Search Results for: the voice

The Recording Industry Association of America may not want people to share digital files, but the organization certainly seems to be in favor of open access to its website. On Monday, the RIAA site was hacked for the sixth time in six months. This time, the defacement resulted in bogus press releases on the front door, touting the joys of cheese and interspecies romantic relationships. The RIAA’s role as the music industry’s voice against digital piracy makes it an obvious target for those who are angered by what they see as the organization’s overly vehement crusade for copyright owners’ rights.… Read more »

British rock band Oasis is to return to the stage in Wales on Sunday to finish a European tour after a brawl in a Munich bar forced two shows to be canceled. Wildman vocalist Liam Gallagher, 30, lost two teeth in the fight on December 1, leaving him unable to sing in two scheduled German shows. But a band spokesman said on Saturday dentists had repaired the damage and the final, British leg of the two-month tour would go ahead. “The Oasis UK tour will therefore be going ahead as planned, starting this Sunday,” he told the band’s Web site… Read more »

Peter Garrett, the energetic lead singer of Australian rock band Midnight Oil, has quit the band after 25 years. With his distinctive bald head, wild dancing and strident voice, Garrett was one of the most recognizable Australian singers of the last generation. Midnight Oil’s protest song about Aboriginal land rights, “Beds are Burning,” was a hit around the world and the band played it at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. “The last 25 years have been incredibly fulfilling for me, and I leave with the greatest respect for the whole of Midnight Oil,” Garrett said in a… Read more »

Teen pop singer Aaron Carter has been enlisted as an “Honorary Santa Tracker” by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the binational military organization formally established by the United States and Canada to monitor and defend North American airspace. As part of the duties of his new job, Carter recently visited with Santa Claus and the personnel at NORAD to be briefed on Santa’s flight plans. NORAD will post a map of the world on its official “NORAD Tracks Santa” website at noradsanta.org on Christmas Eve (December 24). The map will be updated throughout the evening, showing 25 key… Read more »

In a dark world, we’re drawn toward fire. But within the fire, there is danger, and a different kind of darkness. On Precious, the new album from OURS, Jimmy Gnecco is the fire. His voice seduces, soothes – then slashes through the skin of indifference. The songs are a shout of anger or a cry of pain, unleashed from inches away. The band’s debut album, 2001’s Distorted Lullabies, also seemed wrenched from the guts of someone who, for all his youth, had weathered a lifetime of turmoil. But Precious comes like sonic surf from a place even more unsettled. Though… Read more »

Even though Nick Carter has sold more than 36 million records as one of the Backstreet Boys, he thinks of himself as just another new artist with the debut of his “Now or Never” album. “I’m really… like somebody who hasn’t sold a record,” says Carter, the youngest member of the group and the first to release a solo album. But he’s got one advantage over other aspiring singers: an instant fan base. Some two dozen fans waited outside his midtown Manhattan hotel recently, hoping to see him. “These are the small things that mean so much to me,” says… Read more »

The Blasters’ singer and guitarist Phil Alvin speaks like the band plays: short, fast and furious. “My father was very upset when I quit school,” he said, trying at breakneck speed to make his words catch up with his thoughts. “He took the neck of my guitar and screwed it to the dustpan. Then he scooped the dog crap with it, and left it in the garage. Every time I turned on the light on, I’d have to walk past it.” But Phil ignored his father’s exhortations, and with the help of his younger brother Dave, formed one of the… Read more »

As the lame duck legislative session begins today, the webcasting community continues the fight to keep HR 5469 from passing in the Senate and becoming law. A year that started with the webcasting industry united in a common goal to work on the CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel) rates and develop reasonable, equitable legislation as an industry standard has ended with the entire U.S.-based webcasting community up in arms over a private deal negotiated between the RIAA (Recording Industry Artists of America) and VOW (Voice of Webcasters). “There is nothing wrong with a group of individual webcasters sitting down at… Read more »

The seminal album of British punk rock celebrates its 25th birthday on Monday and shows no sign of growing old gracefully. On October 28, 1977, the Sex Pistols unleashed their debut album, “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols,” on an unsuspecting world. It shot straight to the top of the album charts and stayed there for an astonishing 47 weeks. Everything about the album was designed to shock, from its provocative title, its 12 short, explosive songs and its garish pink and yellow pop art album cover. The names of the tracks were printed on the album sleeve… Read more »

Mickey Mouse’s days at Disney could be numbered and paying royalties for warbling George Gershwin tunes could become a thing of the past if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with an Internet publisher in a landmark copyright case this week. The high court will hear the case Wednesday that could plunge the earliest images of Disney’s mascot and other closely held creative property into the public domain as early as next year. If upheld, the precedent-setting challenge could cost movie studios and heirs of authors and composers millions of dollars in revenue as previously protected material becomes available free of… Read more »