Madonna has been joined in the ranks of artists who've signed colossally-long agreements with LiveNation: U2 recently agreed toa monster twelve-year deal with the promotions giant, and Jay-Z - who, by the way, also married longtime squeeze Beyonce last week - is planning to leave Island Def Jam for a $150-million contract that would encompass his own label and management firm along with sponsoring, licensing and the like. It makes this blogger's head spin. [Paste]
He's one of the best comedians around right now, and I missed him here in Ottawa over the winter: Jim Gaffigan has announced the Sexy Tour later this year, featuring his classic clean, all-ages commentary - and maybe an appearance of Pale Force, his Conan O'Brien sendup. If you've not heard Jim ruminate on bacon - he did an entire appearance on Late Night on that one topic - you haven't yet lived.
It's that time of year again: festival season fast approaches, and the official lineup, after a couple of customary leaks, has been revealed for the oh-eight edition of Lollapalooza. Highlights include Rage Against the Machine(guys, quit playing so many festivals and just make a new album already!), Gnarls Barkley(whose new album The Odd Couple is growing on me), Kanye, Nine Inch Nails, Brand New, Toronto's KNAAN, Montreal's Chromeo, Edmonton's Cadence Weapon, Winnipeg's Weakerthans and Chicago's own, the masterful Wilco, along with about sixty others(no joke).
It's official - MySpace have reached agreements with three of the four major labels out there(EMI remains unsigned as yet, but they're expected to join up soon) to create their Myspace Music service, a multifaceted venture that will offer a wide range of music services, including DRM-free downloads for purchase, transferable to portable devices like iPods or mp3 players or whatever the devil the kids these days are using. Notably, no one asked Tom Myspace what he thought of the deal. He's probably real pissed somewhere.
In a related story, a report out says that 95 percent of people 18-24 are copying music in one form or another. If there was ever a doubt among the aforementioned major labels that the digital revolution is upon us, this erases it. [punknews]
Posted by mike at April 7, 2008 10:53 PM