Welcome to CraveOnline's weekly music news roundup! Covering all the latest in the hits, the bombs and the trainwrecks, we sift through the headlines and bring you just what you need to know about musical current events.
Top 5 Billboard Albums
At least is wasn't High School Musical: The soundtrack to Twilight debuts on top of The Billboard 200 this week, featuring tracks from Linkin Park, Muse and Paramore. Former champs AC/DC drops to #2 with Black Ice, selling 160,000 on a sales decrease of 41%. Speaking of High School Musical 3, THAT soundtrack is sitting tight at # 3 for a second week, despite a 32% slip in sales.
Hinder is a really shitty band, but their sophomore album Take It to the Limit hits #4, while Pink's Funhouse falls 2-5 with 73,000 albums sold.
T.I.'s loving life right now. His single "Live Your Life" featuring Rihanna is riding a third non-consecutive week atop the Billboard Hot 100, while "Whatever You Like," another chart-topper from his album Paper Trail has #2 locked for the second week in a row
Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold" rose a notch to #3, while Kanye West's "Heartless" makes a splash at #4 and Beyonce's "If I Were a Boy" holds steady at #5.
Guitarist Johnny Marr and bassist Flea are just two of several guests on Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante's new album, The Empyrean, expected Jan. 20 on Record Collection.
The Sonus Quartet and the New Dimension Singers also make appearances on the album, Frusciante's first solo outing since 2005's Curtains.Frusciante has released seven solo albums since rejoining the Chili Peppers in 1998.
The Peppers are currently on a break.
Outkast is coming back next year, but that's only a third of the news. Big Boi is getting his second solo album, Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty, off the ground, and Andre 300 is currently working on his new solo record.
"The South got something to say, and we gonna keep on talking," he said in a recent interview. "Me and 'Dre were on the conference call. He's working on his album; my album is done. We're gonna wait until the top of the year — January or February — to put it out. Then 'Dre is gonna come hit y'all, and we're gonna do the Outkast album. So y'all gonna get three records from the 'Kast next year."
Big Boi's also due to appear on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" next Tuesday, November 25. He plays a rapper named Gots Money who gets greedy. Uhh..
Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell was found dead early Wednesday in a Portland hotel room, according to representatives for the Hendrix estate. He was 62 years old.
After finishing the Experience Hendrix tour in Portland with former bandmate Billy Cox and a superstar lineup on Nov. 7, Mitchell was enjoying some R&R in the city before returning to his native England. He likely died of natural causes, according to the Multnomah County Medical Examiner's office.
"We're all devastated to hear of Mitch's passing," said Experience Hendrix CEO Janie Hendrix. "He was a wonderful man, a brilliant musician and a true friend. His role in shaping the sound of the Jimi Hendrix Experience cannot be underestimated." Mitchell joined the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966, and with late bassist Noel Redding, developed the rhythm section supporting Hendrix's guitar wizardry.
Live Nation wants to take over the world, and they're well on their way to success. The world's largest concert promoter is hoping to challenge iTunes’ digital music world dominance by launching their own music service. The company is also branching out to form their own ticketing service and record labels. They've agreed to terms with three of the four major labels to sell DRM-free MP3s on their website (Warner Music is the only holdout). The company plans to offer the tracks through the artist pages, like the blueprint of the upstart MySpace Music. The launch date of Live Nation’s digital music catalog has not yet been announced, but organizers hope 2009 is the year of the Nation.
Guns N' Roses have announced a batch of listening events for their new album, Chinese Democracy. They're free events, open to the public, and the FBI promises not to arrest you. Fans who pre-order Chinese Democracy at BestBuy.com and bring their receipt will rock elite with "front of the line access" at the Chinese Democracy listening parties and a free Chinese Democracy T-Shirt at the events. Chinese Democracy Chinese Democracy.
The listening events will be held in New York City, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston and Detroit. Details about each party can be found at http://www.bravewords.com/news/100721
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Suge Knight is suing Kanye West over a diamond earring he lost 3 years ago. One of Kanye's parties got out of hand and, hey guess what, somebody shot Suge Knight. He didn't die, but he dropped his earring. He didn't worry much about it at the time, but my, how much can happen in 3 years. Unfortunately for the great big asshole, the incident got Karma's attention, which brought all sorts of bankruptcy down on his ass, and now we've got ridiculous lawsuits like this in the paper.
Granted, it was a 15-carat, $135,000 diamond stud earring, but how is that Kanye's fault?
Phil Anselmo's latest distraction from overdosing, Down, is gearing up for a huge year in 2009. Bassist Rex Brown, who, like Anselmo, is an import from the late Pantera, told Billboard.com that the group "is all our priorities now," with plans for a full round of touring in 2009 and record a fourth album shortly after that.
Down is currently on the road opening for Metallica and headlining their own shows on the side. They'll head to South America and European festival dates once this leg is finished.
Ticketmaster will drop their anything-but-convenient "convenience fees" on tickets for the upcoming January 2009 Eagles shows. The move signifies “a collaborative effort by both the Eagles and Ticketmaster to provide the best consumer value and streamline the ticket buying process,” according to a press release.
“The Eagles have long been committed to giving their loyal fans the best concert going experience,” said the band’s manager and new Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff. “The Eagles use of ‘all-in ticketing’ is the first step in Ticketmaster’s transformation to an all-encompassing entertainment company to allow artists to connect to their fans in both new and innovative ways.”
Or maybe Ticketbastard is finally beginning to realize that nobody has money to burn these days, and people are starting to finally pay attention to the fact that we're paying $12 in totally frivolous fees that aren't justified in the slightest.
After what seems like years of negotiations and deal-whittling, XM and Sirius satellite radio stations finally merged this week. Each sides’ premium channels and talent remains mostly intact, with stations like Howard Stern, the Grateful Dead Channel and Eminem’s Shade 45 all now available to XM users, while Sirius listeners now get Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour, Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure and B.B. King’s blues station. A lot of fat has also been trimmed, however, as most themed genre stations were pink-slipped or condensed into one station.
Hooray? I thought a little competition was a good thing. Imagine only having one airline to fly on.
A crazy Paula Abdul megafan and failed "American Idol" entrant killed herself in a car outside Abdul's house this week. Police believe that Paula Goodspeed, whose rendition of "Proud Mary" was laughed at and ridiculed by Simon Cowell and rejected by Abdul and Randy Jackson, committed suicide. An official cause of death had not been determined.
Police found Goodspeed's body Tuesday evening in a car with the vanity license plate "ABL LV" in a Los Angeles Lakers frame. Her parents had reported her missing hours earlier and expressed concern that she might hurt herself.
"I am deeply shocked and saddened at what transpired yesterday," Abdul said. Well, she didn't say it. Her publicist, Jeff Ballard, did. Paula was busy wandering around her house in a vicodin haze.
During Goodspeed's audition on "Idol" in January 2006, she told the show's host, Ryan Seacrest, that she was a huge fan of Ms. "Cold-Hearted Snake," and even created life-size paintings of her. No word on whether those paintings had a musky stench to them or if they were mutilated after the audition, but she also called Abdul "beautiful" after Cowell said he noticed a resemblance between Goodspeed and Abdul. Cowell also made fun of Goodspeed's braces, and those mean little internet trolls trashed her appearance, which she reacted to in a MySpace posting months after the show aired.
Did nobody see this coming?
In a recent interview with AP, Kanye West claimed that he is the voice of his generation. "I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice," Kanye said. "It's me settling into that position of just really accepting that it's one thing to say you want to do it and it's another thing to really end up being like Michael Jordan. There were people who had the potential to do it but they went on vacation, so when Justin (Timberlake) went on vacation I made albums. And it just came out to be that."
Aww. Well, I don't want to say anything too disrespectful and incur the wrath of AN ALL-CAPS KANYE BLOG RANT, so I'll just say West must be quite the yoga practitioner, or at least really well endowed. He can autofellate like nobody's business.
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