Eminem's Relapse holds on to the No. 1 spot easily this week, selling 211,000 in its second week - a 65.3% drop from its smash 608,000-selling first week. With 819,000 sold, Relapse has already become the fifth best-seller of the year. In a very telling sign of the times, only two albums have passed the platinum mark so far this year: Taylor Swift's Fearless (1,173,000) and the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack (1,004,000 - sweet baby Jesus help us).
Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown holds at #2 with 76,000, a 54% drop, while the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack climbs three slots to #3 with 52,000 (down 10%). Marilyn Manson's The High End Of Low at #4 with 49,000. Lady GaGa's The Fame moves up three positions to #5 with 45,000
The new Mars Volta album Octahedron comes out out June 23rd, but we have it already, and it kicks ass in a much more understated way than any of its predecessors. Expect a review very soon. In the meantime, the band have launched an interactive site, IntoTheOctahedron.com, to stir up anticipation.
The site features an assortment of hidden treasures, including the audio for the new track "Since We've Been Wrong".
For more info, including a contest that could win you an Octahedron listening party at your house with the band, check out The Mars Volta's MySpace.
Tom Morello says that he rushed putting out his new Street Sweeper Social Club project in order to open for Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction this summer.
"We were finishing mixing our record when Trent called up and said, 'Hey, want to do the tour?'," Morello says. "So all of a sudden the leisurely mixing process became, 'We gotta get this out right now! We've got to start rehearsing for the tour tomorrow!'"
"Both bands are friends from back in the day," Morello says, "so there's a very good, family kind of vibe. [Reznor] has been a great host on the tour."
Trent has even joined the band onstage for a rendition of MC 5's "Kick Out The Jams".
The band's debut is due out on June 16th.
American Express is suing Courtney Love, claiming she owes $352,059.67 in unpaid charges and other fees on her AmEx Gold card.
Her account has been suspended after Love "failed and refused" to make payments.
Ozzy Osbourne has filed a lawsuit against Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi, claiming the guitarist has been illegally claiming 100% ownership of the band's name, and profiting massively from it.
Ozzy wants a 50% stake in the Black Sabbath trademark name, as well as royalties Iommi has already earned. The suit claims it was Osbourne's "signature lead vocals" that brought Sabbath its "extraordinary success." The suit uses Sabbath's decline in popularity post-Ozzy as proof.
The lawsuit follows an $80 million suit Iommi filed against Live Nation last year, claiming the company sold Black Sabbath merchandise despite a deal that expired in 2006.
The drag queen that is Pink had some sharp words for Kanye West after the two attended a Stalle McCartney fashion show.
She said: "Kanye West is the person pissing me off right now. I was at Stella McCartney's fashion show with the vice president of PETA, Paul McCartney and Kanye. The entire time Kanye was going, 'They need more fur in this show'. He just wouldn't shut up about how much he loved fur. I mean, he's saying this to me, the PETA guy and Paul McCartney! I was just grossed out by him. I'm like, 'You're an idiot' . There are so many people who are a waste of skin and he's up there. I should wear him. Go on, donate yourself Kanye. People can wear your fur."
The girl's got a damn good point. Coupled with the fact that he's putting out a book - despite being a proud non-reader, it's pretty clear that the Gay Fish moment didn't really make the superstar put himself in check, as he'd claimed. It takes more than balls to tell the VP of PETA that a fashion show needs more fur - it takes an all-out ignorant asshole.
So did Eminem see the Bruno crotch drop coming? The rumor mill's been going full tilt since last Sunday's 2009 MTV Movie Awards, when speedo-angel Sacha Baron Cohen (in character as the flamboyant Bruno) dropped from the rafters and landed upside-down on the rapper, his crotch directly on Eminem's chin, full 69 style. Em stormed out, but did he see it coming?
The answer is, of course, yes. It was all planned. Eminem has come clean, saying that he knew what would happen.
The show’s head writer Scott Aukerman, who was hired by host Andy Samberg and his cohort Akiva Shaffer, posted a note saying, “Yes, the Bruno/Eminem incident was staged. That’s all anyone wants to talk about, so let’s get it out of the way. They rehearsed it at dress and yes, it went as far as it did on the live show then.”.
The Arctic Monkeys haven't been making many waves lately, but that's all about to change. Their third album is locked and loaded, set for an August 25 release. The band recruited two producers for the new LP, which is yet untitled. One of those is a familiar face: Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford, who co-produced the band's moderately rougher second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare. But the other producer is just about as thrilling as a rock band can ever hope to get: Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, who worked with the band in his Mojave Desert studio - home of the infamous Desert Sessions recordings.
Homme has spent the past several years establishing himself as not only a beacon for the kind of balls-out swagger that rock n' roll is so sorely lacking these days, but also as the centerpiece for a larger movement of like-minded musicians including sometime bandmembers Dave Grohl, Mark Lanegan, PJ Harvey, Jesse Hughes and Troy Van Leeuwen, for starters. His resume is utterly airtight, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a cooler, more revered guy in rock.
One thing's for sure - if Josh Homme has anything to do with it, you can bet your hipster girl-pants that this album is going to kick almighty ass.
A bar in Manhattan co-owned by Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz along with members of Gym Class Heroes & Cobra Starship has been shut down thanks to serving alcohol to underage customers.
Angels & Kings, open since 2007, was closed by the New York Police Department - the door has a notice which states it was "closed by court order" over the "illegal sale of alcoholic beverages to minors".
Angels & Kings' website says it is shut down for "maintenance work". As in, maybe they're looking for a new owner-in-title-only, but from a different shitty band.
U2 made a surprise appearance in London Thursday, when they took the stage at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire as part of the 50th birthday celebration of label Island Records.
A series of shows had been taking place at the venue over the week as part of the anniversary.
U2 shared the bill with Senegalese artist Baaba Maal and Yusuf Islam and surprised the sold-out crowd by joining Maal when he played a version of their hit song One.
Eddie Van Halen told Rolling Stone recently that former bassist Michael Anthony quit Van Halen. Anthony, who was replaced by the guitarist’s teenage son Wolfgang on the band’s tour with David Lee Roth in 2007 and 2008, has responded to Eddie’s claims, swearing up and down that he never quit the band. “I never quit. I never once said, ‘I’m out of here.’ It never happened,” Anthony told MusicRadar. “That’s the weird thing right now, for Eddie to be trying to paint himself as not the bad guy.”
“The funny thing is that everyone who quits the band always claims they got fired by me. Hey, I’m not the bad guy here. When [Sammy] Hagar left the band, Mike went with him,” Eddie told RS after being asked what he thought about Hagar and Anthony’s new band Chickenfoot. “Then when we get back together with Dave, and all of a sudden, he wants back in. It’s like, ‘No, dude, you quit the band.’
Speaking to MusicRadar, Anthony said, “Why would I have quit Van Halen? It never happened. And what’s weird is, he was being asked about Chickenfoot, whether he had heard us or not, and suddenly he launches into this thing about me quitting the group. What does one thing even have to do with the other?” Regardless of who is reinventing history, Eddie says he has no hard feelings, telling RS, “I’ve got no beef with anybody. I wish them well. I hope they are … I don’t know what a ’supergroup’ means, but I hope they accomplish what they’re setting out to do.”
