Music news, album reviews and release dates, updated frequently

It’s official: this week’s Billboard album sales chart has Kanye West’s “Graduation” in first place, selling a stunning 957,000 copies in its debut week and in the process scoring the 15th highest weekly sales total since 1991 and the biggest debut of the year. As we all know, 50 Cent had threatened to retire if his own “Curtis” failed to outsell Kanye (it didn’t, coming in second with 691,000 units sold). No word yet out of his camp as to 50’s next move, but we recommend golf.

One of the last remaining big-name holdouts (along with the Beatles) to making their songs available digitally, Radiohead has finally committed to selling their back catalog online–sort of. The bad news: consumers will only be able to purchase entire albums, rather than individual tracks; in addition, the albums will not be sold through iTunes (and in fact will only be sold through UK website 7digital.com). The good news: US buyers can indeed purchase the Radiohead material from 7digital (at about $14 per album), and the tracks are being sold as DRM-free MP3 files.

Speaking of downloading music, perhaps illegal downloading wouldn’t be so prevalent if legal downloading weren’t so undesirable. Case in point: the new website SpiralFrog.com, which launched Monday. While all downloads on the Universal Music Group-sanctioned site are technically free, users must jump through numerous hoops in order to obtain and listen to the songs. To download songs, users must sit through advertising (the source of the site’s revenue). To prevent their songs from being locked up, users must complete a detailed registration form and login at least once each month. In addition, downloaded tracks cannot be burned onto a CD or transferred to an iPod. And did we mention it’s not compatible with Macs at all?

If you enjoy TV chef/traveler Anthony Bourdain, holiday specials, ugly sweaters, or Queens of the Stone Age–especially in combination–then you won’t want to miss this.

The US release date for PJ Harvey’s next album “White Chalk” has been pushed back one week to October 2nd (it will still arrive in stores on September 24th in the UK).

Are you one of the 120 million people trying to buy tickets to the Led Zeppelin reunion show in London? Don’t worry–the deadline to register for a chance to buy them has been extended until September 19.

Pitchfork has news of a particularly unlikely collaboration: Chromeo are going to be contributing to the next album by Hall & Oates. Say it isn’t so.

Panic At The Disco! have officially aborted work on their planned follow-up to their debut “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out,” and have started the recording process all over again, with the goal of having a new album to release by the end of 2008.

And, finally, one last update before the weekend, since we know you’re dying to know: Kanye West still has a solid lead over 50 Cent in album sales this week. West’s “Graduation” now leads 50’s “Curtis” by 170,000 units, which means that we’re just days away from 50 Cent’s retirement.

As rumored for some time, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin will re-form for a one-off performance in London on November 26th as part of a tribute to late Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun. Band members Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones will join with drummer Jason Bonham (son of the band’s original drummer John) at the O2 Arena. Tickets will be issued via a lottery on the event’s website, which already crashed once today due to overwhelming demand. If you are interested in trying your luck, you have until Monday to register (note that tickets are approximately $250 each).

One band that won’t be playing live for a while are the White Stripes, who have canceled their upcoming 18-date US tour by issuing a statement that drummer “Meg White is suffering from acute anxiety and is unable to travel at this time.” UK band the Kaiser Chiefs have also called off their scheduled American tour, but only because they are anxious to return to the recording studio and work on album number three.

The soundtrack to “High School Musical 2″ leads all albums in US sales according to today’s newly-issued Billboard rankings. It is the first four-peat in the top spot in two years. And if you are worried about next week’s chart–which will include the albums released yesterday–rest assured that Kanye West’s “Graduation” is predicted to top 50 Cent’s “Curtis,” although each album is expected to move at least half a million units.

Oft-sampled New York post-punk band ESG have announced that they are calling it quits after over 25 years, with a September 21 show in Chicago set to be their last.

Ninja, the frontwoman for sample-heavy band The Go! Team, reported to NME that she is preparing to launch a solo career.

The day has finally arrived: The showdown between rap heavyweight champions is finally here. In one corner, we have Kanye West, rapper and producer, known for being extremely talented at the latter but not so much at the former, but still coming off of two successful albums (”Late Registration” and “College Dropout”) and now here with his third, “Graduation.” In the other corner, we have Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, rapper and Vitamin Water pitchman, who has sold millions of copies of his first two albums “The Massacre” and “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” but has threatened to retire from music if his new album “Curtis” cannot outsell West’s “Graduation.”

The odds are stacked against 50 Cent from the outset: The first three singles released from “Curtis” bombed earlier in the year, and West’s disc has been outselling his 5 to 1 in Amazon presales. And the critics don’t have many nice things to say about “Curtis,” although if anyone’s review-proof, it’s 50 Cent. For what it’s worth, West’s album also seems to be his weakest effort to date (judging by reviews), although it’s still a solid release–and it’s weaknesses, unlike those of “Curtis,” are not from a lack of trying.

Do we have a battle of disappointments on our hands? Find out in our Review Roundups:
50 Cent: Curtis
Kanye West: Graduation

Singer/actress Charlotte Gainsbourg is recovering after undergoing emergency brain surgery to fix a small hemorrhage.

Rappers 50 Cent and Kanye West are not just doing battle in record stores this week (each with much-hyped new albums). The pair will also face off in a presidential-style debate on cable network BET on Tuesday night.

R&B singer R. Kelly’s trial on charges related to child pornography has been delayed once again, from September 17th until the spring of 2008. Foxy Brown, on the other hand, had no such luck: she’s headed to jail for a year on a probation violation after fighting with two New York manicurists. And Kid Rock faces up to six months in jail for fighting rocker Tommy Lee behind the scenes at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards.

Speaking of justice, and the VMA’s, electronic duo Justice did not take home any awards at last night’s VMA ceremony. Neither did Kanye West, despite being nominated five times. He wasn’t too happy about that. Justin Timberlake and Rihanna each won twice.

It’s the prize that really pays off: The Klaxons‘ Mercury Music Prize win last week has driven sales of their album (”Myths of the Near Future”) up close to 500% in the UK. The band is about to begin writing their second album.

The on-again, off-again reunion of all four Blur members in the recording studio is apparently on again, with bassist Alex James telling NME that guitarist Graham Coxon will rejoin the other three members in the studio next month. If they do, the band will be working on their first album since 2003’s “Think Tank” (which did not include Coxon).

Also headed back to the studio this fall: No Doubt, who reportedly will be returning to a ska-flavored sound.

Morrissey has once again rejected overtures to re-form The Smiths (or at least reunite with Johnny Marr) and go on tour. This time, he turned down an offer of $75 million. Everyone has a price, don’t they?

If rapper 50 Cent loses his September album sales battle with Kanye West, at least he has a new business to fall back on: nutritional supplements.

English rockers yourcodenameis:milo have split up after four albums.

Concert promoter and venue operator Live Nation will likely stop using Ticketmaster to sell tickets to its shows, in a move that would eliminate 15%-20% of Ticketmaster’s US business. Could there be actual competition coming to the ticketing business? Perhaps. Will that mean an end to high “service” and “convenience” fees? Don’t count on it.

Download-savvy music fans can find some iTunes-only treats next week, including a brand new one-off Beck single (”Time Bomb”) and a live EP from head Pixie Frank Black/Black Francis (helpfully entitled “Live Sessions”).

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! frontman Alec Ounsworth informed the BBC that he may release a solo album in the near future, as a way to unload tracks already written that will not be used on his band’s next album.

Forbes is reporting that Jay-Z is officially the richest rap mogul, with $34 million in income last year. 50 Cent and Diddy aren’t far behind.

Celebrating a birthday today: the Compact Disc, which turns 25. You may even have one underneath your cocktail glass as we speak.

Not celebrating any more birthdays: hugely-influential jazz drummer/composer Max Roach, who died at the age of 83 on Thursday morning, and jazz trumpeter Herb Pomeroy, who passed away at the age of 77 on August 11.

Wanna hear the new Liars album (due in US stores August 28th) early? You can, courtesy of NME.

This week’s roundup includes new music videos from (+44), 50 Cent (featuring an unlikely appearance by Dustin Hoffman), Bjork (the winning entry in her fan-made-video contest), the Chemical Brothers, Handsome Furs, Hot Hot Heat, Jose Gonzalez, Jesse Malin, Public Enemy, The Shins, and Tokyo Police Club. READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE »

Universal Music Group announced Thursday that it would experiment over the next six months with selling digital music with no copy protection. Although the DRM-free downloads will be available through a number of online retailers, Apple’s iTunes Music Store will not be one of them.

Speaking of Apple, iPod owners will be able to play a new game on their MP3 players. “Musika,” from the creator of “PaRappa The Rapper,” challenges players to solve puzzles based on the song titles stored on the iPod.

And speaking again of Universal Music Group, the company has reportedly agreed to purchase V2 Music Group for approximately $14 million.

Oft-reported-on British singer Amy Winehouse has reportedly checked into a London rehab facility. Winehouse, who has performed erratically (when not missing shows entirely) in recent weeks, was also hospitalized this week for what was reported as “severe exhaustion.”

Rapper 50 Cent has threatened to stop releasing albums if he is the loser of a highly-anticipated September 11 showdown with Kanye West. Both 50 Cent’s “Curtis” and West’s “Graduation” are released that day, and the former is now threatening that “Curtis” will be his final solo release if West outsells him.

Pitchfork reports that a new spinoff of James Murphy’s DFA label, to be called “Death From Abroad,” will release 12″ singles by non-American artists.

In our latest roundup of newly-released music videos, we have audiovisual tracks from 50 Cent, Richard Hawley, Magnolia Electric Co., M.I.A., Modest Mouse, and Siouxsie Sioux. Enjoy! READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE »