Tagged: namesinthenews

Aerosmith's been having a rough go of it lately, what with an injury-plagued tour that was eventually canceled over the summer and lead singer Steven Tyler's declaration that now was the time to work "on the brand of myself - Brand Tyler" after a recent show at Abu Dhabi. Not that he hasn't been honing that particular brand for a while now; that gig was apparently one of many of recent years in which Tyler didn't make his presence known to the rest of the band until right before they went on stage. Classic Rock [...]

The eight bucks that I plunked down to catch Michael Jackson's posthumous rehearsal flick This Is It at my local malltiplex yesterday? That was 0.000108% of the film's first-day gross of $7.4 million. It's expected to bring in $40 million through Sunday. [ Billboard ]

A follow-up on some commentariat curiosity from a few weeks back: Pitchfork's review of the indie-pandering soundtrack to the forthcoming vampire flick Twilight: New Moon , penned by Marc Hogan. The grade: 5.4. The crux of the issue: "The New Moon OST has all the touchstones of what is considered, by many who consider themselves cognoscenti, "good" music... but it uses its tastefulness to solidify the borders of what is acceptable, not to broaden them." (Ahem.) The best probably unintentional pun, since the word "sparkle" wasn't used once: "Like the rest of the tracks here, [the Lykke [...]

Just when you thought we'd escape 2009 without another No. 1 single from the chart-dominating Black Eyed Peas , the group's plaintive DirecTV tie-in "Meet Me Halfway" is up a whopping 119% on this week's Hot Digital Tracks chart, selling 127,000 copies and vaulting from No. 16 to No. 5. Ahead of the Peas: Britney Spears' "33 (No. 1, 172,000 sold, down 33%) Owl City's "Fireflies" (No. 2, up 13%) Miley Cyrus' "Party In The USA" (No. 3, down 5%) Jason DeRulo's Imogen Heap-biting "Whatcha Say" [...]

"Balloon Boy" Falcon Heene's afternoon of transfixing America's underemployed and Internet-equipped people who thought he was in a UFO-esque balloon floating over Colorado-even though he was simply hiding in his house's attic -is almost 24 hours out, and people are currently trying to figure out just whether or not yesterday was a happy accident or some sort of proto-fameball experiment . However, there was definitely some fameballing going on-by YouTube-channel-equipped singers who decided to act as a rapid-response unit of sorts and write songs about Falcon, his family, and the media in hopes of Making A [...]

Amelle Berrabah, currently the second-most-senior member of the British pop trio Sugababes, is taking an "unexpected short break away from the pressures of work, following some professional medical advice earlier this week," according to a statement posted on the girl-group-in-tumult's site this morning . She'll be staying in a private health clinic for the next three weeks and taking a break from the group, which has been forced to cancel even more upcoming live appearances as a result of all this. (Remaining members Heidi Range and Jade Ewen will, however, travel to an Irish gig that the [...]

Next year, the UK will issue a series of stamps dedicated to the art of the British album cover. The Stones' Let It Bleed , New Order's Power, Corruption, and Lies , Primal Scream's Screamadelica , and Blur's Parklife will all be honored in this 10-stamp issue. If the US had a similar stamp issue, I wonder what albums would get the nod? You'd think Thriller would be a no-brainer, and Madonna's True Blue would look kinda dynamite, but after that... ? (First person to shout " Merriweather Post Pavilion [...]

From the Department of Weird Anecdotal Evidence That Makes Me Think Michael Jackson's Death Really Was The End Of Pop Music: The New York "oldies' station WCBS-FM just played "This Is It," the Paul Anka-assisted "new" track from Michael Jackson. I mean, I get that the 1983 pedigree of the original tracks allows the song to fit in to the station's "'60s-'70s-'80s" tagline, but who else would be able to move playlists in that matter at this point? The Beatles? [ WCBS-FM ]

The gross-out-happy sub-genre of hip-hop known as horrorcore has been in the news lately for kinda gruesome reasons . If you're curious as to just what this bit of music nomenclature means, last year Jess Harvell put together an illustrated guide to the genre for this site. [ Idolator's (Sorta) Guide To Horrorcore ]

"Steve Dennis reveals in a new biography, Britney: Inside the Dream, that her favorite fake names include Ms. Alotta Warmheart, 'because she had such a warm heart'; Mrs. Diana Prince in honor of Diana, Princess of Wales; Queen of the Fairy Dance, 'because she was the dancing fairy'; and Mrs. Abra Cadabra 'for no apparent known reason.'" What, she never thought to call herself "Yankee Rose" ? An opportunity, missed. [ Page Six ]

I'm quite looking forward to Zombieland , the ( 89% fresh! ) Woody Harrelson-starring flick about a forthcoming zombie apocalypse that opens today. Why a post about a movie that doesn't even have an official soundtrack out yet ? Well, the man who directed Zombieland , Ruben Fleisher , has a music-video connection; early in his career, he was behind the camera for a bunch of videos by the likes of the Dismemberment Plan and Kid Sister, as well as two clips attached to fairly big singles of the oughts. Peep the videos for two of [...]

It's now been 26 weeks since the Black Eyed Peas first reached the summit of Billboard 's Hot 100 with "Boom Boom Pow," which had a 12-week run at the top of the charts before being relieved by the group's follow-up single "I Gotta Feeling." 26 weeks! That's half a year! At least the band's April ascent to the top means that they won't rule the entirety of this year's Daylight Savings stretch, but still, yeesh. The real-ish news to come out of this development is that "I Gotta Feeling" has matched [...]

The brilliant Australian band the Go-Betweens will soon have a bridge named after them in their hometown of Brisbane: A currently under-construction span crossing the Brisbane River has been rechristened Go Between Bridge after residents of the area overwhelmingly voted to hono(u)r the band via a four-lane cross-river connection. The bridge is scheduled to be finished in the middle of next year, and if you'd like to read details on its traffic-related particulars, it has its own Web site . [ Undercover / YouTube ]

If you want to have the man who recorded Nevermind help you out with your own musical efforts, and you have some money that you'd like to donate to charity, then this is for you: Butch Vig, the man behind the board for albums by the likes of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, and L7 (not to mention the drummer for Garbage!) is putting up 10 hours of his production services for bidding. Proceeds from the auction go to pediatric cancer research; also on the charity block is a poster signed by Vig's Garbage-mate Shirley Manson . [...]

Tickets for the two-week engagement of Michael Jackson's posthumously pieced-together concert film This Is It went on sale over the weekend, and a cursory glance at the movie's official ticket-selling site reveals lots of midnight showings in a way to build anticipation. (Preview screenings in Los Angeles have already apparently been exhausted of their advance-ticket supply .) The the footage of Jackson rehearsing "Human Nature" that was placed online last week apparently won't be in the flick, a scenario that hints at there somehow being "better" footage out [...]

Someone at the Web site associated with the hyperbolic British music tabloid NME decided to ask Dan Rosensweig, CEO of the Guitar Hero franchise, about his take on the whole uproar over the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's avatar being used in the game, and singing songs like Bon Jovi's "You Give Love A Bad Name" to boot. After finding out that Cobain could be used to sing songs that weren't by Nirvana, Courtney Love freaked out on Twitter and threatened lawsuits ; shortly after that, surviving members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic asked [...]

Lil Wayne made $42 million and drew nearly 804,000 people between Dec. 14 of last year and his show Saturday night, making him Billboard 's largest-grossing hip-hop arena draw. Fun with math: Those numbers work out to an average per-customer income of $52.23. [ Billboard ]

Sept. 9 has finally come, and with it comes a slew of Beatles-related material: the remasters; the release of The Beatles: Rock Band ; the maybe-but-maybe-not digital release of the band's catalog. Instead of sifting through the many inches of virtual column space that have been devoted to these phenomena, or God help me trying to add to them, I'll just ask: Are you buying any of the remasters, or the Rock Band tie-in? And if you're buying the remasters, stereo or mono? And-perhaps the most interesting question to [...]

The memory of deceased Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has seen quite a few licensing-related blows over the past couple of years. There were the shoes . And the ash-smoking . And the Cold Case episode . But can any of those things compare to the spectre of America's No. 1 Raincoats Fan miming Bon Jovi's monster hit "You Give Love A Bad Name"? The makers of Guitar Hero 5 are apparently hoping that they don't, and that you'll channel your outrage over Kurt playing frontman for New Jersey's favorite hair-shakers, neo-grunge pretenders Bush, [...]

Were you concerned about Radiohead's "Idioteque" not topping the best-singles-of-the-decade list that the indie-crit behemoth Pitchfork ran last week ? Well, fret not: The folks over there still love Radiohead's 2000 album Kid A , with today's review reaffirming the 10.0 that it received back in the day , and critic Rob Mitchum calling it "unashamedly... a complete album, one where everything from production to arrangements to lyrics to album art were carefully crafted towards a unified purpose" while nodding to the fact that its creators have made noise about growing weary of that particular [...]