Search Results for: soft play

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 »

Chicago rockers Disturbed have upset the Dixie Chicks’ three-week run as chart champs, selling more than 283,000 copies of their second album to debut atop the Billboard 200 albums chart, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday. The riff-wielding quartet has come a long way in its short career. Disturbed’s 2000 debut, The Sickness, while eventually selling more than 2.6 million copies, took nearly two months to crack the chart after its release. What’s even more impressive is that Disturbed’s first-place showing came without an unavoidable, playlist-friendly video. The clip for the LP’s first single, “Prayer,” encountered restrictions because it was… Read more »

Kurt Cobain fans are closer to Nirvana than they have been in years. A studio version of the unreleased Nirvana track “You Know You’re Right” has surfaced online in its entirety. The song, which was reportedly recorded in January 1994, less than three months before frontman Cobain took his own life with a shotgun in his Seattle home, is expected to a appear on the long-awaited Nirvana greatest-hits album, which, according to Courtney Love, is due by Christmas. A Universal Music Group spokesperson, however, said that while the LP would come out, there was no specific release date. By Monday… Read more »

Does hip-hop speak to Pepsi’s “new generation”? Well, it depends on who you ask. Last week, Fox News Channel’s conservative ranter Bill O’Reilly denounced the soda giant for choosing Ludacris to appear in Pepsi ads, calling him a “thug rapper” who “espouses violence, intoxication, and degrading conduct toward women.” Just one day later, Pepsi announced that it was dropping Luda as its spokesperson and apologizing to anyone who was offended by its association with him. This move came despite Pepsi’s own research which had found that teens ranked the soda’s hip-hop spokesperson as popular as any celebrity associated with the… Read more »

Napster’s newly altered Web page said it all Wednesday, one day after its remaining 42 employees were fired and the song-swap company’s doors closed for good. After a Delaware bankruptcy judge blocked the sale of the company’s assets to its chief investor, the company prepared to convert its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization filing into a Chapter 7 liquidation proceeding. There was no eulogy for Shawn Fanning’s innovative software application from the recording industry, which helped kill Napster with its lawsuits. The Recording Industry Association of America has made no comment on Napster’s passing. Record labels, artists and copyright holders all… Read more »

Guns N’ Roses’ surprise performance at Thursday’s 19th annual MTV Video Music Awards was easily the night’s highlight presentation, even though P. Diddy, Eminem and Justin Timberlake had more pizzazz and Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow had more heart. Click here for the complete 2002 MTV VMA Winners List. The group – which included longtime GN’R keyboardist Dizzy Reed and a batch of new faces like ex-Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, ex-Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck and guitarist Buckethead – kicked off its medley with “Welcome to the Jungle,” the song that had thunderingly announced GN’R back on their first… 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 »

iM Networks, a leading provider of Internet audio programming solutions for consumer electronics companies, today announced a marketing alliance with Listen.com for Rhapsody, the company’s premier digital music subscription service. iM Networks will offer the Rhapsody service directly to iM Radio users, including those that have purchased iM Ready devices from consumer electronic manufacturers Philips, Panasonic, and Creative. iM Radio listeners will receive an introductory e-mail message with information on how to subscribe to Rhapsody, and will be offered a 30-day free trial through iM Networks. Soon, iM Networks will also make it easier for users to obtain their favorite… Read more »

The first commercial radio station to cybercast its over-the-air playlist is among the first to fall victim to newly imposed royalty rates for online broadcasts. KPIG stopped streaming music online Thursday, ending a near seven-year run on the Internet. According to its own estimates, the small-scale station would have been forced to pay $24,000 in back royalties (or approximately $3,000 per month) from this year alone on an arm of the station that generates little or no revenue on its own. It was purely for the benefit of those who were interested in hearing it. Based in Freedom, California, KPIG’s… Read more »

EMI Group Plc played down chances of an attempt to merge or sell its business on Friday, saying it was more convinced than ever it was best off alone despite a rapidly shrinking music industry. Signs so far this year point to a steeper than expected decline in global music sales of four percent, but the world’s third biggest music group remains on track to meet its targets, EMI’s head of recorded music Alain Levy said. “When we originally announced a merger with Warner Music, we made clear the best option after that was to remain as a stand-alone. That… Read more »