Search Results for: prince

In early 1984, when Epic Records executives presented their slate of upcoming releases at the convention in Hawaii of parent company CBS Records they couldn’t resist playing up the success they were experiencing. So between the pitches for new albums, Epic inserted stock footage of semi trucks and a voice-over that thunderously announced, “There goes another load of Michael Jackson’s Thriller albums!” Trucks weren’t really leaving the warehouse every few minutes, but Thriller was still shattering expectations more than a year after its November 30, 1982, release. Epic was selling more than 1 million copies per month in the United… Read more »

Boy wizard Harry Potter is back in cinemas later this month with the sixth installment of the movie franchise, and another box office bonanza looks assured for the Warner Bros studio. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” hits screens on July 15, promising high-speed action, dark and dangerous battles with the forces of evil, budding romance at Hogwarts school for wizards and the expected death of a prominent character. The wait has been a long one for Potter fans around the world who have followed the fate of Harry and his friends through the seven best-selling books by British author… Read more »

Michael Jackson died Thursday afternoon, June 25th, at the age of 50 after suffering cardiac arrest. Reports say the legendary pop singer suffered cardiac arrest at his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills and was not breathing and had no pulse when paramedics arrived after a 911 call around 12:26 p.m. PT. They administered CPR in the ambulance but were unable to revive him. At the hospital, staff attempted to resuscitate Jackson, but he was unresponsive. From his early career in the 1970s with his family group the Jackson 5 to his decades-long career as a solo… Read more »

That’s no Abercrombie & Fitch advertisement – according to the Jonas Brothers’ official fan site and the band’s pre-order page, it’s the cover for the JoBros’ new album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times, out June 15th.  While the trio’s previous album, A Little Bit Longer, put the band in suits and a rain-soaked fluorescent-bulb-lit cityscape, Lines, Vines finds the casual Jonas crew leaning over what it is undoubtedly a pick-up truck. Essentially, they did a reverse Kings of Leon. These are “trying times,” as the title of the album and our wallets suggest, so the boys have scaled back on… Read more »

“Stand and Deliver,” the first song recorded by the reunited No Doubt, leaked yesterday, nearly a month before the band was due to perform the song on a flashback episode of Gossip Girl. Like No Doubt’s cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” Gwen Stefani and her bandmates manage to take Adam & The Ants’ “Prince Charming” hit and skew it both more modern and more new wave. Stefani replaces Ant’s thick British vocals from the original with her own valley girl cadence, befitting of the band’s role as early 1980s Los Angeles rockers on Gossip Girl. That episode, a… Read more »

Over the last few decades, a veteran music act’s best shot at platinum magic usually consisted of pairing up with younger hitmakers (a la Santana) or covering treasured classics (like Rod Stewart. These days, another kind of vehicle has become a path to best-selling success – teaming up with box store chains. Garth Brooks ‘ started the trend in earnest back in 2005, with an exclusive Wal-Mart deal, and the Eagles and AC/DC had multiplatinum-plus success over the last two years by exclusively selling new CDs at Wal-Mart. Guns ‘N Roses sold about a million copies with a special Best… Read more »

Oasis are back with a new video, this time for “Falling Down,” the latest single of the band’s Dig Out Your Soul. Directed by Wiz, the video’s plot seems pretty clear, as we follow a bright-eyed, luxurious young woman from random people’s beds to random drug dens. Later on, we see the woman putting on a crown, meaning that she’s regal or something, and on a red carpet event Oasis’ Gallagher brothers both snub the woman, hinting that one or both of them got it on with a member of the Royal Family. How do we know she’s a member… Read more »

LOS ANGELES — Don’t get Katy Perry twisted: She absolutely loves being pop’s quirky poster girl, the wild child who doesn’t censor herself and causes raised eyebrows with songs like “Ur So Gay” and “I Kissed a Girl.” But for all her success over the last year, Perry is hoping that songs like her most recent No. 1, “Hot n Cold,” show she has more to offer than kitsch and controversy. “It’s my personality, which is up and down and sassy and cheeky,” says Perry, who recently became a Grammy nominee “You’re gonna see me with all kinds of different… Read more »

Given Fall Out Boy’s penchant for publicity stunts (see this year’s nixed attempt to set a Guinness World Record by playing in Antarctica, followed by successfully setting the record for Most Interviews On Radio In a 24 Hour Period By A Pair of Two after talking to 72 radio stations), it should come as no surprise that the band celebrated yesterday’s release of Folie à Deux with a 36-hour New York promotional blitz that involved a nearly free show, performing on late-night TV and almost getting arrested. Over the weekend, Pete Wentz posted cryptic teasers on his blog for two… Read more »