Search Results for: something corporate

“Things are different now,” a news anchor commented last Tuesday while covering the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Those words continue to resonate a week later, with sports, travel and entertainment all vastly affected by the East Coast tragedies. In the music industry, the biggest changes are occurring on the air as radio stations around the country alter their playlists to reflect the radically different context in which pop music is now heard as compared to when the music was originally written and recorded. As Bob Buchmann, program director at WAXQ in New York, put it, “The… Read more »

Though they’d rather be making their own movies, Sonic Youth are back in the studio laying down atmospheric music for a French film and noisy dinosaur rock for their next album. “We’re improvising and getting into these long, elaborate stretches of music and keeping an ear for soundtrack cues but at the same time listening for how they would work for song elements,” singer/guitarist Thurston Moore said last week. “We sit around drinking iced coffee, and then we start getting it together and playing and all hell breaks loose and it just becomes like a creative mosh pit for a… Read more »

While lip-synching on a four-wheel Honda motor bike during his “Livin’ It Up” video shoot late last month, Ja Rule took a little time to count his blessings. No, not because he narrowly escaped being shot by voluptuous, water-gun-toting models who served as eye candy for the clip’s barbecue/party setting, rather, because Ja has finally shaken a beleaguering hex. “It’s been a jinx with me and Case,” he said, referring to his collaborations with his crooner labelmate and the song’s guest star. “Everything we’ve done hasn’t got cleared. We made a record in like ’95, ’96. We did a song… Read more »

Radio airplay is and has been the primary driver of retail record sales in the United States. Some estimate that nearly 90 percent of sales is the direct result of an artist being exposed on radio. But today, radio is joined by an array of other media choices: MTV, BET, and VH1, digital downloads, and streamed audio. Consumers borrow friend’s CDs and tapes, and see live performance. Any record label or promoter would be remiss by ignoring any one of these outlets since they all help to sell music. In the first-ever project of its kind, James Schureck at Jeff… Read more »

With a new wife, new twin sons and even a new band, veteran pop troubadour James Taylor is spending most of the next few months touring the amphitheaters of North America, a summer ritual as dependable as sunscreen and inflated concession stand prices. “I’m kind of grooved in on that kind of evening and a sort of summer-night experience,” says Taylor, 53, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who in February this year married Boston Symphony Orchestra publicist Caroline Smedvig. The couple’s sons were born in early April, via in vitro fertilization of a surrogate mother. The veteran singer-songwriter… Read more »

It is fitting that Limp Bizkit fans chose “Boiler” for the band’s next single, as Fred Durst and the boys have been boiling mad lately. In a posting on their official Web site (www.limpbizkit.com), Durst said the band will fuel their next album with anger brought out recently by a wave of Bizkit hate. “There is so much Hatorade being drunk out there,” Durst wrote in the message. “Every magazine, paper, band, etc. is on a Limp hating rampage and it is really giving us the fire. We have so much built up inside and we wanna let it all… Read more »

The release of Amnesiac on June 5 will bring to a conclusion Radiohead’s three-year saga of what to do after OK Computer. And after going in markedly different directions with Amnesiac and last fall’s Kid A, bassist Colin Greenwood says he expects the group to drift back toward something resembling a standard operating procedure. “We’ve talked about doing a guitar album next,” Greenwood reports. “The reason we did these two records is to show that anything is possible rather than everything is expected; the last thing we wanted to do was go into the studio and make another version of… Read more »

KS95-Minneapolis OM/PD Leighton PeckIn an age of radio where “localness” is being de-emphasized, one example of a station stepping up and serving its community, and a stellar example at that, is KS95 (KSTP/FM)-Minneapolis’s Third Annual “KS95 for Kids Radiothon.” Held last month at the Twin Cities’ Mall of America and hosted by KS95 morning duo Van Patrick & Cheryl Kaye, the 84-hour (!) event helped raise an astounding $1.54 million, breaking the national record for a fundraiser of this type. Amazingly enough, the record the Hot A/C broke was their own, set at last year’s Radiothon. What’s even more amazing… Read more »

For years recording artists and the executives who promote their work have had a love-hate relationship. Executives at recording companies, which make billions of dollars a year distributing music on compact discs and in other formats, say their business is risky and they should be compensated for taking chances on young talent. Recording artists, for their part, have long grumbled that companies are too controlling, lining their pockets by exploiting musicians unschooled in business. Now, while the debate in the music industry has focused on how recording companies should deal with the public online, the controversy has also reheated long-simmering… Read more »