Search Results for: the ark

On Wednesday night, as dark clouds hovered over the city, Avril Lavigne was all wet. High above Times Square, the Canadian singer was playing a secret outdoor show for soaked fans gathered more than 50 feet below. Dressed in a black hoodie that didn’t quite shield her from the raindrops, Lavigne performed a three-song set that featured “Girlfriend,” “When You’re Gone” and “Sk8r Boi.” Lavigne has certainly come a long way since her innocent days as punk princess of the mall. In recent months, she’s been known to spit on and flip off paparazzi. She’s also bragged about booze-soaked nights… Read more »

“Hands Held High,” one of the most powerful songs on Linkin Park’s new album, includes lyrics about bombs blowing up mosques, a bumbling leader, high gas prices and general world confusion – an obvious missive against President Bush and the war in Iraq. Or maybe not. Tell that interpretation to Mike Shinoda, the rapper/musician who writes most of the lyrics for the blockbuster band, and you’ll get an earful on making assumptions about the group’s most adventurous album to date, “Minutes to Midnight.” “We’re not a political band. And I see some of the stuff that you’re referring to …… Read more »

NEW YORK – There are plenty of big things about Linkin Park’s upcoming Minutes to Midnight. They include the producer (Rick Rubin), the expectations (um, real huge) and, naturally, the accompanying tour . So it’s easy to understand why LP chose the massive, marble-filled Museum of Television and Radio as the location to announce that tour: the reborn Projekt Revolution, which they founded in 2003. “This is very important tour for us, so we’re excited to announce the return of Projekt Revolution,” Linkin Park co-frontman Chester Bennington said. “We wanna go out there and kick as much ass as we… Read more »

For all the talk about Linkin Park killing off nü metal on the upcoming Minutes to Midnight, it’s rather puzzling that the first sound you hear on the album is the crackle of a needle hitting a record. After all, one of the, uh, tenets of the genre was the head-bopping DJ – think guys like LP’s Joe Hahn or Limp Bizkit’s Lethal – the dude responsible for, literally, putting the needle on the record (and for appearing out of place in all the press photos). So was co-frontman Chester Bennington kidding when he told MTV News back in September… Read more »

Live Earth concert organizers have revealed the lineups for both the U.S. and London legs of what will be a worldwide series of Live Aid-like concerts, scheduled for July 7. The U.S. portion of Live Earth, announced early Tuesday (April 10), will take over New Jersey’s Giants Stadium, and feature an all-star lineup led by Kanye West, Fall Out Boy, AFI, Akon, Kelly Clarkson, Ludacris, Rihanna, and the reunited Smashing Pumpkins. The Police, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews Band, Roger Waters, Alicia Keys, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, John Mayer, KT Tunstall, and Melissa Etheridge are among the other artists confirmed… Read more »

CForget winning an Oscar, Grammy or, while we’re at it, even “American Idol.” You’re nobody until someone burns your image into a piece of toast. Controversial “Idol” semifinalist Antonella Barba joined Jesus, Mary and other members of that rarified group recently when someone posted on eBay a piece of Wonder Bread with a crudely rendered picture of the Jersey girl. It cemented Barba’s status as the most famous mediocre singing star on the planet … for this week . It was a refreshing break from the nonstop deluge of risqué Barba photos – real and fake – that were posted… Read more »

On May 15, Linkin Park will unleash Minutes to Midnight, their much-anticipated follow-up to 2003’s Meteora. And though the album has been in the works for nearly four years now, it’s actually based on a concept that’s much, much older – and much, much creepier than you might expect. “The title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, which was created by these scientists at the University of Chicago after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II,” Linkin Park co-frontman Chester Bennington explained. “Given the idea that mankind now had this ultimate destructive… Read more »

For (+44) drummer Travis Barker, it seems what slows down one of his passions – most recently, his still-broken arm – only makes him stronger at others. Barker busted his arm in September during the band’s video shoot for single “When Your Heart Stops Beating” and subsequently had to back out of touring duties. But he’s passed the time picking up a couple of production credits on upcoming albums by rappers Paul Wall and Juelz Santana. “[My broken arm] kind of left me to where it’s the only thing I can do right now, honestly,” Barker said of making beats.… Read more »

Rick Rubin never having won the Producer of the Year Grammy was the musical equivalent of Martin Scorsese never having won the best-director Oscar. And on Sunday, two weeks before Scorsese is expected to finally get his prize, Rubin was at last honored – and then honored again and again and again. In the end, Rubin walked away (not literally – he did not attend) with five Grammys: for Producer of the Year; Album of the Year and Country Album of the Year for the Dixie Chicks’ Taking the Long Way; Record of the Year for the Chicks’ “Not Ready… Read more »

After toiling away for seven years and building a rabid fan base in the Christian market, Relient K broke through to mainstream success with the 2004 release “Mmhmm.” The band’s career illustrates that sometimes the least calculated of efforts reap the most rewards. “Our band’s philosophy is we do what we do and whatever happens around us, happens around us,” lead vocalist/songwriter Matt Thiessen says. “We write the songs we want to write and try to have fun with the band. It’s not like we went into the record saying, ‘This would be a great radio song.”‘ Relient K’s fifth… Read more »