Search Results for: sting

Stuart Adamson, lead singer and guitarist of ’80s pop band Big Country, was found dead in a Hawaii hotel room Sunday, according to the band’s manager, Ian Grant. A Honolulu hotel employee discovered Adamson’s body at approximately 1:15 p.m. local time, according to the police report. On Monday (December 17), the medical examiner determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation due to hanging. Adamson, 43, inexplicably left his Nashville home November 7, and missing persons reports were filed there and in Atlanta, where he watched a soccer match on November 15, according to reports posted on the Web site… Read more »

Rudy Giuliani makes his last appearance in his role of mayor on this week’s “Saturday Night Live.” Ellen DeGeneres is hosting the year finale. Lorne Michaels will launch “SNL’s” Colin Quinn as host of his own series from New York, starting March 4. And on May 4, Michaels will executive produce a giant, live, three-hour NBC special celebrating the network’s 75th anniversary. He tells me the show “will pay respects to entertainment, news and sports.” It will emanate from Studio 8H, home to “SNL.” The studio has been a TV landmark since 1937 when a live premiere concert by the… Read more »

The world’s largest record company will be the first of the major labels to release a copy-protected CD in the United States, signaling a new chapter in the industry’s efforts to stem music piracy. When Universal Music Group on Tuesday releases the soundtrack, “Fast & Furious – More Music,” consumers won’t be able to copy the music onto another CD or use their PCs to “rip” tracks in digital MP3 format. The copy-protection technology will also render the disc unplayable on Macintosh computers, DVD players and game consoles, such as Sony’s PlayStation 2. It might not even play in some… Read more »

If Shaggy’s “Keep’n It Real” and “Freaky Girl” sound different in February, and you ask the pop-reggae veteran what happened, don’t be surprised if his response is “It Wasn’t Me.” He’s not kidding. For Hotshot Ultramix (February 12), Shaggy allowed remixers such as Punch, Sting International and Gordon Dukes to play doctor with those tunes as well as other Hotshot (2000) tracks including “Dance & Shout,” “Hope” and “Leave It to Me,” according to an MCA Records spokesperson. Remixers J.C. Moreno, Christopher “Longman Productions” Birch and Tony “CD” Kelly also contributed to the project. Hotshot Ultramix also contains three previously… Read more »

Sam Phillips demurs when it’s suggested that rock ‘n’ roll was invented at his Sun Records label during the 1950s. But he does acknowledge there was a whole lotta shakin’ going on in Memphis thanks to the music he created there with the likes of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and others. “I do know this – it changed the world and it opened up a lot of doors,” Phillips said in a recent interview. “I’m happy we were able to contribute, at least in my opinion, to what music has done and is… Read more »

Previously unreleased material from Coldplay, Dido, the Doves and others is slated for the soundtrack to the teen sci-fi drama Roswell. Due out February 26th, the album will include Dido’s “Here With Me,” the show’s theme song, both in its original version and in a remix done by Dido’s brother, Rollo, of the dance outfit Faithless. The soundtrack also includes Coldplay’s “Brothers and Sisters” and Ash’s “Shining Light” (both previously unavailable in the U.S.), as well as Hybrid’s remix of Sarah McLachlan’s “Fear,” a remix of Ivy’s “Edge of the Ocean” and the Doves’ cover the Beatles “Blackbird,” which was… Read more »

The tension is palpable at Universal Studios as USA Networks CEO Barry Diller considers merging his media empire with the studio’s Vivendi Universal parent. “All we know for sure is that Barry Diller is going to be a helluva lot richer a week from now,” said one senior studio executive who was about to attend the Universal Christmas Party. Vivendi Universal, seeking an elusive U.S. distribution outlet for its array of television and film assets, said on Tuesday it was in talks to buy the entertainment assets of USA, which is about 40%-owned by the French company. Whatever Diller does,… Read more »

Fortune Magazine named XM Satellite Radio its “Product of the Year,” calling XM “way, way, way above the rest” of 2001’s new technologies. The honor, in an article by Fortune senior editor Peter Lewis, appears in the magazine’s Dec. 24 edition, on newsstands nationwide Dec. 17. “Of all the new technologies of 2001, XM Satellite Radio is way, way, way above the rest. It’s the first major advance in radio since FM emerged in the 1960s, and the best thing to happen to mobile music since the dashboard CD player…” Fortune wrote. “If you spend a lot of time on… Read more »

Recipients of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and Trustees Awards were announced today by Michael Greene, President/CEO of the Recording Academy. Pianist and band leader Count Basie and recording artists Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Al Green, and Joni Mitchell will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards. Engineer/producer Tom Dowd and original rock disc jockey Alan Freed will be honored with Trustees Awards. Formal acknowledgment of the awards will be made in conjunction with the 44th Annual GRAMMY ® Awards ceremony, which willbe held at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The show will be a prime-time television special on… Read more »

British rock band the Cure mounted a farewell tour last year to promote what it billed as its last album, and had such a blast playing for more than half a million people in North America and Europe that it now hopes to return to the road in 2002. Retirement at age 42 just never suited the Cure’s leader, singer/guitarist Robert Smith, whose gloomy songs about death and despair have transfixed fans since the Cure released its first single in 1978. “The swan song was actually me… saying the group’s going to end,” Smith told Reuters in a recent interview.… Read more »