Search Results for: sting

Amid continued controversy over applying the Fairness Doctrine to radio, the controversy over charging webcasters millions in retroactive royalty fees has seemingly come to a conclusion. On Thursday, the House of Representatives failed to come to the rescue of webcasters in a dispute with record companies over new royalty rates the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) put into place. Still, many broadcasters claim they cannot afford the increased fees and might go silent forever. At the hearing, the committee explored ways of revising the regulations that aimed to maintain a wide variety of listening options while also ensuring that artists are… Read more »

By The music industry has long hoped mobile phones will help turn around weak music sales, but music executives privately fear the most obvious contender, the iPhone, may give too much clout to Apple Inc., in shaping the future of the fledgling mobile music market. Sales of CDs, still the dominant music format, have dropped more than 20 percent in 2007 from a year ago, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Digital music sales are gradually claiming a greater portion of the business, but the transition has been slow. Sales of full-length songs on cellphones still claim a small portion of the… Read more »

Weezer are to start recording their sixth album next month. The as-yet-untitled album will be the follow up to 2005’s Make Believe. Singer Rivers Cuomo said that the band should released the new album next year. Posting on Weezer.com, he wrote, “Weezer is just polishing up a batch of songs for a recording session that is going to start at the beginning of July. This will be the final recording session for out sixth album, which we aim to put out in the first half of 2008.”

Pete Wentz was treated to dinner a few months ago by Lyor Cohen, the renowned rap promoter and U.S. music chief of Warner Music Group. Wentz, 28, is the eyelinered heartthrob and bassist of punk band Fall Out Boy; but this dinner was in celebration of the hit single just released by another band, Panic! At the Disco, which records on Wentz’s own label, Decaydance. “He asked me, ‘What do you want out of life, Pete?’” Wentz says. His answer was flip: business cards. The next day he received a stack of cards listing his name and a new title:… Read more »

With freedom comes responsibility. While fans and some critics cheered iTunes’ Friday roll-out of iTunes Plus – which offers songs from the EMI catalog sans digital rights management but at a premium price – you can bet that Apple wouldn’t give up DRM without getting something in return, and that something is information about you. Just days after the new downloads became available on iTunes, tech bloggers began furiously jumping on what seemed like a security system that embeds the customer’s name and Apple I.D./e-mail address in the purchased tracks. While Apple deferred comment on the matter, experts downplayed the… Read more »

Paris Hilton has been ordered to appear in court Friday for a hearing that will determine whether she should be sent back to jail, MSNBC reported late Thursday (June 7). According to TMZ.com, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo filed a motion requesting the judge who sentenced the heiress to force her to return to jail to serve out her entire sentence, according to documents obtained by TMZ.com. Judge Michael Sauer approved Delgadillo’s request for a hearing to demand why the Sherriff’s Department should not be held in contempt for “violating Judge [Michael] Sauer’s May 4, 2007, order, which expressly… Read more »

Satellite radio bills itself as the Wild West of the airwaves, an uncensored outpost beyond the reach of federal regulators where expletives fly with impunity and the banter can get as raunchy as at a strip club. But the decision this week by XM Satellite Radio to suspend shock jocks Opie and Anthony for 30 days for crude sexual comments about First Lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Queen Elizabeth II has listeners wondering whether there’s a new sheriff in town. Some XM listeners were outraged – not at the comments but at XM’s reaction. “I signed… Read more »

British rock band New Order, which arose from the ashes of post-punk band Joy Division in the early 1980s, has broken up, according to a Web posting by the group’s bass player. “I’m relieved really hated carryin on as normal with an awful secret so lets move on shall we?” Peter Hook wrote in a blog published on Wednesday on his MySpace page. Hook first revealed the split as an aside during an interview last weekend with Manchester radio announcer Clint Boon, when he said, “… me and Bernard (Sumner, New Order singer/guitarist) aren’t working together.” Hook and Sumner have… Read more »

For nearly a decade now, Tom Gabel has made a career of pissing people off. He played shows in Laundromats as a one-man acoustic act known as Against Me! before forming a full band (adding electric guitars = selling out!). He leapt from indie No Idea Records to equally indie Fat Wreck Chords (changing labels = selling out!), tinkered with Against Me!’s sound on 2003’s As the Eternal Cowboy (production = selling out!) and finally decided to sign with a major label in late 2005 (major label = selling out!). Whatever the situation, it seems he’s always derived some sort… Read more »

And then there was one. With the recent departure of drummer Rocky Gray and guitarist John LeCompt, Amy Lee is now the only member of Evanescence left who has been in the band since the release of its smash 2003 breakout album, Fallen. LeCompt was either fired by the band or decided to move on – depending which account you believe – while Gray left of his own accord recently, making them the latest members of the group to fall by the wayside. Original guitarist/ co-founder Ben Moody left in 2003 , and bassist William Boyd quit last June after… Read more »