The spring CD preview
Some of us have turned the clocks ahead. We're not eating dinner in the dark anymore. And we don't have to plug the car in every night.
It can only mean one thing; spring has almost sprung. And along with the bears, the rock stars are coming out of hibernation.
After a lean March, the next few months should bring us a couple of dozen albums from big names.
Here are 15 titles that should be warming up your iPod soon.
APRIL 1
R.E.M. -- Accelerate
The Athens, Ga., legends' 14th album is faster and louder than 2004's Around the Sun. It is a superb disc!!
Van Morrison -- Keep It Simple
True to its title, Van the Man's 35th disc eschews big horns and arrangements for a leaner approach. Which is a fancy way of saying he cut his payroll.
Moby -- Last Night
The Mobester gets into a groove with an electronic dance set inspired by New York's vibrant late-night club scene.
APRIL 8
The Breeders -- Mountain Battles
Apparently, even Kim Deal is tired of waiting for that Pixies reunion album. So she and sis Kelley are back with their first CD in six years.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -- Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
The grim singer-songwriter says his 14th disc maintains the aggression and edge of last year's Grinderman side project. No complaints here.
Gnarls Barkley -- The Odd Couple
Are Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse still Crazy after all these years? If their energetic new single Run is anything to go by, signs point to yes.
Billy Bragg -- Mr. Love & Justice
Everybody's favourite British folk-punk finally returns with his first studio disc since 2002's England, Half-English.
APRIL 15
Mariah Carey -- E=MC2
It's only got three letters and one number -- but you just know Mariah has no clue what the hell her CD title means.
The Gossip -- Live in Liverpool
If you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing full-figured soul-punk goddess Beth Ditto live in action, this CD / DVD set will set you straight.
APRIL 22
Jeff Healey -- Mess of Blues
The Toronto blues guitarist's first electric album in eight years was completed shortly before his untimely death earlier this month.
APRIL 29
Madonna -- Hard Candy
Her Madgesty's final album for a major label will supposedly be a hip-hop disc. So get ready to hear ebonics spoken with a British accent.
MAY 13
Death Cab for Cutie -- Narrow Stairs
The former indie heroes say their latest delivers some of their most upbeat material -- and some of their saddest.
Jakob Dylan -- Seeing Things
Wallflowers frontman Jakob -- aka son of Bob -- goes acoustic on his first solo album, which was produced by Rick Rubin at home.
MAY 20
Scarlett Johansson -- Anywhere I Lay My Head
The latest actress who wants to be a singer issues an album of Tom Waits covers. Yeah, that seems like a great idea.
Alanis Morissette -- Flavors of Entanglement
You oughta know that Alanis' latest blends world and folk music with the electronic squiggles of Madonna and Bjork collaborator Guy Sigsworth.
Music fans prefer Wikipedia to MySpace
DENVER (Billboard) - Search for an artist on any of the popular search engines, and the top three results are practically guaranteed: the artist's official Web site, Wikipedia entry and MySpace page -- often in that order.
But while artists and their handlers devote massive attention to the Web site and MySpace, the Wikipedia page is often overlooked. Recent data suggests they may want to reconsider their priorities.
According to data provided to Billboard from Yahoo -- the second-most popular search engine on the Web after Google -- those searching for artist information are selecting the Wikipedia entry link over artists' MySpace pages by a factor of more than 2-to-1. The Wikipedia entries are also more popular than artists' Web sites.
"The interest that people had to go to MySpace to find out more about their favorite band is waning in favor of going to Wikipedia," Yahoo head of programming and label relations John Lenac says. "In the last six months, it's surpassed it."
Yet when compared with the number of artist profiles on MySpace, Wikipedia entries are noticeably fewer. MySpace claims 3 million artist profiles. Wikipedia does not have an exact count of artist entries, but estimates that it's in the "tens of thousands," according to Wikipedia Foundation head of communications Jay Walsh.
MISSED OPPORTUNITY
What's more, because of Wikipedia's low profile relative to the MySpace hype machine, many artists and their managers remain ignorant of the resources available to them.
"There's been many people I've talked to that didn't even know they could upload a Wikipedia page," Lenac says. "There's been some managers that didn't even know what it was."
For those in the latter category, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that relies on everyday users to submit the information listed about a given topic, using a collaborative software system known as "wiki." It contains more than 7 million articles in 200 languages and receives some 300 million page views per day. Anyone can contribute to a given article, BUT they must first past muster from a team of volunteer editors with a particular passion about the subject before the text appears live.
The result is a rather tight, focused and vetted overview of the subject, which some online marketing experts feel is why fans are selecting Wikipedia over other options.
"Wikipedia is a fantastic landing page," says Jason Feinberg, owner/president of On Target Media Group, a Web promotions consultancy. "It's so clear, so concise, and it's standardized. That's something I think is a draw over MySpace, where you never quite know the experience you're going to get. Is it going to be a horrible jumble of images and video and text that's difficult to read? Also, (Wikipedia is) rooted in fact. It's not promotional. Especially these days when the Internet is full of artists trying to essentially ram their message down your throat, I think a fan is a lot more receptive to a simple, no-hype approach."
But don't expect to see Wikipedia offering full-song streams or links to buy digital songs anytime soon.
"That's not what we're about," Walsh says. "We're about knowledge. We're about bringing the reader to other free content ... content they can use and enjoy without worrying about violating any copyrights.
Gibson sues over "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band"
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gibson Guitar said on Friday that it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Viacom Inc's MTV networks, Harmonix and Electronic Arts relating to the wildly popular "Rock Band" video game and Harmonix's previously developed game, "Guitar Hero."
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Tennessee, relates to the same patent involved in another suit Gibson filed earlier against various retailers of "Guitar Hero," a competitor to "Rock Band," the Tennessee-based guitar maker said in a statement.
The "Guitar Hero" series, published by Activision), has sold more than 14 million units in North America and raked in more than $1 billion since its 2005 debut, while "Rock Band" is a newer rival.
Gibson said the games, in which players use a guitar-shaped controller in time with notes on a television screen, violate a 1999 patent for technology to simulate a musical performance.
Harmonix developed the first "Guitar Hero" game and was later bought by MTV. Electronic Arts publishes "Rock Band" and another company, Activision Inc, as well as several retailers, either develop, distribute or sell one or several of the games in the "Guitar Hero" series.
"This lawsuit is completely without merit and we intend to defend it vigorously," Harmonix said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Electronic Arts could not be reached for comment.
Earlier this month, Activision filed a preemptive suit against Gibson, which had complained that the games infringe upon one of its patents.
Activision filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. District Court for Central California to declare Gibson's patent invalid and to bar it from seeking damages.
Gibson, whose electric guitars are used by legendary blues and rock artists such as Eric Clapton, B.B. King and Slash, has been a high-profile partner in the "Guitar Hero" games.
Activision licensed the rights to model its video controllers on Gibson guitar models and to use their likenesses in the game.
Activision has said that by waiting three years to raise its claim, Gibson had granted an implied license for any technology.
Israeli singer embraces Britney, Apple for success
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Folksy French-Israeli singer Yael Naim found commercial success after her song "New Soul" played in Apple's MacBook Air laptop ads, pushing the song to No. 7 on U.S. music chart Billboard's Hot 100.
She already had gained fame for what some saw as a comic choice to cover pop singer Britney Spear's "Toxic," singing a soulful, poignant version of the commercial hit while playing piano.
But Naim, 29, whose self-titled new album was just released in the United States two months earlier than originally planned following the success of the Apple ad, says she's not worried about being seen as too commercial.
"It opened a great window for us, for a lot of people to have a chance to hear about our music," she told Reuters in New York. "We had a lot of propositions ... but we thought Apple and Macintosh have some connection because today we work with computers to do our music."
The singer-songwriter, who was born in Paris but spent a large part of her childhood in Israel, recorded her new album in her Paris apartment with her music partner, percussionist David Donatien.
"We did not have a label," she said. "We did not have a lot of money so we did it just with a computer."
NAME HALVED
She became disillusioned with the "big studio" experience after her first album "In a Man's Womb" was released in 2001 through EMI, which insisted she keep her name to just Yael.
"It was like they took half of my energy," she said.
Both "Toxic" and "New Soul" appear on her new, second album, which was recorded in English, Hebrew and French and has received warm reviews. Rolling Stone magazine noted: "The way Naim purrs any word with a hard 'ch' will make your loins tingle."
Naim, who spent two years in the Israel Air Force Orchestra, said she was surprised audiences in France had embraced the mixed-language album.
"I did not think anyone would want to listen to ballads in Hebrew," she said. "It is not considered a very sexy language."
She also didn't expect the success of her version of "Toxic," which Rolling Stone described as "a stripped-down, slow-motion, kinda-brilliant cover."
"I don't particularly like her (Spears) as a musician, the voice, but this song is a good song," she said. "I wanted to take something that is completely opposite of the music we do."
Audiences at live shows, such as one last week in Manhattan, react excitedly to "Toxic," as well as to her current hit.
She confided to the crowd of several hundred that she once believed she was an old soul.
"Then my real life began and I figured that maybe I'm not an old soul," she said before launching into "New Soul."
'Whos' on first at box office again
LOS ANGELES - Audiences are still listening to Horton and his Who pals. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," 20th Century Fox's animated adaptation of the beloved children's book, remained the top movie for a second straight weekend with $25.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Featuring the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, the movie raised its 10-day total to $85.5 million.
"Horton" fended off a rush of new movies opening over Easter weekend.
Lionsgate's "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns," about a single mom who connects with previously unknown kin at her late father's funeral, opened in second place with $20 million.
It was the latest success for writer-director and co-star Perry, whose past hits for Lionsgate include "Madea's Family Reunion" and "Why Did I Get Married?" Shot on modest budgets, Perry's movies play to a built-in fan base.
"You kind of know what you're going to get with Tyler Perry, and that's a good thing," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "You want to be in business with this guy because he's going to make you money every time."
"Shutter," 20th Century Fox's fright flick about a newlywed couple tormented by a spirit whose image appears in their photos, opened at No. 3 with $10.7 million.
Just behind it at No. 4 was Owen Wilson's comedy "Drillbit Taylor," which pulled in $10.2 million. The Paramount release stars Wilson as a laid-back homeless guy who signs on as bodyguard for three bullied teenage nerds.
The acclaimed "Under the Same Moon," a border tale about a Mexican boy trying to reunite with his mother in the United States, was No. 10 with $2.6 million, a record opening weekend for a Spanish-language film. Released by Fox Searchlight and the Weinstein Co., the movie has taken in $3.3 million since opening Wednesday and also took in $1.7 million in Mexico, where it debuted this weekend.
"Under the Same Moon" surpassed the previous Spanish-language record set by "Ladron Que Roba a Ladron," which opened with $1.6 million last Labor Day weekend.
Both movies opened in far more theaters — "Under the Same Moon" at 266, "Ladron" at 340 — than typical Spanish-language films, which generally debut in a handful of cinemas before gradually expanding to wider release if they click with movie-goers.
"We thought this was a movie that could play as a commercial movie, not as an arthouse movie, to Spanish-language audiences," said Peter Rice, Fox Searchlight president.
The movie started mainly in theaters catering to Spanish speakers. But it also enjoyed strong word-of-mouth publicity in cinemas dominated by English-language crowds, where business picked up strongly over the course of the weekend, said Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, whose had found success with foreign-language films such as "Cinema Paradiso" and "Amelie" when he ran Miramax.
Fox Searchlight and the Weinstein Co. plan to gradually roll "Under the Same Moon" out to more theaters in the coming weeks.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," $25.1 million.
2. "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns," $20 million.
3. "Shutter," $10.7 million.
4. "Drillbit Taylor," $10.2 million.
5. "10,000 B.C.," $8.7 million.
6. "Never Back Down," $4.9 million.
7. "College Road Trip," $4.6 million.
8. "The Bank Job," $4.1 million.
9. "Vantage Point," $3.8 million.
10. "Under the Same Moon," $2.6 million.