Bruce Springsteen offers 'Highlights' for charity
Fans will be able to get a taste of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's current live outing when "Magic Tour Highlights" hits digital download stores next week.
The set comprises four audio tracks and four videos, all recorded live during the band's ongoing "Magic Tour." Highlights include US performances with Alejandro Escovedo, Tom Morello and Roger McGuinn, as well as late E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici's final performance with the Boss and company.
Columbia Records will release the collection to digital download outlets July 15.
Further information will be available at Springsteen's website that day.
The artists, songwriters and music publishers are waiving all of their royalties, and Columbia Records is donating all of its net profits to the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund, according to a press release. Apple's iTunes Store is donating its first year's net profits, as well.
Springsteen and the E Street Band, who are currently in the midst of a two-month European tour, will celebrate their homecoming with a late-July, three-night stand at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. They'll wrap their '07/'08 outing with a dozen US shows, the final of which is Harley-Davidson's 105th anniversary party Aug. 30 in Milwaukee. By the time it's all said and done, the group will have performed 100 concerts for more than two million fans, according to a press release.
The rockers' next round of US dates are listed below and overseas shows can be found at Springsteen's website.
The Boss' 23rd album, "Magic," surfaced last October, debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and has since reached platinum status in the US and a host of other countries around the world. The lead single, "Radio Nowhere," earned Springsteen and the E Street Band two Grammy Awards earlier this year.
It's a girl for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban!!
Oscar winner Nicole Kidman gave birth to a girl in Nashville on Monday morning, according to a publicist for her husband, country singer Keith Urban.
The couple named her Sunday Rose Kidman Urban.
"Nicole and Keith Urban are delighted to announce that Nicole Kidman gave birth to a baby girl on Monday morning, July 7, 2008," the publicist said in a statement.
Sunday Rose weighed six pounds, 7½ ounces at birth, and mother and daughter were doing well, the publicist said.
Kidman, star of The Golden Compass and Baz Luhrmann's upcoming big budget epic Australia, has two older children.
With her former husband Tom Cruise, she adopted two children — Isabella, now 15, and Connor, 12.
The actress, who won an Academy Award for portraying writer Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002), withdrew from the shoot of Stephen Daldry's drama The Reader because of her pregnancy.
Kidman and Urban married in Australia, where both have roots, in June 2006.
New CD Releases, July 8: Beck, Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis, The Melvins
Beck "Modern Guilt"
The hipster singer/songwriter returns with a follow-up to 2006's "The Information." "Modern Guilt" was produced with Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton and, according to a press release, explores Beck and Danger Mouse's shared interest in psych-rock, folk, electronic minimalism and orchestration.
Beck will share "Modern Guilt" with fans during a North American tour that finds the artist performing many festival dates, including the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco (8/22), Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle (8/30) and Austin City Limits Festival in Texas (9/27). The Southern California crooner will also play his biggest hometown headlining show to date: Sept. 20 at the Hollywood Bowl.
* * *
Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis "Two Men With the Blues"
The country legend and the jazz great combine their ample talents on this live collection of standards and blues numbers. "Two Men With the Blues" was recorded during a two-night stand dubbed "Willie Nelson Sings the Blues" in early 2007 at Lincoln Center in New York.
"Two Men With the Blues" features such well-known offerings as "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It," "Ain't Nobody's Business," "Caldonia" and "Stardust." There has been no word as to whether Nelson and Marsalis will tour together in support of the album--but keep your fingers crossed.
* * *
The Melvins "Nude with Boots"
The alt-metal pioneers are back with their 16th studio album. Recorded in Los Angeles over the past two years, "Nude With Boots" features the same lineup--career Melvins Buzz Osborne (guitar, vocals) and Dale Crover (drums) with Jared Warren (bass, vocals) and Coady Willis (drums) of fellow Seattle indie rockers Big Business--that recorded the group's previous effort, 2006's "(A) Senile Animal."
The influential band will support "Nude with Boots" with a 23-city North American tour. The trek kicks off July 16 in Santa Barbara, CA.
* * *
Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band "Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band Live 2006"
This CD features the Beatle performing with such talents as guitarist/vocalists Billy Squier and Edgar Winter and percussionist/vocalist Sheila E. The ensemble handles a number of Starr/Beatles classics, like "Yellow Submarine" and "Photograph," as well as milestone songs from the careers of the other participants (notably Squier's "Everybody Wants You" and Winter's "Frankenstein").
* * *
Billy Joel "The Stranger: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition"
The singer/songwriter/pianist's great fifth album, originally released in 1977, gets a major makeover on what's really its 31st anniversary. "The Stranger: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition" is a 4-disc box set that includes the entire original album (remastered by producer Phil Ramone), two live CDs from the era, and a DVD of TV/video performances.
* * *
More new releases:
Bad Religion, "New Maps of Hell" (Epitaph)
The Baseball Project, "Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails" (Yep Roc)
Donna the Buffalo, "Silverlined" (Sugar Hill)
Gaelic Storm, "What's the Rumpus?" (MRI)
Jean Grae, "Jeanius" (Blacksmith)
Great Big Sea, "Fortune's Favour" (Suma)
Kerli, "Love Is Dead" (Island)
Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Medium Rare" (Bosstones Music)
Van Morrison, "Common One" (Polydor)
Van Morrison, "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart" (Polydor)
Ratatat, "Lp3" (Beggars Xl)
Scar Symmetry, "Holographic Universe" (Nuclear Blast)
UFO, "Obsession" (Caroline)
Soundtracks and scores:
"Mamma Mia!" (Decca)
"Weeds: Music From The Series Vol. 3" (Lion's Gate)
No Metallica, Beatles Just Yet For 'Guitar Hero'
Although rumors continue to buzz, Metallica and the Beatles aren't headed to the "Guitar Hero" franchise just yet, according to Kai and Charles Huang, the sibling founder of game publisher RedOctane.
Speculation abounds that Metallica will be the next band featured in their own version of "Guitar Hero," much like the just-released recent Aerosmith-centric game.
"We're not ready to comment about Metallica yet, but what I will say is that we'd love to work with all of the top rock bands of all time, whether it's Aerosmith or Metallica or AC/DC or Led Zeppelin," Kai Huang tells Billboard. "If we get an opportunity to work with those bands, we would love to do that."
As for reports that "Guitar Hero" is in discussions with the Beatles to bring their music to the game, Kai Huang would only say, "Unfortunately, those are rumors right now and we don't have any comments yet."
"Well, I don't have to tell you how difficult it is," Charles adds. "Everybody in the world has tried to get the Beatles to put their music on all kinds of different platforms, and it certainly would be exciting, but it's also a difficult challenge."
Next up for the franchise is "Guitar Hero: World Tour," which for the first time adds drums and vocals to the mix in a bid to compete with rival "Rock Band." An added twist for the expected fourth-quarter release: The game's "music studio" feature allows users to compose and record tracks and share them online.