, the company said Wednesday. The first material for the program, which will offer songs from both established and developing artists, will come from upcoming work by Bon Jovi, LL Cool J, Nine Days and Natalie Cole. Once the albums are out, users will also be able to transfer the selected tracks to a portable device and burn them onto a recordable CD. Separately, Pressplay is set to announce Thursday that its service… Read more »

Oops! Montreal’s radio pranksters did it again. Canadian comics posing as singer Celine Dion persuaded Britney Spears to sing a duet with golfer Tiger Woods called “Let’s Make a Hole in One” for a bogus charity event. Montreal comic Marc Audette, deftly imitating the voice of French-Canadian diva Dion, chatted with Spears on the telephone about each woman’s charity foundations. After a few minutes of mutual admiration, Audette got down to business and invited Spears to come to Montreal and visit “her club” – in reality, a popular Montreal strip joint. “We certainly won’t be distracted there,” Audette said. “Of… Read more »

Family, friends and surviving members of the iconic British rock band The Who attended the funeral of virtuoso bass player John Entwistle on Wednesday at a rural church. Guitarist Pete Townshend, vocalist Roger Daltrey and drummer Kenny Jones, who replaced Keith Moon after his death in 1978, attended the service at St. Edward’s Church in Stow-on-the-Wold. Entwistle, who died June 27 in Las Vegas, was now “reunited with Keith up there making great music,” the Rev. Colin Wilson said at the church, 60 miles northwest of London. “I think he would want us all to be strong, determined, unafraid of… Read more »

The Courtney Love vs. Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic case is on its way to court, and in late September the world should know more about the fate of unreleased Nirvana material. But Grohl is beginning to question whether all the legal mumbo jumbo is worth the hassle. In April the surviving members of Nirvana asked that Love be forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to test her sanity, and later in the month a judge denied the request, causing Grohl to bang his head against the wall as forcefully as he pummels his drum kit. “At the end of… Read more »

Mega-nü-metal bands are kinda like Microsoft. Every time they unveil a product, it’s gotta be more advanced than the last, and each new offering is accompanied with a celebration that upstages the one before. On November 15, 1999, as Korn prepared to release their fourth album, Issues, the band played a rock show at the legendary Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, a site usually foreign to rock shows. On Monday night, to christen the release of their new disc, Untouchables, the band simulcast a one-hour concert from the Hammerstein Ballroom to 40 movie theaters across the… Read more »