Search Results for: pop will eat itself

What was supposed to be a peaceful, private gathering of the West Coast hip-hop community on Thursday turned into a heated four-hour open-mic assembly dominated by two very different sermons: one from Minister Louis Farrakhan and one from Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight. Tempers flared at the West Coast Hip-Hop Summit inside the posh ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel when Knight spent much of his time at the podium insulting everyone from Dr. Dre, Eminem and Master P to Janet Jackson, women and homosexuals. Knight’s tirades prompted a few outbursts and resulted in several people storming out… Read more »

U2 had the Super Bowl halftime stage all to itself, and the Irish rockers delivered a moving tribute to America and the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Lead singer Bono walked onto the field with a slow, shoulder-wagging swagger, singing the group’s recent hit, “Beautiful Day,” as he climbed onto the point of a pink, heart-shaped catwalk that surrounded the stage. As the first song wound down, a giant screen scrolled the names of victims in the attacks, and the group broke into the 1980s hit, “Where the Streets Have No Name.” The names also reflected in overlapping… Read more »

Looking to take advantage of what they say is a large and lucrative niche audience untapped by television programmers, two cable divisions of Viacom (news/quote), MTV Networks and Showtime, are developing a plan to create the first cable channel aimed directly at gay viewers. The still unnamed channel would be offered to cable system operators as a pay channel like HBO or Showtime – only much less costly at $5 or $6 a month – but it would also include advertising. MTV Networks and Showtime have conducted extensive audience testing and concluded that there is, as one Showtime executive put… Read more »

Pressplay (www.pressplay.com), the online music service launched Dec. 19, is an order of magnitude better than rival MusicNet (www.musicnet.com), which launched Dec. 4. The gap is so great that I don’t think MusicNet deserves to sign up a single additional subscriber without first undertaking a major overhaul to match pressplay. Not that pressplay is perfect; the major record labels are still struggling to figure out how to sell their music online without opening the door to further piracy. But pressplay succeeds at delivering all three components of the online music experience: “streaming,” where you listen to songs without putting them… Read more »

The world’s largest record company will be the first of the major labels to release a copy-protected CD in the United States, signaling a new chapter in the industry’s efforts to stem music piracy. When Universal Music Group on Tuesday releases the soundtrack, “Fast & Furious – More Music,” consumers won’t be able to copy the music onto another CD or use their PCs to “rip” tracks in digital MP3 format. The copy-protection technology will also render the disc unplayable on Macintosh computers, DVD players and game consoles, such as Sony’s PlayStation 2. It might not even play in some… Read more »

Headliners in their own right, singer Gwen Stefani and her bandmates in No Doubt were so eager to showcase their forthcoming album, “Rock Steady,” they started touring as an opening act two months before the CD was due for release. Back on the road after an 18-month hiatus, No Doubt will be playing warmup dates for veteran Irish rockers U2 into early December. But far from feeling overshadowed by Bono and friends, Stefani sees the U2 gig as the perfect way for No Doubt to bring itself back in public view and prepare for the Dec. 11 release of its… Read more »

Ever since the success of her 1988 single “Orinoco Flow,” Enya’s been one of the world’s most popular artists, quietly selling more than 50 million albums while staying, for the most part, out of the spotlight. But now, with her latest single – the gently reassuring “Only Time” – becoming part of the soundtrack to the post-September 11 world, Enya’s very much at the center of attention. The singer’s elegant, evocative and ethereal A Day Without Rain, released almost a year ago, will hit #2 on next week’s Billboard 200 albums chart, right between rappers Ja Rule and Bubba Sparxxx.… Read more »

First album together in eight years finds band returning to its roots. For many years over the past two decades, New Order crafted cynical synth-pop that radiated with alternative dancefloor chic. But on Get Ready, the band’s first record together in eight years, New Order have done something they haven’t tried since their pre-Order days. They’ve rocked out. While the album still shimmers and shivers with electronic textures, it’s anchored by organic instrumentation and galvanic grooves. “60 Miles an Hour,” Get Ready’s second single, sounds like a beefier spinoff of the band’s hit “Blue Monday,” and “Rock the Shack” is… Read more »

Building on the success of last week’s all-star telethon for victims of the Sept. 11 air attacks, musical performances from the show will be packaged as a benefit album to raise additional relief dollars, organizers said Wednesday. Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, is overseeing efforts to obtain rights for the companion CD from the recording artists who appeared on the show, insiders told Reuters. Interscope is a unit of Vivendi Universal. Iovine played a key role in booking musical acts for the telethon, dubbed “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” which featured such stars as Bruce Springsteen, Mariah… Read more »

An eyeball-catching performance on the Latin Grammy awards program not only lifts recordings sales but can transform careers, according to recording executives hoping their musicians pull a Ricky Martin. Executives at Sony Music and BMG said the Latin Grammys, a $4 million production to be broadcast on Tuesday in the United States and 120 other countries, is a venue that can overcome barriers of language, genre and country. Martin’s 1999 performance on the long-running U.S. Grammy awards program mightily boosted sales of his self-named album and other recordings and was widely seen as making the Puerto Rican native an international… Read more »