Despite taking a 58-percent drop in sales during its second week in stores, Avril Lavigne’s The Best Damn Thing remains the nation’s top-selling LP, scanning more than 121,600 copies to hold onto the peak position on Billboard’s albums chart. Sultry R&B crooner Joe debuts at a distant #2, having sold 98,000 copies of his latest outing, Ain’t Nothin’ Like Me.
U.S. rapper Kanye West and British rocker Rod Stewart have been added to the lineup of artists performing at a July 1 concert to mark the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death in a car crash. Diana’s sons, princes William and Harry, are organizing the event at London’s Wembley stadium, and officials said Harry, due to go to Iraq in the coming weeks to serve in the army, would probably be allowed leave to return for it. “I’ve been advised that the commanding officer is likely to grant him leave for a short period of time,” the concert’s project director… Read more »
It was a tight race for the #1 spot on Billboard ‘s next albums chart, one that pitted enigmatic indie rock outfit Modest Mouse against soulful British songstress Joss Stone. And no matter how it all played out, someone was going to score the first chart-topping debut of their career. While Stone was a solid contender for the top spot, Modest Mouse take the crown on next week’s chart by a margin of 10,000 scans with their latest offering, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, selling nearly 129,000 copies. But Modest Mouse’s conquest was perhaps more significant because… Read more »
Many acts avoid reading reviews of their albums for fear one sour critic will reduce their noble efforts to rubble. Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden is not one of those artists. “I read all the reviews,” he says. “I remember the first review I ever read about our band was ‘They’ll be gone tomorrow; they’ll be gone quicker than they came.’” Seven years and more than 9 million albums later, pop punkers Good Charlotte are not only still standing, but proudly proclaiming a return three years after the release of 2004’s “The Chronicles of Life & Death.” “Ben said something a… Read more »
It’s not a stretch to say that on their epic climb to the top of the Billboard albums chart, Fall Out Boy have shed their fair share of blood, sweat and tears – spending nearly five years crisscrossing the country in vans, buses and airplanes will do that to you . But on next month’s tour, they’ll be focusing primarily on the red stuff. Taking a (pretty awesome) page from the Kiss playbook – or, more specifically, the Kiss comic book – FOB will be tapping their veins for a contest, one in which they’ll mix their own blood with… Read more »
Every day, the roughly one million people who visit the iTunes Store home page are presented with several dozen albums, TV shows and movie downloads to consider buying — out of the four million such goods the Apple site offers. This prime promotion is analogous to a CD being displayed at the checkout stands of all 940 Best Buy stores or featured on the front page of Target’s ad circular. How do bands get these boosts? Who decides whether Arcade Fire is plugged at the top of the iTunes site — or whether Nickelback gets no mention? Apple has jettisoned… Read more »
We’re not even 20 seconds into the show, and Ryan Seacrest is already suggesting that we’re in for one helluva train wreck tonight. “We don’t havhe Paula! But we’ll find her, right?” This is “American Idol”? It’s the last round of semifinal performances, and nothing could be worse than Tuesday’s embarrassing men’s show . Well, I guess if they let Antonella sing for the entire episode I’d reconsider that statement. But with a group of girls this talented, even an off-night would be worth watching. And Paula’s top-of-the-show disappearing act certainly suggests that it may be chock full of potential… Read more »
Avril Lavigne declared in a Web post late last year that her next LP, The Best Damn Thing, would be “fast, fun, young, bratty, aggressive, confident, cocky in a playful way … all the good stuff.” In case you didn’t believe the “fun” part, the singer recently told MTV she had an absolute blast recording the effort . She didn’t labor over songs, didn’t write any serious ones – well, OK, just a few – and made sure to indulge herself throughout the process. “This record, I’ve never had so much fun in the studio,” the singer said. “We would… Read more »
When Fall Out Boy released their third full-length album, From Under the Cork Tree, no one realized just how well the LP would do. It ended up being one of the surprise breakout hits of 2005 and sold more than 2.5 million copies in the U.S. alone – making for much less surprising first-week sales totals for the band’s follow-up effort, Infinity on High. With close to 260,000 copies flying off record store shelves last week, FOB’s Infinity on High has earned the Chicago rockers a career first: a #1 debut on Billboard ‘s albums chart – a debut one… Read more »
Fittingly for a larger-than-life media figure whose life was a series of dramatic twists, turns and tragedies, the death of Anna Nicole Smith on Thursday at the age of 39 has turned into yet another media circus as the cause of her death remains undetermined. The autopsy performed on the troubled reality-TV star/ former model on Friday (February 9) was inconclusive, according to Broward County Chief Medical Examiner Joshua Perper . During a press conference Friday afternoon, Perper said a nearly six-hour autopsy excluded any physical injury as a cause of death and also revealed no evidence of a large… Read more »
