Thursday, November 12, 2009

Music News & Notes

Beatles TV for Thanksgiving Eve

In 1962, an unknown group from Liverpool walked into Abbey Road Studios in London to record their debut single. Over the next eight years, they would create what many consider to be the greatest collection of studio recordings of the 20th century.

The Beatles On Record, a new documentary premiering on History on Wednesday, November 25 at 10pm, charts The Beatles' extraordinary recording journey from Please Please Me to the epic Abbey Road LP and reveals how they developed as musicians, matured as songwriters and created an enduring body of work that pushed the boundaries of studio recording, changing the course of musical history and popular culture. There will be additional airings of the special at later dates across A&E Television Networks (AETN).

Narrated entirely by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Sir George Martin, THE BEATLES ON RECORD features over 60 songs, rarely seen footage and images from The Beatles' archives along with never-before-heard outtakes of conversation from the original recording sessions.

The result is an intimate look at the creative process behind each of the band's Abbey Road Studios masterpieces. The documentary is directed by Bob Smeaton, who directed the landmark Beatles Anthology series and created mini-documentaries for The Beatles' recently released re-mastered albums on CD.

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Music Stats

Nielsen SoundScan sent over some info about vinyl and digital sales as well as news that Rihanna's digital sales record from last year has been broken by not just one, but 4 artists this year. Here is the breakdown from Nielsen SoundScan, followed by news of another big development.

VINYL: We are now over 2 million Vinyl Albums sold, breaking the previous record of 1.9 million (which was the total sold in all of 2008). 2008 YTD was 1.5 million.

DIGITAL: Four artists have broken Rihanna's Digital Tracks sales record (she sold 9.9million tracks in all of 2008) and three have surpassed 10 million in sales. -Michael Jackson - 11.3 million Total Digital Tracks YTD. -Lady Gaga - 11.1 million YTD -BEP - 10.3 million YTD -Taylor Swift - 9.98 million YTDNOTE: 1) Next week we will break the 2008 year-end digital album sales total of 65 million. We are at 63.9 million this week. 2) Next week will also be the week we break the 1 billion track sales mark. We are at 998.3 million this week.

But even bigger news came from Reuters on Wednesday, "The compilers of the Billboard 200, the benchmark pop albums chart in the United States, said on Wednesday they would dramatically overhaul the listing later this month to include catalog recordings as well as current releases."

What that means that the album chart will no longer be limited to albums released in the past 18 months, and this could dramatically alter the album charts as we know them and give us a REAL picture about which albums are selling in a given week.

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Ramones Book

New Ramones book entitled Ramones: Soundtrack Of Our Lives is the result of nearly 5 years worth of work. It is full of poignant stories that reflect what Joey Ramone (RIP 2001), Dee Dee Ramone (RIP 2002), Johnny Ramone (RIP 2004), as well as the rest of the Ramones family have impacted their fans worldwide.

Ramones: Soundtrack Of Our Lives has interviews and text written by 90 contributors and has 224 pages, and 295 photos/drawings. This book brings together the Ramones fa mily as never before, there are interviews by every surviving Ramones member: Ramones drummers (Tommy Ramone, Marky Ramone, and Richie Ramone), bassist CJ Ramone, and Johnny Ramone's wife Linda Cummings. The introduction is written by Tommy Ramone.

Reluctant to offer fans stories which have been relayed thousands of times before, author and Ramones webmaster Jari-Pekka Laitio-Ramone provides new information about the band. His focus is on the Ramones impact on the history of Rock N'Roll.

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Aerosmith Soap Opera

Joe Perry talked to Billboard earlier today and said that Steven Tyler "never said he was leaving the band" but that he want to take two years off to work on other projects. This isn't sitting well with Perry and, presumably, the other band members.

"Aerosmith wants to work. The band's been playing together for 40 years. It's a really powerful rock band, and I don't want to see it just go to waste and I don't think any of the other guys do, either. We're gonna work and we're gonna do something -- I'm not exactly sure what yet, but the band's too good to let it sit around. We're not going to wait for Steven."

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Tindersticks Announce New Album

The eighth album from noir-soul group Tindersticks is called Falling Down a Mountain, which sounds rather painful. The record will see release January 25 on 4AD in Europe and February 16 on Constellation in North America). It was recorded in France and Belgium and features a guest vocal from Canadian songstress Mary Margaret O'Hara.



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Rammstein Album Cover Banned From Display In Germany

Rammstein seem to be completely open to causing trouble and controversy with Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da, their recently released sixth studio album.

So far they've raised eyebrows with a box set that includes six dildos and handcuffs and a pretty raunchy video for a track dubbed "Pussy." But now, the German government has deemed the cover art for Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da too racy to be shown in stores because it depicts sado-masochism.

German retailers will not be able to display the album as of Wednesday (Nov. 11). After that, they won't be able to advertise it or show it in any way so anyone under the age of 18 can see it, according to Billboard.com.

The website reports Petra Meier, deputy president of the Federal Office For The Examination Of Media Harmful To Young People (Phew! That's a mouthful!) cited the album cover, which shows guitarist Richard Kruspe with a masked, nude lady on his knees, in the ruling. Meier also said the track "Ich Tue Dir Weh" ("I Want To Hurt You") was also problematic and promoted sado-masochism.

The German Federal Office For The Examination Of Media Harmful To Young People in Bonn, Germany also said "Pussy" was potentially problematic since it seemed to encourage young people to have unprotected sex. It wasn't part of the ruling against the album cover, though.

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Mnemic Reveal Album Cover Art

Danish modern metal heroes MNEMIC just revealed the artwork for their highly anticipated new album, Sons Of The System. MNEMIC will release the entire artwork/booklet etc. early next week in a digital flip book! Sons Of The System will be unleashed in January 2010

Mainman Mircea Gabriel Eftemie states: "Since late 2008 we started looking into artwork for the album, but it was not before we entered the studio in October, we actually found a solid idea. We wanted something simple, yet strong and something archetypal, for this release, and we wanted to do it the right way this time. On the last release we never had any artistic control over our artwork, we just hired a name, a company that worked for majors, where our visions never converged into what we really wanted. This time around we reached out to hundreds of designers only to find out that we could do it our selves and even better! The artwork portrays the "Sons Of The System" symbol. Its the symbol of the united, the symbol of the outcast, the symbol of the people in revolt of a greater evil. The real deal lies in the booklet artwork, which has been conceived by Rune Stigart and Me... more on that later."

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Man Jailed For Stabbing Guy Who Didn't Like AC/DC

A 37-year-old Winnipeg man has been sentenced to four years in jail and three years of probation after he stabbed a man who insulted AC/DC.

According to the Winnipeg Sun, James Ivison invited a 22-year-old man to his room at a Furby Street rooming house in October 2008. After they had a few beers, the man started insulting AC/DC, which Ivison was playing at the time. He then started questioning Ivison's sexual orientation.

Ivison responded by stabbing the victim, who had grabbed a frying pan, three times in the chest and two times in the stomach with a kitchen knife.

The 22-year-old victim was hospitalized in critical condition, but was discharged the next day because none of his major organs were damaged, according to the newspaper.

And how was your day?

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