Music News & Notes

Dream Theater Release New Album Details

Progressive metal veterans, Dream Theater, have announced 'Black Clouds & Silver Linings' as the title of their tenth studio album. The band commenced work on the album - their second for Roadrunner Records, following up 2007's 'Systematic Chaos' - in October last year. Roadrunner will release the record on June 22.

In addition to the standard version CD, the album will also be available on vinyl LP, as well as a three-disc Special Edition CD that will include the full album, a CD of instrumental mixes of the album and a CD of six cover songs, which will be revealed at a later date. Also in consideration is a super deluxe special edition package, though not yet confirmed.

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Eels to release new album in June

The Eels will return with their first album in four years on June 2nd with the release of Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire. The new album was recorded at Mark Oliver Everett’s Los Angeles studio

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Queen Rerelease

Queen's original EP is being reissued in a limited 3,000 copy run for the U.K.'s Record Store Day on April 14. It will only be available at stores officially participating in the one day celebration.

The track list:

Good Old Fashioned Loverboy
Death On Two Legs
Tenement Funster (single version)
White Queen

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All U.S. Virgin Megastores To Close By June

The planned U.S. closure of the Virgin Megastore chain by mid-June will mark the end of the British music retail invasion.

HMV was the first to land in November 1990, with an East Coast incursion, followed soon by Virgin's entry on the West Coast and W.H. Smith's focus on the country's heartland malls.

The three chains came in thinking they could teach the Americans a thing or two about merchandising music. But their high-handed attitude wasn't directed at their competitors, like Tower Records, Camelot Music, Record World and other long-dead music chains. Rather, it was targeted at the record labels.

"They were arrogant," a label sales executive told Billboard about the British chains before Virgin confirmed its U.S. closings. "They thought they knew everything. They thought they were going to take the U.S. by storm. But I grew to love them. They were all good music guys and their stores were great."

The British merchants were especially known for championing certain kinds of artists and genres. But their fatal flaw was a failure to understand the U.S. real estate market. HMV and Virgin had a history of overpaying for locations, which meant both chains usually had more unprofitable stores than profitable ones.

At its peak, the Virgin Megastore chain had 23 stores and revenue of $280 million annually, but at least 12 of those stores weren't profitable. After a four-year store-closing spree, the chain was down to six stores by January, all of them profitable, and combined they were doing a very respectable $180 million in annual sales. The chain's New York Times Square location generated $55 million, with $6 million in profit, while its Union Square store downtown had $40 million in sales and a few million dollars in profit, according to sources.

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New Breeders Music On The Way

Fans of the Breeders waited six years between the band’s 2002 album Title TK and last year’s Mountain Battles, but Kim and Kelley Deal are back already, returning with four fresh tracks next month. On April 21st the group will release a limited-edition EP called Fate to Fatal, which features a Bob Marley cover and a tune sung by former Screaming Trees frontman and Queens of the Stone Age collaborator Mark Lanegan.