Search Results for: sting

Federal regulators opened a new front in their crackdown on offensive broadcasts Thursday, saying that almost any use of the F-word on over-the-air radio and television would be considered indecent. The Federal Communications Commission overruled its staff and said an expletive uttered by rock singer Bono on NBC was both indecent and profane. It marked the first time that the FCC cited a four-letter word as profane; the commission previously equated profanity with language challenging God’s divinity. The FCC on Thursday also proposed maximum fines for the broadcast of the Howard Stern radio show and for a program on two… Read more »

Federal regulators settled a case Thursday with companies that took advantage of thousands of “American Idol” fans trying to vote for their favorite contestants on the TV show. According to the Federal Trade Commission, three Utah-based companies bought dozens of phone numbers very similar to the toll-free numbers that “Idol” fans call to place their votes. Viewers who misdialed and got one of the numbers were directed to dial a 900-number to place their vote. A message on the 900-number then gave the correct toll-free number to call. The FTC said about 25,000 consumers were charged up to $3 per… Read more »

After more than two years in hibernation, Slipknot are about to re-emerge with a new look and a new album, which is cryptically titled Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. The band will don its third series of masks on this year’s Jägermeister Music Tour, which begins March 30 in Orlando, Florida.The new masks are more streamlined than those Slipknot wore on the 2002 tour for their second album, Iowa, but the look is basically the same. “It’s just an extension of what we wore last time, they just have more elaborate detail,” said drummer Joey Jordison. “You can still tell… Read more »

Chart-toppers Westlife announced Tuesday that singer Bryan McFadden was quitting the group, a move that could signal the beginning of the end for the Irish boy-band. However, manager Louis Walsh insisted it was business as usual for the remaining four members, who are currently rehearsing for a mammoth world tour. McFadden, aged 23, said he was leaving to spend more time with wife Kerry, the recent winner of the British hit television show “I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!” and their two young children. “It’s nothing to do with the guys,” he told a packed news conference in Dublin,… Read more »

Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello and Coup frontman Boots Riley are joining Florida farm workers in protesting Taco Bell at the restaurant’s Irvine, California, headquarters tomorrow. Morello will join the Taco Bell Truth Tour’s Southern California stop as a speaker and performer, under his Nightwatchman guise, to draw attention to a wage dispute between the fast food company and farmers who provide its vegetables. “A real change comes from regular people regularly standing up for their rights at work, at home, and in the streets and that’s what we’ll be doing,” Morello says. “Farm workers in Immokalee Florida are getting paid… Read more »

Time Warner Inc.’s $2.6 billion sale of Warner Music Group to an investor group led by former Universal media conglomerate chief Edgar Bronfman Jr. was completed Monday, and the newly formed independent music company began an anticipated wave of cuts by ousting three high-ranking label executives, sources said. Atlantic Records co-chairman Val Azzoli and president Ron Shapiro stepped down, as did Elektra Records chief executive Sylvia Rhone, a source close to the company said on condition of anonymity. Rhone had been at Warner for at least a decade. Azzoli and Shapiro had also been with the company for several years.… Read more »

The Backstreet Boys are in sync again. “It’s been like three years since we’ve all been in the studio together, so it’s like the fire was rekindled,” is how Nick Carter described the reunion during a recent break from recording. “We’re in there experimenting and really cool stuff’s coming out. It’s not gonna be the same Backstreet. I mean, you’re always gonna have Backstreet Boys, but the music’s gonna change.” The group plans to update the teen-pop sound it mastered in the late ’90s with a more mature approach to production and songwriting. “We’re just not doing it like we… Read more »

Just as sound bites get reworked into tunes that multiply over the Internet – Remember all the songs based on Howard Dean’s yelp? – a widely seen TV ad is getting the hack-and-slash treatment. The target is Pepsi’s current promotion giving away 100 million free song downloads from Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The company promises one in three bottlecaps on certain Pepsi products carries a code for a free iTunes download. Pepsi is airing a 45-second spot featuring 16 crestfallen music downloaders who have been sued by – and settled lawsuits with – the record industry for illegally snagging songs… Read more »

Veteran Los Angeles punk outfit Bad Religion will release a new studio album, “The Empire Strikes First” June 8 via Epitaph. Like its predecessor, 2002’s “The Process of Belief,” the forthcoming disc was co-written and co-produced by guitarist Brett Gurewitz and frontman Greg Graffin. “It’s not ready for public consumption yet, but it’s basically recorded and finished,” Graffin told Billboard.com. “We really put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make the best album we could. ‘The Process of Belief’ is considered by many to be our comeback, since Brett and I started writing together again. After so many years… Read more »

Beyonce Knowles may be “Crazy in Love,” but she kept her cool Sunday at one of the more sober Grammy Awards shows in memory. She was the night’s big winner, taking home a record-tying five trophies to join recent Grammy queens Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and Norah Jones with the most wins in a single year by a female performer. OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won Album of the Year, giving the eccentric Atlanta funk/rap group three wins, including Best Urban Alternative Performance and Best Rap Album. British band Coldplay took home the prize for Record of the Year for “Clocks,”… Read more »