That’s just music

Lady GaGa (real name Stefani Germanotta) is planning to release the album “The Fame Monster”, which is the re-release of her first and the only album “The Fame”, said Undercover.  However, those who are waiting for it will be quite surprised because “The Fame Monster” should include eight new songs, so it looks like she could release totally new material within her second album without connecting it to the old one. The special release of “The Fame Monster” will also incorporate a doll which looks like her, of course lots of photographs, illustrated magazine (tells about her life), bunch of posters, glasses and above all her hair. It’s hard to tell if those hair will trully belong to her, but on the special release it’s quite possible. The price of this exclusive album is not known, but obviously it should go as far as anyone can imagine. The double disk will incorporate the following new songs: 1. “Bad Romance” “Alejandro”
   2. “Monster”
   3. “Speechless”
   4. “Dance in the Dark”
   5. “Telephone” (together with Beyonce)
   6. “So Happy I Could Die”
   7. “Teeth”.

As her official web site says, fans and just those who likes pop may see “The Monster Fame” in stores on November 23, 2009.

Ex-vocalist of the recently fallen apart British band Oasis, Liam Gallagher said that he is planning to start a new group, said New Musical Express. While talking about when his new project may start functioning, he noted that by January 2010 he should be able to find the right musicians. In other words, Oasis will not come back any soon, so let’s wait for a new thing to happen. “For now, I’ll be relaxing at home, just getting out of music for a bit and then I’m going to start up something maybe after January, do something different, see where it goes”, he said. However, Liam did not mention whether or not he has anyone to invite right now. Right after Oasis fell apart, Liam Gallagher turned towards his own clothing brand called Pretty Green, and recently had presented a new collection. In the meantime, Liam says that he doesn’t want to totally get away from music. According to him it’s impossible to suddenly quit music after eighteen years of being involved in it. This is absolutely true because even if any artist decides to do something else, that magic wish of self realization and self establishment in the world of art is totally inevitable.

Popular British singer Lily Allen is planning to create her own record label. She has announced her wish right after the Q Awards ceremony, and Allen’s words were publicised by The Daily Telegraph. As she said, the decision to become the owner of the record label is closely connected to her plans of making changes in the industry. “I think things need to change in the music industry and we need to rethink a lot of stuff”, said Allen. “I’m setting up a record label at the moment, getting involved in lots of different things.” While answering the question, who is going to be the first artist she would like to sign in, she jokingly said, “terrible ones that work on the radio”. The exact date when she is going to officially open the label will stay in secret for a little longer, but it seems that it may happen quite soon. She also did not tell who is going to be her business partner. Interesting plans and ideas; Lily Allen was recently terribly unsatisfied with what is going on with the music industry, she does not like piracy and stealing on the Internet. She even said that it may end up in the ending of her music career, but soon after, her representative made a short statement that she will keep staying in business and will release new material.

U2 frontman Bono had recently said that his band’s latest album “No Line On The Horizon” can be considered to be the worst album they’ve ever produced. This opinion stated by Bono was published by the New Musical Express. He believes that the low interest which was shown by their fans may be explained by certain difficulties of the sound. It’s a complicated record and not everybody can see the real beauty of it nowadays. “We weren’t really in that mindset and we felt that the album was a kind of an almost extinct species, and we should approach it in totality and create a mood and a feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end”, noted Bono. Practically, it all means that people were expecting something more ‘pop sounding’, but this time U2 wanted to experiment, so it was more like “my way or the highway” sort of approach. Following the last statistical data, “No Line On The Horizon” sold five million copies worldwide, which is the lowest result in the band’s history. In Britain alone they’ve sold one million copies, but it was way not enough to reach the first places on the national chart. However, it’s still good and surely U2 keeps on rocking all the way through.

A supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, which includes Led Zeppelin’ John Paul Johns, ex-Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and Queens of the Stone Age vocalist Josh Homme had announced the date of their debut album release. The name of this album is going to be the same as the band’s and it will see the light on November 17, 2009, said Rolling Stone. “Them Crooked Vultures” (previously it had to be called “Never Deserved The Future”) was produced by musicians themselves, and as the Billboard says, DGC/Interscope is going to actually release it. As some rumours keep on noting, the first single will be a song called “New Fang”; it’s awaited that for the first time a song is going to be broadcasted on October 26. However, all this information is not certain at all, so let’s just wait until more information pops up. The debut album consists of thirteen songs and here is the full list of them:

   1. “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I”
   2. “Mind Eraser, No Chaser”
   3. “New Fang”
   4. “Dead End Friends”
   5. “Elephants”
   6. “Scumbag Blues”
   7. “Bandoliers”
   8. “Reptiles”
   9. “Interlude with Ludes”
  10. “Warsaw or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up”
  11. “Caligulove”
  12. “Gunman”
  13. “Spinning in Daffodils”

Specifically in dedication to the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame’s anniversary, Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne have prepared the joint performance project, said ContactMusic. Legendary ex-Black Sabbath frontman had confirmed this information, but also kept further details of his co-operation with Metallica in secret. Metallica just did not make any comments yet too, but surely they’d be very happy to do this kind of work with Ozzy. Actually, way back in 1986 Metallica was opening for Osbourne, so their co-work is not new to both. This joint performance is planned on October 30 at the Madison Square Garden in New York; besides Metallica MSG will welcome such huge artists as U2, Areta Franklin, and Eric Clapton. Another show on October 29, which is going to be dedicated to the same thing will incorporate Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Simon solo, Stevie Wonder and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Friends. Previously, media was saying that preparations are led by Tom Hanks, Jann Wenner (one of the founders of The Rolling Stone) and Cameron Crow. As nowadays usual, money taken from this event will be sent to the charity foundation. In other words, something big is going to happen, something what can’t happen every day.

The biggest record labels and sellers of the digital music have made an agreement with the European commission on changes that will touch certain aspects of the music industry within the European Union territory, said Electronista. Particularly it deals with the licenses that permit selling of the music content. In the future such licenses will have legal power in many if not every country in the EU. Business talks included such companies as Apple, Amazon, EMI, Nokia and Universal. Currently, companies which sell music in Europe are often present various music catalogues that are different from each other. Thus, in small European countries Apple iTunes Store offers way less music than in large countries; surely it’s not very fare, and the only reason for it is labels’ resentment to license music for small markets. Also, many countries have so called ‘monopoly associations’, which protect musicans’ rights; it means that in other markets (where the given monopoly association is not functioning) music cannot be sold out. This problem was seriously discussed during the meeting, so possibly certain results will be finally reached. Practically, it all means only one thing – better regulatory methods of the music sales in the European Union, but hence EU is not well regulated then it may not go as good as record labels wish.

Irish rock legend U2 is planning to put one of it’s upcoming live shows on YouTube, said New Musical Express. Users and visitors of this famous source will be able to see their concert at Pasadena, California on October 25. Internet is slowly, but definitely pushing television away, or better to say it’s blending itself with television. U2’s performance, which is about to take place within the frames of “360 Degree Tour” in support of their new album “No Line On The Horizon” will be located at the Rose Bowl stadium, the biggest concert spot in the world. As the band’s official website says, this YouTube concert will be shown in USA, Great Britain, France, Canada, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Mexico, India, South Korea and Netherlands. It’s not known yet if people from other countries will be able to see it too. Moreover, it’s known for sure that this upcoming Pasadena concert should be released on DVD; the exact date of the release is not clear. Also, U2’s concert in Pasadena will be one of their last performances in North America within “360 Degree Tour”, after which they’re moving it to Europe. This unique tour is marked with some special engineering techniques which allow the stage rotate during the show thus exposing the band to everyone while they’re performing.

The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is now publicly considered to be the ‘immortal rocker’, said Undercover on October 19. A musician had received the Scream Award, which was established by the American Spike channel. The ceremony took place on the day before in Los Angeles. The sixty five-years old Richards had received this prize from his friend and co-actor in The Pirates of The Caribbean 3 Johnny Depp. Also, while commenting the decision taken by the Scream Awards commission Richards said that he likes it a lot. “I liked the living legend, that was all right, but immortal is even better”, he noted. Scream Awards was created in 2006 and is supposed to be given to those who are working within the film industry, television, literature and music. Previous musicians who have received this award within the ‘living legend’ nomination were Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne. If relating it to Keith Richards, it’s not the first time when he receives this prize; previously it was given to him in 2007 for the ‘best episodic role performed by a celebrity’ in The Pirates of The Caribbean 3. Richards is the true legend and for sure after forty seven years in The Rolling Stones he can be called ‘the immortal rocker’.

Recently, famous Norwegian pop-group a-ha had announced the end of it’s musical career. As Reuters said, in 2010 a-ha will start the world tour, which is going to be their last; particularly this news was picked up by the news agency from a-ha’s record label Universal Music. Also, the band’s official website contains a message which says that a-ha’s last concert will take place on December 4, 2010 in Oslo thus totally proving Reuters’ news. For many followers of this group it’s going to sound quite sad because nobody was really expecting it. Vocalist Morten Harket, keyboardist Magne Furuholmen and guitarist Paal Waaktaar-Savoy have founded a-ha in 1982. Their debut album “Hunting High and Low” (1985) brought them to the world wide fame containing such hits as “Take on Me” and “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.”. Totally, a-ha’s discography contains nine studio albums; the last one “Foot of the Mountain” came out in June, 2009. During it’s pretty long career a-ha was awarded with many prizes by MTV and Spellemannsprisen – Norwegian counterpart of “Grammy”. More than seventy million copies were sold world wide, so it’s impossible to say that the band cannot deserve to call it quits. However, it already happend when they’ve decided to call it quits in 1994, but eventually three guys have reunited four years later.