That’s just music

American singer Alicia Keys had conquered the British hits chart for the first time in her life. As the New Musical Express said, following the results that were seen between 1-7 of February, her fourth album “The Element of Freedom” almost two months after the release had finally went number one. Notably, in the US she was not able to do the same thing; in December 2009 “The Element of Freedom” was kicked out from the first spot by Susan Boyle’s “I Dreamed A Dream”. However, twenty nine years old Keys is considered to be one of the best singers in today’s America. Totally, she was able to sell thirty million copies worldwide, so surely she deserves to be on top of the British music right now. The second spot (according to the last week’s results) went to “Forever Vienna” by the Dutch violinist Andre Rieu and number three belongs to Paolo Nutini with his “Sunny Side Up”. The rest looks like this:
4. Florence And The Machine – ‘Lungs’
5. Corinne Bailey Rae – ‘The Sea’
6. Lady Gaga – ‘The Fame’
7. The Chipmunks – ‘Alvin & The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel’
8. Ke$ha – ‘Animal’
9. Peter Andre – ‘Unconditional Love Songs’
10. Mumford And Sons – ‘Sigh No More’
Practically, all of these artists are quite popular right now and they definitely deserve to get what they’ve got so far.

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry had confirmed rumours on the fact that the band’s vocalist Steven Tyler was planning to replace Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin way back in 2008, said Blabbermouth.net. Basically, it may be the reason why Tyler began to have problems within his own group. In December 2007 Led Zeppelin had reunited for the purpose of one concert in London in dedication to it’s former manager Ahmet Ertegun (the founder of Atlantic Records). Inspired by successful performance Jimmy Page, John Paul Johns and Jason Bonham (a son of John Bonham) have decided to continue their co-operation and even wanted to start the world tour. However, this idea was not supported by Robert Plant who wished to stay with his new project. Eventually, three members of Led Zeppelin began to search for a singer and as it’s known right now one of the candidates was Steven Tyler. As Joe Perry noted, once his colleague without explaining anything had suddenly disappeared and only much later he discovered that Tyler went to London in order to join Led Zeppelin. “Such things had happend before many times - it’s another side of our relations”, added Perry. Later, Jimmy Page has told him that sessions with Tyler were “chaotic”; Aerosmith vocalist was obviously thinking about working on his new material and therefore was not very good in Led Zeppelin’s songs. Those sessions did not end up in anything good, and soon after Jimmy Page’s band had turned down any ideas about fully reuniting itself.

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry had recenlty said that he is about to start the hiring campaign in order to replace the band’s legendary vocalist Steven Tyler with another singer. The most interesting part about it is that the guy did not exclude a possibility to hire a woman. This particular information was given out by him during an interview to the Classic Rock magazine. He believes that this move will give something absolutely new to the band and shake it up. “That is necessary to get out of the stereotypical frames! Besides that, before getting into Aerosmith I’ve played in a number of bands, which included female vocalists. Thus, I have a lot of good memories about co-working with them. So, it’s possible that Aerosmith will welcome a woman to sing”, underlined Perry. However, he did not talk about who exactly may be welcomed; surely they will not ask someone unknown. Also, he did not say anything about what is actually going on with the hiring process itself (and not just women). At the same time Perry had commented on wheather they will hire Paul Rodgers into the band or not. He noted that these plans will most likely not come true because Rodgers is too unique and very independent in his own talent.

Infamous ex-Guns N’Roses and current The Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash (real name Saul Hudson) had presented an album cover and the track list from his debut solo album, said Ultimate Guitar. The design looks quite traditional for Guns N’Roses and other hard rock bands, which show skull and bones; honestly Mr. Slash could’ve use something more exciting this time. As it was previously said, the album “Slash” was recorded with the help of numerous great artists. Thus, among those who were co-operating with the guy were ex-Jane’s Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, session Nine Inch Nails drummer Josh Freese, The Cult vocalist Ian Astbury, Kid Rock, Iggy Pop and Black Eyed Peas vocalist Fergie. Pretty hot list, which speaks for itself and for Slash’s respectability within the music world.  As Slash noted, right before starting his work with the album he made the list of musicians and later had invited them to his studio; it’s so simple for him. The whole disk includes thirteen songs.
“Ghost” (vocals - Ian Astbury)
“Beautiful Dangerous” (Fergie)
“Nothing To Say” (M. Shadows, Avenged Sevenfold vocalist)
“Crucify The Dead” (Ozzy Osbourne)
“Promise” (Chris Cornell)
“By The Sword” (Andrew Stockdale Wolfmother vocalist)
“Doctor Alibi” (Lemmy Kilmeister, Motorhead vocalist)
“Saint Is A Sinner Too” (Rocco De Luca)
“Watch This” (Dave Grohl and Duff McKagan)
“I Hold On” (Kid rock)
“Gotten” (Adam Levine, Maroon 5 vocalist)
“We’re All Gonna Die” (Iggy Pop)
“Starlight” (Myles Kennedy).

The album’s release date is not clear yet, but it’s most likely going to happen in March/April 2010.

Guitarist of the famous American rock band The Eagles Joe Walsh had recently said that he is going to take legal actions against the Congress candidate from the state of Illinois. As the Billboard noted, the reason of Walsh’s anger is that canditate was using his song “Walk Away” with the changed text during his political campaign. Things get even more interesting because Mr. Candiate is carrying the same last name, he is also Walsh. Surely, this is quite impolite to use a song with the changed lyrics without asking the author, so Joe is going to be right if he enters the court.  Musician’s lawyer Peter Paterno had send a letter to politician in which he used some rough words while reminding the guy of the copyright laws. “It says a lot of things, but one of the things it says is that you can’t use someone else’s song for your political campaign  promotion unless you get permission from the owner of the copyright in the song. As far as we can tell you didn’t do that. Maybe you got so busy with the campaign that you just forgot. But that’s not OK”. Pretty strong words and without any doubt Walsh-politician is going to get really upset. His office had already denied all the accusations by saying that they did not use Joe’s original lyrics, thus it has nothing to do with stealing or copyright violations. It’s not the first time when The Eagles are fighting for their copyright possessions with politicians. In april 2009 the band’s vocalist and drummer Don Henley was going against Charles DeVore (politician from California); back than the issue was the same as right now.

Numark introduced its new $59.95 Laptop Stand at NAMM.

Key Features:

* Solid, easy-to-assemble laptop stand for DJs
* Secure construction, yet portable, and collapsible with low-weight design
* Fast to assemble or disassemble
* Comes with a zippered, protective case for convenience in transport

Teenage Engineering was demoing their OP-1 Synthesizer, which is very impressive and powerful – but expensive at the expected $700 retail price. They expect the release date to be about a year off, and they are working on finishing the software and looking for ways to make the synth more efficiently.

Imposcar 2 Features:

* PWM on both oscillators.
* Aux Mod Section with comprehensive routing (destinations include: OSc2 pitch, PW1, PW2, PW1&2, Filter Separation, Filter Q, Osc Mix, Noise Mix).
* Additional LFO.
* Improved LFO sync options.
* New Modulation & Controller Routing options.
* Pink noise.
* Vastly Improved Arpeggiator.
* Chord Hold & Retrigger from a single key.
* Controller Section Featuring Channel & Poly Aftertouch.
* Mod Wheel Controls now switchable between Aftertouch, Expression and Mod Wheel.
* Pan Spread Modes (left to right, Random etc) and Spread Amount Control.
* Mono & Poly Unison Modes (up to 8 voice poly unison).
* Unison Voice Spread
* Portamento Spread on Unison glides.
* New Chorus Modes.
* Ring Modulation.
* External Audio Input with the new FX version.
* Release Velocity Response.
* Small, Medium & Large GUI sizes.

A leader of the legendary Chicago band The Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan and his new girlfriend Jessica Simpson have decided to record a song together. Generally saying, this union is quite cool, two very different musicians, people from two different worlds are actually not just trying to date, but also trying to write down some music. As the Rolling Stone magazine said, a couple had already went into a studio and began working with the new material. Particularly, this process is organised by Kerry Brown, a producer who had previously co-worked with The Smashing Pumpkins during the recording of their previous album “Teargarden By Kaleidyscope”. The release date of Corgan’s and Simpson’s joint work is not known yet. Also, nobody knows if they’re planning to record anything else after it. The Smashing Pumpkins leader did not make any comments on his work with Simpson, but she did write some nice things about this process on her Twitter micro-blog. Simpson said that she really enjoys working in his studio; she is surely in love with Corgan. A romance between Corgan and Simpson became known in December, 2009, but in the beginning they’ve tried to keep it secret. However, soon after this new pair had decided to make it publicly known.

Bassists from two quite famous American bands Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy, Mark Hoppus and Pete Wentz have participated in the recording of the soundtrack to Tim Burton’s “Alice in the Wonderland”, said Gigwise. Following the issue’s information, musicians have finished their work, which included only one song. While telling about it Pete Wentz had underlined that the sound of a song is not typical and it surely could not be heard on the Blink’s or Fall Out Boy’s record. Usually guys like them are quite good in producing and creating something absolutely different from what they do in their every day music career. Wentz also noted that his co-work with Hoppus was very productive and generally speaking enjoyable. “Mark understands songwriting on a completely different level. It’s awesome to have a chance to sit in a room with him and watch him work out a melody.” Besides Hoppus and Wentz the movie producers have used a lot of help from Avril Lavigne; her particular role in the recording is not very clear so far. The full soundtrack to “Alice in the Wonderland” is not available yet, so let’s just wait until  March 2010 when this movie is going to be released.