Search Results for: soft play

“SYNERGY AND OTHER LIES” would be a good first reading assignment for Sir Howard Stringer, Sony’s new chief executive, to be followed by “The Synergy Myth.” Then Sir Howard should recognize that the Sony he inherits is constitutionally incapable of making one (electronics) plus one (entertainment) equal three. Both books were written by Harold Geneen, the number cruncher who directed International Telephone and Telegraph during its heyday in the 1960’s. He engineered 350 mergers and acquisitions, which brought such names as Hartford, Avis, Sheraton and Madison Square Garden under one roof. Mr. Geneen, however, harbored no illusions that ITT’s individual… Read more »

Ah, bullshit. You can smell it from a mile away. Even further when it comes from some of these new emotional hardcore bands, acts who supposedly rely on their own feelings for lyrical content but are really just pissing around with what’s “cool.” They don’t care at all and it’s horribly frustrating. Apparently Matchbook Romance drummer Aaron Stern shares these frustrations. “Too much music out there is insincere. It goes with the motions and that’s about it. I’m tired of hearing these bands capitalize on something that was supposed to have deepness to it, but at this point all I… Read more »

The hit series The O.C. is becoming known as a hotbed for indie music promotion. Appearances on the show by bands such as The Killers and Modest Mouse have led to increased sales in a genre the industry has pretty much left for dead. Now the show’s expert soundtrackers have put together a new installment of their successful compilation series. This new CD will be the fourth from the show – the previous three all came out last year. The O.C.: Mix 4 is set to come out on April 5. The new comp’s biggest score may be “Scarecrow” by… Read more »

Further proof that even professional businessmen can have the mentality of 13-year-old girls – Applehead Steve Jobs officially bitch-slapped the competition in an e-mail to leading record label execs earlier this week. According to the LA Times, Jobs went junior high on his rival in the downloadable music industry, Napster, directing the recipients of his message to a website with instructions on how to get around the program’s security systems. It basically showed how to convert Napster’s time-limited rental song files into permanent downloads, which can then be copied onto CDs. The site also pointed out that Napster will let… Read more »

Classic-rock fan George Petersen doesn’t need another copy of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” or Cream’s “Disraeli Gears.” He has spent the past four decades buying and re-buying his favorite music in a succession of new formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassette, compact disc, Super Audio CD, DVD-Audio. Enough is enough. The basement is full. “We as consumers have been trained by the music industry to go out and buy a new piece of plastic every few years,” said the 51-year-old Petersen, editorial director of Mix, a San Francisco-based magazine that covers professional sound recording. “Why do we keep buying… Read more »

London – EMI Group PLC, one of the world’s largest music companies, warned Monday that its full-year sales and profits will be below expectations because of the delayed release of two key albums and market weakness in the fourth quarter. Its shares fell 16 percent. EMI, which owns several record labels including Virgin and Capitol, said the latest offerings from the bands Coldplay and Gorillaz – both expected to be big sellers – will be released in the first half of the next financial year. The albums had been due to hit the shelves before the end of the current… Read more »

Hoboken, N.J. – The brooding kid hailed as rock’s next musical genius slouches next to the bar at a tiny, smoky club. No one notices. Not even this crowd of indie music fans recognizes Conor Oberst, the 24-year-old sensation behind Bright Eyes who’s been pegged as this generation’s Bob Dylan, putting words and melody behind those tormented emotions the rest of us struggle to describe. He pops up on stage to join his friends, Yo La Tengo, for their encore. Then he slides back into the crowd, just another skinny guy in jeans and a black hoodie. But the days… Read more »

New York – In 2001, Martin Amis, Rick Moody and other authors and artists gathered in New York to honor a peer they regarded as a giant of the times. They compared him to Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and Arthur Rimbaud. They called him a bard, a shaman and a master of “art as revenge.” That man was Bob Dylan. Had he lived in England, he’d be Sir Bob Dylan, maybe even Lord. Scholarly books have compared him to Dante and Keats; admirers lobby for him to get the Nobel Prize. At a 1997 Kennedy Center ceremony, where fellow honorees… Read more »

After being on the road for two years, playing hundreds of shows and doing about just as many interviews, the last thing Finger Eleven guitarist James Black probably wants is to listen to the same old questions. So, ChartAttack sat down with Black to talk a little about comics, the band’s new single and surviving on the road with your friends… You guys have a new single coming out called “Thousand Mile Wish.” Is it a heavier song or more of a ballad like “One Thing”? James Black: It’s a softer song. In my opinion it’s actually in-between because the… Read more »

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro – Greeting members of the rock band R.E.M. in his Belgrade office, Serbia’s President Boris Tadic said he’s a fan and requested that his favorite song, “Orange Crush,” be played at their concert Friday. Youthful and soft-spoken, Tadic, 46, is at the helm of a democratic leadership striving to open the troubled Balkan republic to the West after years of ostracism and isolation during the rule of Yugoslavia’s ex-President Slobodan Milosevic. Bringing world-famous artists to the country is part of that effort, said Nebojsa Krstic, head of Tadic’s press team. Krstic said Tadic has been a fan of… Read more »