Search Results for: the voice

Napster announced that the highly-anticipated Napster 2.0 music service went live to music fans across America today. The most well-known music brand in the world, Napster 2.0 offers consumers downloads for just 99 cents a song or $9.95 per album, CD burning, transfer to portable devices, decades of Billboard charts, shared playlists within the Napster community, exclusive and original content, interactive radio, music videos, and access to the world’s largest music store with more than half-a-million tracks and growing. “We have created the most exciting and comprehensive music experience in the world,” said Chris Gorog, Chairman and CEO of Roxio,… Read more »

These days Good Charlotte are on top of the world, but there was a time when Benji Madden felt like taking his own life. “I’ll be the first person to say I have the most amazing life of anyone I’ve ever met, but I did come to certain points of my life where I thought that [suicide] was an option,” Benji admitted recently, sitting next to his brother Joel inside the Sunset Marquis Hotel. His voice trailing off, he quietly acknowledged the role that music played in ultimately steering him away from such a tragic and horrible act. The Madden… Read more »

He was once dubbed “the unhappiest man in the land.” His most renowned song was called “Miss Misery.” Nevertheless, Elliott Smithsounded disappointed that he was often asked, “Why are you so sad?” The singer-songwriter, whose fragile Beatles-tinged melodies elevated to him mythic status on the indie scene and brought him unlikely Oscar-nominated success, died Tuesday of an apparent suicide at his apartment in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, officials said. He was 34. Smith’s publicist confirmed the death to reporters. His official Website (www.elliottsmith.com) went black Wednesday morning; only the words “goodbye elliott” were in the title bar.… Read more »

John Mellencamp has lashed out at PresidentGeorge W. Bush and America’s foreign policy. In an open letter he co-wrote with his wife Elaine, Mellencamp blasts the powers that be for demonizing as “anti-American and unpatriotic” anyone who questions the policies of the U.S. government and the war in Iraq. Mellencamp uses words and phrases like “systematically lied to,” “the political ‘hijacking’ of Iraq,” “this misadventure,” and “the globe’s leading bully. Arrogant and thoughtless” to describe the current situation, before writing, “Now, each day, as the dust settles and the truth slowly surfaces, more and more people come to the inevitable… Read more »

Connecticut’s Hatebreed is getting ready to drop another album at the end of this month, following up on their highly successful 2002 album, Perseverance. The album will be titled The Rise Of Brutality and is scheduled to hit stores on October 28. The Rise Of Brutality will mark the band’s third full-length album (their debut record, Under The Knife, is technically an EP) and second release on Universal. The Rise Of Brutality will feature 12 new songs in total. There’s already a cute little four-song sampler of the album in the hands of radio radio and journalist types, which I… Read more »

As the music world mourns the death of Johnny Cash-who passed away on the morning of Friday (September 12), at the age of 71-artists from every genre of music are paying their respects to the legendary Man In Black. Guitarist Danny Lohner, who has played with Nine Inch Nails and A Perfect Circle, shared his thoughts with LAUNCH on Cash’s recent cover of the Nine Inch Nails tune “Hurt.” “Johnny Cash’s version blew me away,” Lohner said. “He has such a great character voice…that video is so moving and so well done, and with his wife watching him as he… Read more »

An Internet company wants a federal appeals panel to help disarm lawyers for the music industry, blocking them from using special copyright subpoenas in a campaign to track and sue computer users who download songs online. Verizon Communications Inc. is challenging the constitutionality of the subpoenas under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A trial judge, John D. Bates, earlier had approved use of the subpoenas, forcing Verizon to turn over names and addresses for at least four Internet subscribers. The 1998 law, passed years before music downloading was popularized, permits music companies and others to force Internet providers to… Read more »

Johnny Cash, “The Man in Black” who became a towering figure in American music with such hits as “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” and “A Boy Named Sue,” died Friday. He was 71. “Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville. He said Cash died at the hospital at 1 a.m. EDT. “I hope that friends and fans of Johnny will pray for the Cash family to find comfort during this very difficult time,” Robin said. Cash had been released… Read more »

It looks like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are reuniting for a concert tour. The former duo has reserved dates at concert arenas across the country, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a concert industry trade publication. And they were scheduled to make a “very special announcement” at a New York nightclub on Tuesday, publicists said. There has been talk of a tour since Simon & Garfunkel performed together to open the Grammy Awards ceremony in February, and they’ve done the logistical groundwork, Bongiovanni said. “Everyone’s been expecting it,” he said. “It was still in the speculative stages, because you… Read more »

Any effort to rewrite the latest federal rules for radio must include a broad investigation into such issues as “pay-for-play” and artist intimidation, according to music and artists’ groups. Michael Bracey, director of government relations for the Future of Music Coalition, says his group wants the Federal Communications Commission to examine “pay-for-play and vertical integration” in the radio industry. The group opposes FCC rule changes that were enacted June 7. And Jay Rosenthal, co-counsel of the Recording Artists’ Coalition (RAC), wants the commission to follow up on reports of artist intimidation. “The FCC can no longer ignore evidence of radio… Read more »