Category: Music

Memo To The Record Companies: Release Music Worth Buying And We Will Respond
Folks, Eminem sold 1.3 million units in his first week The rapper’s fans couldn’t live without him. His latest release, “The Eminem Show” sold 1.3 million albums in its first full week in stores, according to industry figures released on Wednesday.
It’s the biggest single-week sales total of the year and easily allowed Eminem to retain his hold at the No. 1 spot for a second week in a row.
Last week, the disc sold 285,000 copies in just three days of release. Interscope Records pushed the release date up to May 26 because it was being heavily bootlegged.
The first song from the CD, “Without Me,” was up to No. 4 this past week on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
“The Eminem Show” is the rapper’s third disc and the follow-up to his Grammy-winning, multiplatinum album, “The Marshall Mathers LP,” which was released in 2000.

Extra ‘Stuff’: New DMB Album To Include DVD
Fans who purchase Dave Matthews Band’s upcoming album “Busted Stuff,” due July 16 from RCA, will be getting more bang for their buck.

Backstreet Boy Nick Carter Preparing To Release Solo Album
Backstreet Boy Nick Carter will be the first member of the multiplatinum group to release a solo album on Jive Records this fall. Carter told LAUNCH that while a firm release date has not been set, he expects the album to be released this September.
“Right now I’ve been in the studio, and I’ve got, like, over 30 songs recorded,” he said. “And they are thinking about a single in a couple of months, and the album later on this year–maybe late September.”
The 22-year-old singer added that the album will feature a combination of both pop and rock songs. “Of course, I can’t stray too far away from what I’ve done, so I’m stuck with that. And I’ve also added a new element of which I’ve loved since I was a little baby: rock music. So, I had to add a little bit of rock with it. It’s going to be interesting to see how the public accepts it, but at the same time I’m very happy with what I’m doing personally, so it’s going to be cool,” he added.
Carter also wanted to dispel any rumors about his solo career marking the beginning of the end for the Backstreet Boys. “We’re not breaking up. I mean, everybody’s all, like, worried: ‘Nick’s doing this and the Backstreet Boys are over,’ and all this stuff. I mean, you know, I’ve been in the group for 10 years, since I was 12, so I mean, I’m 22 now and I really want to try something new,” he explained. “That’s basically what I’m doing. Sometimes you can’t make everybody happy–that’s the one thing I’ve learned in life–but the guys are supporting me, so that’s good.”

BMG Focuses Lyric Warnings
Starting in July, music buyers will get a lot more than just a “parental advisory” on BMG Entertainment records that contain explicit lyrics.
The major-label group, whose artists include Pink, Outkast and the Strokes, is planning the industry’s first ratings system that offers specific printed warnings for explicit, violent or profane lyrics. BMG will also use the warnings in its print and television advertising.
Program will extend to BMG’s Arista, RCA and BMG Latin divisions, as well as J Records, its joint venture label with veteran exec Clive Davis. The first of the new warning labels will go on “May Day,” the latest CD from rap act Lady May, due out July 31.
“We just had the feeling that it was time for us to be more responsive,” said BMG chief of distribution Pete Jones. “We thought that there needed to be movement, and we felt it was time to take a leadership position in that regard.”
BMG’s new plan comes just weeks before the expected release of a new report from the Federal Trade Commission about the marketing of explicit media of all types to kids.
Congress held hearings on the subject last spring and shortly afterward upbraided the music business for not acting on its concerns about records with explicit lyrics being promoted to minors.
The current warning system — a label on certain CDs that simply says “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics”– was adopted by the industry in 1985 after a protracted campaign led by Tipper Gore, wife of then-Tennessee Sen. Al Gore.
But lawmakers last year complained that the old labels were overly broad, offered little deterrent to young buyers and rarely if ever were extended to ads in print and on TV.
Several senators, including Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), have argued that an age-specific ratings system would be more appropriate.
But Jones said BMG opposes such a plan.
“It’s not for us to judge what size fits everybody of a certain age,” he said. “You can’t always correlate age and maturity.”

Da Boss Is Back! I For One Welcome Him, And I Know I Am Not Alone.
Bruce Springsteen’s new album, “The Rising,” is due in stores July 30 and E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg calls the new disc “unbelievable.”
I am speechless…

Oooh, That’s A Huge List
Wow! Look at them all! There is a slew of new CD’s bowing in stores today. I’ll let you decide if there are any that are worth your time and effort.
Here are the new music releases for Tuesday, June 4, 2002.
* AVRIL LAVIGNE Let Go (Arista)
* BLACK SABBATH Technical Ecstacy (Warner)
* BRIAN WILSON Pet Sounds Live
* DAVID SYLVIAN Camphor
* DEEP FOREST Music.Detected (Columbia)
* DIRTY VEGAS Dirty Vegas
* DISCHARGE Decontrol – The Singles (Sanctuary Records)
* DJ CAM Soulshine (Columbia)
* DJ SHADOW Private Press
* DONELL JONES Life Goes On (Arista)
* GBH The Punk Singles (Sanctuary Records)
* INXS The Best Of INXS (Rhino)
* INXS Kick (Rhino)
* INXS X (Rhino)
* JESUS AND MARY CHAIN 21 Singles (Rhino)
* LIL’ ROMEO Game Time (Universal)
* LONNIE L. SMITH Explorations (Columbia)
* MARCO BELTRAMI The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys
* MARK CHESNUTT Mark Chesnutt (Columbia)
* MC MARIO Sun Factory 3 (Sony Music Direct)
* MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape (Warner)
* NASHVILLE PUSSY Say Something Nasty (Artemis)
* P18 Electropica
* PUFFY AMIYUMI The Illustrated History Of … (Columbia)
* RAVEN All Systems Go (Sanctuary Records)
* ROTHKO A Continual Search For Origins (Too Pure)
* SCOOBY-DOO Scooby-Doo (Lava)
* SCOOBY-DOO Music From And Inspired By Scooby-Doo
* THE DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA YA SISTERHOOD Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood (Columbia)
* THE SPECIALS The Specials (EMI)
* THE SPECIALS More Specials (EMI)
* THE SPECIALS In The Studio (EMI)
* THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS No!
* TIFT MERRITT Bramble Rose (Lost Highway/Universal)
* VENOM In League With Satan (Sanctuary Records)
* X-PRESS 2 Muzikizum (Columbia)

It Should See The Light Of Day In September
Johnny Cash covers Sting and Nine Inch Nails on his new CD.

THE BOSS IS BACK
Bruce Springsteen unveiling his first all-new studio album with the E Street Band in 18 years on July 30, a 14-song set titled “The Rising.”
Oh yeah, baby!

Rush Drummer Issues First Statement About ‘Vapor Trails’
Rush drummer-lyricist Neil Peart hasn’t been giving interviews to promote the Canadian trio’s new album, Vapor Trails, because he doesn’t want to talk about the deaths of his wife and daughter, which sent the band into a five-year hiatus. However, he has issued a three-page statement via Universal Records Canada in which he talks about the record.
Of the title, Peart writes: “A unifying theme sometimes appears in the collected songs and suggests an overall title, like Counterparts or Power Windows; other times a particular song seems emblematic, like Test For Echo or Roll The Bones. Neither approach seemed right this time, so we went with the song title we liked the best, ‘Vapor Trail,’ and made it plural to refer to all the songs…When you set yourself on fire and aim for the sky, you hope to leave behind some sparks of heat and light…Like a vapor trail.”
Peart’s statement also makes a lighthearted reference to Rush’s critics over the years: “Knowing that our music is nothing if not idiosyncratic, and doesn’t really cater to popular ‘taste,’ we also envisioned advertising slogans along the lines of, ‘If you hated them before, you’ll really hate them now!’ Or, ‘And now–more of everything you always hated about Rush!’ But of course, like everyone, we do hope people will enjoy our work, and that our shared enthusiasm, energy, and love for what we do communicates itself to the listener.”
Peart’s statement also credits writers such as Walt Whitman, Thomas Wolfe, and Edward Abbey, as well as Quaker folk artist Edward Hicks, with inspiring some of his lyrics for Vapor Trails. However, he makes no mention of his wife or daughter, or of his emotional travails following their deaths.

Bruce Springsteen to Release New Album July 30
Bruce Springsteen will release his first all-new studio recording with the E Street Band in 18 years on July 30, a 14-song compilation titled “The Rising.”
Springsteen’s public relations company confirmed the release date, which had been widely circulating on fan web sites for the last several weeks, in a statement on Monday.
The album, to be released on Columbia Records, a unit of Sony Corp. was recorded earlier this year at Southern Tracks Recording in Atlanta and produced by Brendan O’Brien, a producer best known for his work with the group Pearl Jam.
While some E Street Band members played on the 1987 Springsteen release “Tunnel of Love”, “The Rising” marks the first recording with the entire band since 1984’s multi-platinum “Born in the U.S.A.,” the statement said.
Springsteen, a perfectionist whose releases are few and far between, put out “Lucky Town” and “Human Touch” simultaneously in 1992. “The Boss” broke from the E Streeters on those recordings and the tour that followed by hiring a new set of hired guns to back him.
The statement made no mention of a concert tour to promote “The Rising.” In April 1999, Springsteen and the band launched a “reunion” tour in Barcelona, Spain, which ended in July of the following year at Madison Square Garden in New York. The final performance of that tour was used for a CD, DVD and HBO special, all titled “Live in New York City.”