That’s just music

Ex leaders of the British band The Libertines Pete Doherty and Carl Barat have announced some information about the soon reunion of their group. This joint announcement made by these two musicians was first heard at the New Musical Express magazine awards ceremony, where Doherty was proclaimed to be the “best performer”. Currently, Pete Doherty is Babyshambles frontman, so until recent time he was quite happy about his career over there. Now he believes that The Libertines will come back in 2010, but before that this guy is planning to release the solo album and orginise a concert tour in support of it. Doherty is a good musician and cannot stay only within one single music project, he wants to be everywhere at the same time and so far all of his beginnings had perfect endings. On the other hand, Carl Barat did not continue co-working with his band Dirty Pretty Things by simply cancelling it’s existance. Now he also wants to starts his own and probably well led solo project. However, as he told The Sun, he hates to work alone and terribly needs a group of musicians to create good music. He thinks that The Libertines is the best place to fullfill his thirst for such collective music creativity.

The Libertines were founded by Pete Doherty, Carl Barat, bassist Jon Hussell and drummer Gary Powell in 1997. They’ve lasted until 2004 while releasing only two studio albums “Up the Bracket” (2002) and “The Libertines” (2004). Hopefully, they will do way much better this time.

Metallica’s frontman Lars Ulrich said that in 2004, right after the release of “St. Anger” and touring in support of it, his band was nearly falling apart. The band was literally saved by a phone call from The Rolling Stones who have proposed Metallica to perform together in San Francisco, notes Contacmusic. As Ulrich says, after “St. Anger” came out they’ve received a lot of negative feedbacks from many critics and their fans, so the band’s future was in the deep shadow. He was getting prepared to leave Metallica and begin his solo career. All this pessimistic situation was also going even worse due to James Hetfield’s alcoholism, who had to go through a rehab in order to get back on his feet. By that time “St. Anger” tour was over and musicians didn’t see each for months, internal anticipation in the band was leaving no hope to save it. However, soon after that saving call from The Rolling Stones they’ve decided to just come together and rehearse. Metallica went into a studio only five days before the concert, “There was no film crew, no producer, no psychiatrist, no minders, no babysitters, none of that s**t. It was just us four guys and we started playing music and rehearsing”. recalls Lars.

For the following years Metallica was doing great, their artistic qualities grew and progressed into even bigger spheres. According to IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) their next album “Death Magnetic” was included into the top ten albums of 2008.

British band Coldplay will participate in the line of beneficial concerts to help Australian fire victims, said Billboard. This thing is going to take place on March 14 in Sydney and Melbourne (cricket stadiums). Charity activities have always been cool, so they will bring only more respect to those who play a role in them. Coldplay shall perform with an acoustic set in Sydney, and will share the stage with such musicians as The Presets, Icehouse, Rockers Jet and Wolfmother. Headliners of the Melbourne concert will be Midnight Oil, which should reunite only for this event. It’s interesting to know that their vocalist Peter Garrett is currently the Australian minister of culture, so this band may not get back on the stage any soon. Melbourne event will also include Kings of Leon, Split Enz, Hunters and Collectors – pretty good company for only two cities. Tickets will go for the price of 48$ (75 Australian dollars) and all the profit shall be divided between two charity funds that are suppose to aid victims of the Australian wildfires.

During the last week Sony Music was doing something similar by releasing a CD compilation called “Bushfire Aid”. The unity between music and voluntary help cannot go unnoticed.

The biggest record labels have decided to allow Spotify MP3 service to upload and spread their music to it’s clients, said The Times. Spotify’s catalogue contains over four million songs bringing them to the same level with iTunes (nearly ten million songs). Recently, more and more record companies began to realise that their traditional way of selling music is totally outdated and simply cannot adjust itself to the world of digital technology. Labels are coming to the idea that there is no way to stop MP3 agenda, which currently runs through another unstoppable thing – Internet. In case of Spotify there is no free downloading, but any customer can listen to the sound online without any limitations, in other words some computer program will soon be invented to record this sound. Every thirty minutes users have to listen to fifteen seconds of commercials, and in order to get rid of them they will have to pay ten euros per month. All of it shows new ways to make money out of music, and they look quite different from the way it was ten or fifteen years ago. Generally speaking, those who would like to make money on sounds will have to either play live or just simply find another way to make it. Art for the sake of art comes closer.

The first listeners of a new U2 album “No Line on the Horizon” are going to be the readers of British newspaper The Guardian. Following certain information given by this respected issue, all eleven tracks are already available on it’s official web site, even though this album was supposed to get out on March 2. Nevertheless, recently (another traditional story) “No Line on the Horizon” appeared on the Internet and was quickly spread all over the digital world. Once again the traditional way of advertising was sent nowhere, and it’s a good news for all progressive music lovers. As Billboard says, the responsible side for this major leakage is Getmusic.com.au, which is closely related to U2’s record label Universal Music. Getmusic.com.au is offering it’s visitors to purchase music or just listen to it online. However, nobody knows who exactly had used this music service to steal the record because all kinds of harsh methods were used to protect it. In other words, certain amount of bravery was required. Even U2 managers could not use any sorts of recording equipment while visiting closed up presentations.  Such a release is quite significant for U2, hence it’s been four years since they’ve produced their last work “How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb” in 2004.

Australian band INXS had refused to continue any co-operation with it’s vocalist Jason Dean Bennison (J.D. Fortune), said ContactMusic. A thirty-five years old Canadian singer is now not just without any job, but also without a house, hence he is living in his own car. Pretty bad situation for someone who was seriously high in popularity during the last few years.  Bennison began to work with INXS in 2005 by winning a music contest which was organised by the band members. Casting was very tough and selective, so right after getting in Bennison promised a lot of hope and fortunes. His material life before this contest was as bad as right now – he lived in his car. The band had decided to kick him out right after they’ve finished their twenty three months of constant touring. As he told the press, the group thanked him for his efforts, but halted any further co-working in the future. The real problem is laying in Bennison’s drug habits, which continued throughout the last four years including the last tour. Music business is like any other business – you don’t do your job, and things go down quite fast.

INXS was founded in Sydney in the late 1970’s, and during their quite long music career they’ve released eleven studio albums. The last one - “Switch” came out in 2005.

American hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas had announced the release date of their next album, said Billboard. “The E.N.D.” should come out on June 9, 2009 and as many music experts say it will be something what people didn’t see before. It shall be their first full studio record for the last four years, so what exactly could happen to these guys is not very well known for sure. As will.i.am (real name is William James Adams Jr.,) told the press “The E.N.D’s” track list includes twelve songs. The first single -“Boon Boom Pow” – will be presented on the radio stations as well as in many night clubs all around the world in nearest time. When talking about stilistic features of the new disk will.i.am had mentioned the fact that it incorporates not only club or energetic songs, but also some melodic and sentimental tunes as well. Will.i.am believes that Black Eyed Peas musicians think of their new album as of something in the style of “electric-static-funk”.

During the last four years when the band did not participate in any joint work, some members of the group began their own side projects. In 2006 Fergie had released her first and extremely successful album “The Dutchess”. Will.i.am had recorded his third solo album “Songs About Girls” in 2007.

Nine Inch Nails frontman and the unchangeable leader Trent Reznor had announced his plan to organise the joint tour together with Jane’s Addiction, which had recently reunited in it’s original lineup, said Billboard. This co-operation should start sometime in 2009, but right now there are now exact dates or venues. It had to happen for years, and finally this is going to take place, NIN and Jane’s fans will see these trully revolutionary bands rocking the world. Trent believes that these upcoming concerts shall be “much more raw, spontaneous and less scripted”, possibly because there can be no script when two bands of this kind come on stage together. Currently, Nine Inch Nails are touring the US with their incredible concert program, “Lights in the Sky”. In Spring 2008, Trent Reznor had released two studio albums -“Ghosts I-IV” and “The Slip”, which were spread right throught the Internet, showing innovative technologies in the music business. Recently, Trent had uploaded 400Gb of their concert videos and made it accessible to everyone for free.

Nine Inch Nails seems to be one of those bands which searches for it’s own absolutely unique ways of making it in the world of music. NIN’s sound never really gets old, for example one of their first albums “Broken” (1992) may appear extremely modern to someone who doesn’t know it’s release date. They simply don’t follow any trends.

On February 20 an infamous American duet White Stripes will appear live on NBC channel, said New Musical Express. They should participate in the comic program “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” and perform at the mini concert right during the show. The best part about it is that it shall be their first live performance since 2007. It will not be their first appearance on Conan O’Brien’s show – they’ve already performed live over there in 2003 for seven nights in a row. Currently, NME is not making it clear what particular songs White Stripes may expose to the world, and what kind of new stuff they possess. Back in September 2007 this Detroit duet had to cancel eighteen American concerts, which supported their last album “Icky Thump”, due to Meg White’s (drummer) panick attacks. She simply could not get out on stage and perform because of this often artistic psychological problem. During this unexpected break vocalist and guitarist Jack White had worked on his side project The Raconteurs while releasing two full blown studio albums with them.

This extremely talented band is a mixture of something old and something new at the same time. Classic rock, Jack White who sings almost like Robert Plant, and somewhat gothic looking Meg make it all very unique.

Ex Led Zeppelin guitarist Robert Plant began the recording process of another album together with American country singer Alison Krauss. This guy is totally absorbed by her and it seems that he is planning to keep on doing it until the end of times, and even his former band mates from Led Zeppelin couldn’t do anything about it. The first time when these two musicians have decided to co-work took place in 2007 with the release of “Raising Sand”. During this year’s Grammy they were able to get five awards on “The best album of the year”, “The best record”, “The best country-duet” and so on, practically showing that their joint project is going to continue in the future. Rolling Stone magazine believes that “Raising Sand” turned to be the most successful project that Krauss had every produced, and for Plant it’s just another cool thing to do.

The second album shall be produced by the same guy who helped them to make up the first one - T Bone Burnett. “Alison and Robert have been in the studio for about two weeks and although we havent’ heard any of the music, we’ve been hearing good things from the musicians”, said Rounder Records representative Ken Irwin.