Tonight at 7:30 Eastern the third and final installment in the “United Breaks Guitars” music trilogy hits the streets in a live webcast release party. As you wait for that latest hot joint, relive the magic and catch up on the story of the country singer who watched in horror from their airplane as baggage handlers tossed around his Taylor guitar on the tarmac and broke it, by watching the first two videos: [More]
music
Madonna Planning Clothing Line With Macy's
By 2.22.10
Women’s Wear Daily says that Madonna is in talks with Macy’s to launch an exclusive women’s collection that would include apparel, accessories, intimates, and footwear. “Label names under serious consideration for the product lines include Material Girl for the apparel and Truth or Dare for the lingerie and underwear.” I’m crossing my fingers there’s a “Papa Don’t Preach” maternity line in the works as well. [More]
Sky Mall Kitties Song Celebrates Nonsensical Pet Products
By 2.22.10
Do you marvel at the ridiculous products in the SkyMall catalog? Musician Nina Katchadourian does, and she has written a song about them, viewed through the lens of the cats featured within its pages. The SkyMall Kitties. [More]
Ticketmaster Agrees To Only Sell Tickets It Has
By 2.19.10
Ticketmaster has settled with the FTC over charges that it used “deceptive bait-and-switch” tactics when selling concert tickets, reports the Los Angeles Times. As usual for this kind of settlement, Ticketmaster admits no wrongdoing. For instance, the FTC noted that in one case “the same set of 38 tickets for the Springsteen concert in Washington were sold and resold 1,600 times,” and Ticketmaster waited as long as three months to let affected customers know, which is a clear example of not doing anything wrong. [More]
Microsoft Investigating Why Songs Are Disappearing From Zune Pass
By 2.8.10
If record labels decided to pull some of their songs from the Zune Pass service in the past couple of weeks, they did a poor job telling Microsoft about it. The company seems to be as in the dark as Zune Pass subscribers about why songs, albums, or entire discographies have gone missing. Ars technica reports that a Microsoft employee wrote on a Zune forum, “We are investigating your reported missing albums indicated in this post—and will come back to you as soon as we understand why they’re missing.” [More]
Downloadable Album Costs More Than CD On Amazon
By 2.8.10
Rob points out a pricing quirk on an album he’s after, noting that the physical CD is considerably cheaper than the digital download. [More]
Franz Ferdinand Tweets McDonald's Loathing Over Tune Use
By 1.23.10
After a McDonald’s microsite licensed one of Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand’s without their direct approval, as record labels are wont to do, singer for the group Alex Kapranos tweeted some infelicitous words about the fast food joint. Specifically, “Dirty bastards. Stupid arrogant motherf***ing pig-brained arseholes. I’d rather eat a cowpat on a bun than a bloody McDonalds.” I dunno, Alex, have you tried their new Angus burgers? They’re pretty tasty and they come with a big slice of fresh onion. [@alkapranos via NME via Eater] [More]
Verizon Hold Times Inspire Song On M.I.A.'s Next Album
By 1.12.10
According to Rolling Stone, when M.I.A.’s new album comes out later this year, there will be a track on it called “I’m Down Like Your Internet Connection”–and it will feature “Filipino Verizon workers singing the hook.” [More]
Great Best Buy Deal: Get Free Program Tweetdeck For Free
By 12.27.09
Matthew sent us this page from today’s Best Buy advertising flyer. They’re offering an amazing deal this week–buy a CD from certain Interscope musicians, and you can download Tweetdeck for iPhone absolutely free. Which would be a very nice deal if Tweetdeck weren’t already free. [More]
Apple Buys Lala
By 12.7.09
Lala, the music streaming/backup service that’s also a reasonably priced mp3 store, has been purchased by Apple. Does this mean Apple may introduce some sort of streaming service in the future? On Lala, you can pay 10 cents per song to stream it as much as you want, or $.99-1.29 to own it outright. At any rate, if you buy from Lala now, you’re buying from Apple. [More]
Gibson CEO Takes Leave Of Absence From Rainforest Group While Feds Investigate Imported Wood
By 11.19.09
When agents raided Gibson Guitar’s manufacturing facility earlier this week, some articles pointed out that the company’s CEO Henry Juszkiewicz was on the board of the Rainforest Alliance, a group that certifies businesses to sell their goods under an environmentally sustainable label. Now the group has postponed its annual certification of Gibson Guitars, and Juszkiewicz is temporarily stepping down from the board.
Feds Raid Gibson Guitars
By 11.18.09
Yesterday, US Fish & Wildlife Services agents issued a search warrant on Gibson Guitars’ manufacturing plant in Nashville, TN. The Nashville Post writes that they “seized wood, guitars, computers and boxes of files from Gibson Guitar’s Massman Road manufacturing facility.”
Company Sued For Selling Beatles MP3s Says They're Original Works, So It's Okay
By 11.5.09
Since the Beatles are notorious for refusing to release their music online, the mere fact that BlueBeat.com was selling them was kind of strange, which probably explains why EMI just sued them for copyright infringement. But BlueBeat has come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation. The songs aren’t really Beatles songs, you see, but “psycho-acoustic simulations” and therefore original works.
Man Loses All His iTunes, But Apple Gives Them Back
By 11.2.09
When Nathan switched computers he lost all the music he bought off iTunes, but he got it back by e-mailing Apple’s iTunes support at iTunesStoreSupport@apple.com.
Google's New Music Search Launches, But Your Buying Options Remain The Same
By 10.29.09
The new music search capabilities that Google introduced today will make it easier to quickly find a song you can’t remember the name of, or sample some tracks from an artist you’re interested in. But it’s not so much a new service as a more efficient combination of a bunch of services already scattered around the web.
Google To Launch Music Search Service Next Week
By 10.23.09
You’ve probably seen Google Finance, where each company has its own page made up of content scraped from all over the web. Google is about to launch a similar service for musicians, says the Hollywood Reporter: “The music pages will package images of musicians and bands, album artwork, links to news, lyrics and song previews, along with a way to buy songs.”
Judge Tells ASCAP No Royalties For Ringtones
By 10.16.09
One of the weirder strategies by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) recently has been to claim that every time a ringtone played, a royalty should be paid. ASCAP sued AT&T earlier this year over the claim, but a federal judge has ruled that your phone ringing does not constitute a public performance.
Kroger Begins Playing Christmas Music In September
By 10.6.09
Ah yes, the end of September. When the leaves are barely turning colors and the brand new college students are lazing in the thick green grass — you know Christmas is right around the corner. Reader Jake says Kroger has started playing Christmas music and has a Christmas “gift center.”
