Top 5 Billboard Albums
Bruce "Wait, Wal-Mart isn't cool?" Springsteen's new album, Working on a Dream, ended Taylor Swift's eight-week reign atop the Billboard 200, selling 224,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's the Boss' his ninth career #1 album, tying him with the Rolling Stones for the third most #1 albums. Only the Beatles (with 19), Elvis Presley (10) and Jay-Z (also 10) have more.
Taylor Swift's Fearless drops to #2 with 55,000, while Beyonce's I Am ... Sasha Fierce follows closely at #3 with 52,000. Nickelback's Dark Horse drops a spot to #4, while Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak holds on to the #5 spot with 33,000 units moved.
Billboard Hot 100 Update
Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" spends another week at #1 after a record-breaking 97-1 leap on the Billboard Hot 100 last week.
Beyonce's former chart-topper "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" hops back up from #3 to #2, while the song I seem to hear out of every car in L.A. these days - Kanye West's "Heartless" - moves up to#3, pushing Lady GaGa's "Just Dance" featuring Colby O'Donis down to #4.
Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and the All-American Rejects' "Gives You Hell" stick to their spots from last week at #5 and #6, respectively.
Fans can expect some new twists in gameplay when "Guitar Hero: Metallica" arrives in stores March 29. Players will have the option to use a double bass drum for the difficult and expert levels, which can be enabled by using a splitter and an additional pedal for the kick drum (naturally). Also, when a player starts in Career Mode, they'll be joining the ranks of a band that rocks its way onto a Metallica tour as the opening act, rather than starting out as a member of Metallica and working up through the band's career.
Furthermore, instead of having to work your way through levels to unlock tracks, all of the songs will be available from the beginning of the game.
"It was time to change it up a bit," Neversoft lead designer Alan Flores says.
In-game venues will include the Los Angeles Forum and Moscow's Tushino Airport, where Metallica played before 1.6 million fans in 1991 as part of the Monsters of Rock tour.
Cramps frontman Lux Interior (real name: Erick Lee Purkhiser) died Wednesday at a hospital in Glendale, CA due to a pre-existing heart condition, according to the band's publicist. He was 60.
The Cramps, who have been credited as influences by the likes of Pearl Jam and the White Stripes, formed in 1976, entrenching themselves in the downtown New York punk scene. Despite a rotating cast of characters in the lineup, Lux and his wife, Poison Ivy were always integral members. The Cramps released 14 albums, none of which sold more than 95,000 copies.
Okay, this is getting to be a bit much: Neil Diamond, Stevie Wonder, M.I.A., Smokey Robinson, Robin Thicke, Allen Toussaint and Terence Blanchard have been added to the performance lineup for Sunday's Grammy Awards at Los Angeles' Staples Center. Not only that, but Buddy Guy, B.B. King, John Mayer and Keith Urban will play a tribute together to honor rock and R&B pioneer Bo Diddley, who died last year.
The Grammys will also feature performances by Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, Estelle and Kanye West, Adele, Chris Brown, Sugarland, U2, Kid Rock, Rihanna, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Kenny Chesney, Coldplay, Jennifer Hudson, Jonas Brothers, Lil Wayne, Paul McCartney (with Dave Grohl on drums), Katy Perry, Radiohead, T.I. and Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, and the quartet of Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, T.I. and Kanye West.
Furthermore, Blink 182 will reunite onstage for the first time in four years to present an award at the event.
After the Wal-Mart fiasco, it only makes sense that this week's chart-topper Bruce Springsteen makes a political move and lashes out at another one of the "big guys." He and his manager Jon Landau are cursing Ticketmaster for redirecting customers attempting to buy Springsteen tickets to their secondary (scalpy) ticketing site, TicketsNow, "even when other seats remained available at face value," says a letter posted on BruceSpringsteen.net. "We condemn this practice."
"We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest," the post continues. "Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site."
Springsteen and Landau also voiced outrage at the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which they say would return concert ticketing "to a near monopoly."
"The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you," they concluded. "We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours."
Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff responded by issuing an "open letter of apology to Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team," acknowledging that it could have handled the matter better.
"While we were genuinely trying to do the right thing for fans in providing more choices when the tickets they requested from the primary on-sale were not available, we clearly missed the mark," Azoff says in the response. "Fans are confused and angry, which is the opposite of what we hoped to accomplish. We sincerely apologize to Bruce, his organization and, above all, his fans."
"We recognize that we need to change our course," Azoff continues. "We have committed to Bruce and state publicly here that we have taken down all links for Bruce's shows directing fans from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow. This redirection only occurred as a choice when we could not satisfy fans' specific search request for primary ticket inventory, but to make sure there is no misunderstanding in the future, we also publicly state that we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale.
What a mess.
Speaking of Bruce, Springsteen and the E Street Band, Phish, the Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, David Byrne, Wilco, Al Green, Snoop Dogg and Elvis Costello are at the top of the lineup for the 2009 Bonnaroo festival, set for June 11-14 in Manchester, Tenn. Appearances will also include Animal Collective, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Elvis Costello, MGMT, Girl Talk, the Mars Volta, Jenny Lewis, Santogold, Merle Haggard and more, as a total of 120 bands and over 20 comedians will perform at the 2009 festival.
According to Jonathan Mayers, president of festival co-producer Superfly, Phish will play two different shows on the Bonnaroo main stage on two separate nights: a two-set performance and an additional late-evening set.
"With Phish, it feels like we've come full circle," Mayers tells Billboard. "The Phish festivals and Phish as a band were key inspirations for what we do. We still work with the team that did a lot of their events."
Head to Bonnaroo.com for more details, including the full lineup.
Guitarist Eddie Van Halen is hopeful for a future (and a new album) with Van Halen, after having completed the band's first tour with original singer David Lee Roth since 1984.
Van Halen recently told Spinner.com that after he and girlfriend Janie Liszewski get married in June, and his son Wolfgang (who played bass on the reunion tour) graduates from high school, he plans to take a serious look at putting new material down, which the guitar legend says he has "tons of." The band hasn't released a new studio album since the train wreck that was 1998's Van Halen III (with then-lead singer Gary Cherone).
"If Dave's up for singing ... then do another tour, and just see where it takes us," Van Halen said. "Actually, next week or the week after Wolfie, Alex and I are gonna start jamming. Maybe we'll give Dave a call and see what he's up to. He's off, always doing his own thing, and he checks in every now and then to see how we're doing."
Speaking of festivals, who the hell wants to drive to the middle of the desert and pay a hundred bucks to stand in the heat all day to see The Killers? You do! Paul McCartney, the Killers and the Cure are somehow headliners for the 2009 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, to be held April 17-19 at Empire Polo Field in Indio, CA. Talk about disappointment.
This will be McCartney's very first American festival appearance, and the aging Beatle seems thrilled. "I have heard that Coachella is one of the greatest festivals in the world," he said in a statement. "I'm really excited to get out there and rock!"
For the full lineup, which is (once again) in no way as appealing as Bonnaroo's this year, head over to Coachella.com.
After a seemingly endless, arduous journey through several states and felonious adventures, rapper DMX was sentenced to 90 days in jail last week (Jan. 30) for convictions on theft, drug-possession and animal-cruelty charges. He'd been in jail since being arrested Dec. 9 in Miami on a warrant after failing to appear in court in Phoenix, AZ.
Earl Simmons was placed on at least 18 months' supervised probation by Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Phemonia Miller, as well. The troubled musician pleaded guilty Dec. 30 to three felony counts: theft, possession or use of marijuana, and possession or use of narcotic drugs, as well as one misdemeanor count of animal cruelty.
Good Lord No: Spinal Tap are hoping to record new songs this year, which would be the fictional band’s first collection of new material since their 1992 album Break Like the Wind. “It’ll be for download as well as on conventional media later this year,” actor Harry Shearer (aka Derek Smalls) told BBC 5 Live. Actors Michael McKean and Christopher Guest are expected to contribute as well.
The band last performed together at London’s Wembley Stadium in 2007 as part of the Live Earth global concert.
“We’ve never recorded the song we did at Live Earth, ‘Warmer Than Hell,’ and I think they [Spinal Tap] are trying to revisit their old success,” Shearer added. “Not that they were ever popular, maybe in their own universe.” As for some other possible tracks, Shearer jokes, “We’ll do a song called ‘Gimme Some More Money,’ probably with some dubious results.” “Gimme Some Money” was one of the band’s early “hits,” along with tracks like “Stonehenge” and “Sex Farm.”
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