That’s just music

French indie-rock band Phoenix, which had received the Grammy award in 2010 in ‘The Best Alternative’ nomination is now recording the soundtrack for Sofia Coppola’s new move “Somewhere”, said The Independent. This movie is supposedly going to be produced in drama/comedy style and will be released sometime in 2010. Major roles are played by such actors as Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning; the whole action is taking place at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood. As the Phoenix leader Thomas Mars said, the recording of the soundtrack had reminded him the work of an engineer instead of a composer. “It wasn’t like writing songs, it was more about trying to make a sound that fits with a Ferrari and the city of Los Angeles’s theme. It was more of an engineer work than a composer”. Particularly for Phoenix it’s not the first time when they’ve attempted to co-operate with Francis Coppola’s daughter; basically, the band was working on another soundtrack for her “Lost in Translation”. Besides that, Thomas Mars and Sofia Coppola are dating for a long time and currently getting ready to give birth to their first child. Absolutely stunning joint work between these two talented people is very common among artists and hopefully if not saying surely this time their co-operation will end up in a great success.

For the first time in thirty years of MTV’s existance the channel’s directorate had decided to make one of the biggest rebrandings in it’s history. Practically, MTV is not just the music television anymore or actually not the one at all. As The Wrap said, this channel had stopped to consider itself to be music oriented and since now will get rid of the sign ‘Music Television’ in it’s logo. In many ways this fact is pretty sad, after all MTV is music anyway and not the Discovery channel, but contemporary times and business are dictating their own rules. Company’s top office had explained such moves by the lack of interest in videos or particularly music oriented programs among MTV viewers. Thus, stories about show business, reality shows, cartoons and things about luxury life have more followers these days. Surely, it’s MTV’s fault because they’ve systematically used to change their programme and slowly, but definitely just made their viewers get hooked on what the channel is proposing today. Rolling Stone magazine notes that a few years ago MTV’s designers and managers were already planning to remove ‘Music Television’ sign from their logo, but back then they did not want any turmoil from the viewer’s side. However, right now the new generation of MTV fans is fully satisfied with what it looks at and there is no danger of making changes. Well, at least managers think this way.

Founder of the British punk-rock trio The Jam and a successful musician Paul Weller had received an award from the New Musical Express magazine, which is called ‘Godlike Genius’. Pretty strange award after all, but who knows maybe this guy is one of those geniuses as it’s seen by the magazine. Godlike Genius Award is going to be given to him on February 24 at the Shockwaves NME Awards ceremony in London. After finding out that he was awarded, Waller has noted that he is incredibly happy, but does not consider himself to be godlike or genius at all. Self criticism is a good indicator of the clever mind. Along many years Godlike Genius award was given to The Cure, New Order, The Clash, Manic Street Preachers, Primal Scream, ex-The Stone Roses vocalist Ian Brown and the infamous BBC Radio DJ John Peel. “Paul was first on the cover of NME with The Jam in 1977. Three decades on he remains just as influential – and this connection with the current music scene makes him all the more godlike”, noted NME’s editor Krissi Murison. Another respected 2010 NME award -”Outstanding Contribution to Music” will go to ska-group The Specials. Practically, NME is one of the best music magazines right now and their cool appeal is most likely critical and nice.

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.