Remember when Sara Barielles wrote Love Song as a protest to record execs who wanted her to do more ballad-y songs? Well, she’s been trumped by Amanda Palmer, who’s pulled out all the stops in an attempt to get RoadRunner Records to drop her.
If, like me, you’ve never really paid much attention to Black Sabbath, now’s your chance to catch up We7.com, the music service I mentioned a few weeks back, are streaming their entire back catalogue on their website.
This is quite awesome, actually, because if you’ve ever really wanted to immerse yourself in a new band’s music, this makes it so easy. You can literally work your way through every Black Sabbath album – from Ozzy through Dio and get a real feel for them.
Just a heads up for any metal fan who’s maybe missed Sabbath. You can start chastising me now for not owning any of their albums…
It’s clearly a slow news day in Celeb-land, as The Sun and The Mirror both regurgitate Robbie Williams quotes from his visit to We Will Rock You the other night.
The Mirror reckon Robbie said he was definitely going to rejoin Take That (a dull rumour that’s been doing the rounds every month since 2005). However, while The Sun’s report agrees with this, it also says that he was dashing back to the studio to record with Mark Ronson.
Now, let’s imagine that you’ve been asked the same question for four years: “Any chance of you rejoining Take That, Rob?” Why not just nod your head and go along with it? “Yeah, yeah. Even though I’m clearly recording a solo album, I’d love nothing more than to hook up with Take That again.”
NME are reporting that Jason Newsted will rejoin Metallica when the band is inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 4th April.
Newsted left the band in 2001 but had spent 14 years with the band since the death of their original bassist, Cliff Burton. According to the report, the band don’t want politics to mar the ceremony as they did with the Blondie induction in 2006.
"Jason Newsted will be there, and he will be playing with us at one point," guitarist Kirk Hammett said. "We went as a band when Black Sabbath was being inducted, and at that time Blondie was also being inducted that night. And there was so many politics and so much drama that, you know, we collectively said to each other, ‘We don’t want any of that,’ because it kind of, it puts a really bad, sour note on the whole celebration itself."
Having spent so long with the band, it’s great that Newsted can come back and be part of the celebration. After all, he was part of the biggest band in the world as their fame crested and peaked. I think he deserves it, and I’ll be looking out for footage of that performance when it hits the web!
The Hall of Fame induction takes place on 4th April in Cleveland, and the band are to receive their induction from Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Hip-hop kingpin, Timbaland, is suing his record company Blackground Records for allegedly trying to sabotage his career when he moved into producing records.
He moved from being solely a performer to being hugely successful producing records for other artists. However, he claims this isn’t thanks to Blackground. According to TMZ:
In his lawsuit, filed today in Federal District court, Timbaland claims he just got too damn successful as a producer — and the record label couldn’t contain its jealously and hostility for him.
Timbaland alleges Blackground went on a McCarthy-esque search-and-destroy campaign, contacting various record labels and giving them a million reasons why they shouldn’t hire Timbaland to produce songs.
I’m assuming that because Timbaland is selling records by the truckload all over the world that this isn’t about money. It possibly has more to do with reputation and a little payback for the alleged campaign that could have killed off his lucrative career.
There’s an interesting comment by Justin Timberlake on the EW blog where he says he’s not interesting in making new music right now. It’s quite an interesting piece, because JT is clearly not going to pump out albums just because there’s a record company expectation. Or even fan expectation for that matter.
By the sounds of this quote, it’s all about motivation: he doesn’t have any.
I’ve fallen in love with We7.com, the music streaming service. What’s not to like? It’s a free streaming music service that lets you listen to entire albums online.
The only catch is that you get a brief audio advert at the start of each song. Seriously though, it’s no worse than listening to commercial radio, and you get to listen to complete albums.
Lately, I’ve used We7 to listen to albums by Katy Perry, U2 and other chart type stuff. Better still, I discovered a beautiful album by Beth Rowley called Little Dreamer.
If you’re a member of We7, you gain the ability to create playlists of your favourite music, which you can send to friends or share with friends.
You can also purchase tracks from the We7 store if you’re a member, and sometimes there are free tunes to download too.
In addition, you get a handy reminder email when new albums go online so that you can keep up to date with the latest releases.
Check out the embedded player below for an example of how We7 can work on your web page:
Now, I know this review probably sounds a bit gushy and too good to be true, but We7 is a seriously convenient way to listen to music via the web.
I won’t get into the We7 vs BitTorrent debate, other than to say that what you listen to via We7 is legal. You won’t get a nasty letter from the record industry, and your ISP won’t pull the plug on your Internet connection.
It’s probably the best service of its kind that I’ve seen. Almost the record industry version of Amie Street.
Just go and check it out. Let me know if you like it or not.
I read an alarming piece in The Sun today that suggests Radio 1 bosses may be starting to shop around for the next wave of DJs for the station. All this is based on the claim that DJ’s like Chris Moyles and Jo Whiley are too old for the station’s target demographic.
This won’t be welcome news for Moylesy, who’s somewhere on the slopes of Kilimanjaro right now.
Look at these six geezers and their oversized branded plane! Who do they think they are, Iron Maiden? Oh, that’s right…they are.
Anyway, Flight 666 is a documentary movie chronicling the band’s world tour and the craziness that surrounds a band on the road.
The tour itself sounds like it was great fun, as the band travelled the globe on their own private plane, piloted by their multitalented lead singer, Bruce Dickinson:
As the U2 publicity juggernaut invades every possible pop culture show on the planet, Bono soundbites are becoming unfortunately more frequent. And about as welcome as a dose of gonorrhea.
The latest is what seems to be a back-handed compliment to Coldplay’s Chris Martin. After initially calling him a wanker, Bono went on to praise Martin’s ‘genius’, saying:
Obviously he is a completely dysfunctional character and a cretin but he happens to be a genius melodist and I think up there with Ray Davies and Noel Gallagher and Paul McCartney.
