Search Results for: until i wake

After a long struggle marked by false starts, frustration and fan indifference, commercial online music services see this year as the crucial second act of a hit show in the making. Since launching a year ago, subscription music services headed by the major label-backed ventures Pressplay and MusicNet have taken heat from music fans who compared them unfavorably with free peer-to-peer networks like now-idled Napster. But after expanded licensing deals and platform upgrades, these services and rivals Listen.com’s Rhapsody and FullAudio, are better armed to take on free services like Kazaa and Morpheus, which emerged in the wake of Napster’s… Read more »

Online music company Listen.com will announce on Thursday that it has signed licensing deals with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, enabling fans to burn songs from both companies’ catalogs on Listen’s Rhapsody music subscription service. Warner is a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. and Universal is a unit of Vivendi Universal. Listen.com is privately held. As of Monday, more than 75,000 tracks will be available for burning for 99 cents per track, including songs by artists like Bon Jovi, Nelly and Eminem. Enabling consumers to burn songs onto blank CDs marks a milestone for Rhapsody as it… Read more »

The girls still screamed every time former bar mitzvah singer Justin Guarini flashed his pearly whites, but it was soulful girl-next-door Kelly Clarkson who took home the title of “American Idol” Wednesday night. Coming off her bravura performance on Tuesday, the 20-year-old Burleson, Texas, cocktail waitress brought down the house moments after being crowned the champion of the talent contest. “I can’t believe it’s happening to me,” Clarkson sang, as fireworks rained down behind her during a performance of her soon-to-be-released first single, “A Moment Like This.” A choked-up Clarkson blew a line during her command performance (one of her… Read more »

Performing at Saturday’s taping of the MTV Movie Awards was “one of the worst feelings ever” for Kelly Osbourne, but stage fright won’t slow down her burgeoning music career. The pink-haired, 17-year-old starlet of “The Osbournes” revealed backstage after her live singing debut that she is scheduled to spend July and August in a New York studio recording a full-length album. Ozzy’s daughter said she’ll work with producer Rick Wake, whose résumé includes music by Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, but she offered few other details. “I can not divulge my secrets,” Osbourne said seductively, before changing tones.… Read more »

Disturbed vocalist David Draiman has some pretty strong views about religion and art, but over the past year he’s found himself scrutinizing and re-evaluating both. He still values his Jewish heritage, but has felt the sting of its methodology. He remains dedicated to his musical career, yet has been frustrated by his inability to have a life outside of show business. These experiences, along with the overall shroud of insecurity triggered by 9/11, inform Disturbed’s upcoming record, Believe, which the band is currently working on in a Chicago studio. “All the songs revolve around the theme of belief,” Draiman said… Read more »

Music fans eagerly anticipating the return of the pioneering Lollapalooza tour will have to wait at least another year. After declaring in November that the mobile festival would end its four-year hiatus in 2002, organizers have delayed its return until next summer. “Having gotten a late start, we felt it would be smart to start building now for summer 2003,” Lollapalooza co-founder Perry Farrell said in a statement. “It will afford us a chance to get the headliner we really want.” The right lineup has always been important to Lollapalooza, which was planning to come back this year in part… Read more »

Music publishers and recording companies on Tuesday announced a long-anticipated licensing deal for the use of songs online, removing a major hurdle to the launch of commercial Internet music services. Industry-backed Web services known as MusicNet and Pressplay, which plan to launch soon, had faced a potential legal challenge by the publishers, who own the rights to compositions, regarding royalty rates for songs provided in interactive Internet music services. “This agreement removes a major legal roadblock for the new online subscription services,” said Hilary Rosen, president and chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA,… Read more »

X chose “We Right Here” as the first single from his upcoming album based on the response it received when he drove around in his truck playing it for people, and now he’s getting ready to hit the road again and bond with the public some more. During his Hoodstock promo tour for the October 23 release of The Great Depression, X will perform a series of free outdoor shows from October 12 through November 1, according to Def Jam. And since he gets around so well in trucks, he’ll be using one as his stage – a flatbed 18-wheeler.… Read more »

Global media companies Viacom Inc. and News Corp. Ltd. Tuesday tallied up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as advertising revenues were hurt by a weak economy and an uncertain outlook after the Sept. 11 hijacked jetliner attacks. The attacks led many networks to air commercial-free coverage of the news events for at least five straight days. For the most part, however, U.S. investors shrugged off the news of losses as having already been factored into stock prices and sent Viacom and News Corp. shares, as well as major media players like Walt Disney Co., higher on the day.… Read more »

As its title indicates, Macy Gray’s recently released sophomore album The Id is a celebration of life’s carnal pleasures, a subject that even Gray acknowledges is an odd thing to be singing about in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. However, Gray tells LAUNCH that she actually feels that there’s a greater appetite among people to hear such songs, mostly to help them gain momentary escape from the stresses that the attacks and their aftermath have caused. “I think The Id is a perfect album for where we are right now,… Read more »