2-12-2-15
It's an industry first. The UK's Official Albums Chart will begin incorporating streaming plays, reports Music Business Worldwide. The Brits will begin using a new methodology that's aimed to ensure that the numbers reflect the popularity of albums, rather than just the performance of hit singles.
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Lindsey Buckingham will self-release his sixth solo album, "Seeds We Sow," on Sept. 6 and embark on 31-city North American tour in September and October. The album's first single is "In Our Own Time."
Buckingham's last two albums, 2008's "Gift of Screws" and 2006's "Under the Skin," were released by Warner Music Group's Reprise Records. "Under the Skin" was Buckingham's first solo release in 14 years.
Best known for his work as guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham unveiled a handful of the album's tracks at a concert in April in Los Angeles that will be broadcast on television in the fall. He was recently honored with ASCAP's Golden Note Award.
Lindsey Buckingham Unveils New Material at L.A. Show
"This might be the best work I've ever done," Buckingham said of the new album. "I think it's an excellent representation of what I do. It shows a certain maturity and musicianship and I just feel like I have a lot of tools in my musical vocabulary from which to draw that are again the product of the choices I've made. It's on my own terms. This is very much from the inside out and I hope I never stop doing that."
Here are Buckingham's tour dates:
Sept. 9-10: Reno, Nev. (Nugget Casino)
Sept. 12: Boise, Idaho (Egyptian Theatre)
Sept. 13: Salt Lake City, Utah (The Depot)
Sept. 14: Denver, Col. (Gates Hall/University of Denver)
Sept. 16: Minneapolis, Minn. (Pantages Theatre)
Sept. 17: Milwaukee, Wis. (The Pabst Theater)
Sept. 18: Chicago, Ill. (Vic Theater)
Sept. 20: Pittsburgh, Pa. (Carnegie Music Hall)
Sept. 22: Philadelphia, Pa. (Keswick Theatre)
Sept. 23: Westhampton Beach, N.Y. (Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center)
Sept. 24: Ridgefield, Conn. (Ridgefield Playhouse)
Sept. 25: Boston, Mass. (Wilbur Theatre)
Sept. 27: New York, N.Y. (Town Hall)
Sept. 29: Morristown, N.J. (Mayo Performing Arts Center)
Sept. 30: Baltimore, Md. (Goucher College)
Oct. 1: Durham, N.C. (Carolina Theatre of Durham)
Oct. 3: Jacksonville, Fla. (Florida Theatre)
Oct. 4: Fort Pierce, Fla. (Sunrise Theatre)
Oct. 5: Clearwater, Fla. (Capitol Theatre)
Oct. 7: Atlanta, Ga. (Symphony Hall)
Oct. 10: Houston, Texas (Verizon Wireless Theatre)
Oct. 12: Phoenix, Ariz. (Celebrity Theatre)
Oct. 13: Los Angeles, Calif. (Royce Hall)
Oct. 14: Las Vegas, Nev. (Aliente Resort)
Oct. 15: Palm Springs, Calif. (McCullum Theater)
Oct. 17: Anaheim, Calif. (Grove of Anaheim)
Oct. 18: Turlock, Calif. (Turlock Community Theatre)
Oct. 19: San Francisco, Calif. (The Regency Center)
Oct. 22: Vancouver, BC (Center in Vancouver for Performing Arts)
Oct. 23: Seattle, Wash. (Little Creek Casino Resort)
Oct. 25: Napa, Calif. (Uptown Theater)
As expected, deep-voiced country phenom Scotty McCreery defeated Lauren Alaina and took home the "American Idol" season 10 crown last night (May 25), making him the fourth straight male winner in the competition. Although Lauren's performance of "Like My Mother Does" earned raves from the judges on Tuesday's final performance night, Scotty's consistent performances, charming stage presence original track, "I Love You This Big" -- along with his consistent performances and charming stage presence throughout the season -- helped push him to victory.
Scotty McCreery Wins 'American Idol' Season 10
One day after 122 million votes tipped in his favor, however, the 17-year-old North Carolina native has brushed the confetti out of his hair and is planning to continue his "Idol" momentum with more original songs and a possible appearance with Lauren at the 2011 CMA Music Festlval, which hits Nashville from June 9-12. In a conference call on Thursday, Scotty discussed his upcoming debut album, the romance rumors between him and Lauren, and the "crazy ride" of "American Idol."
Photos: Scotty McCreery's 'American Idol' Journey
How are you getting used to all of the attention of winning "American Idol"?
Scotty McCreery: This is pretty wild, I gotta say. It's a whole lot more than I bargained for coming into this. I never would have expected it. But I'm handling it well -- this is what I asked for, and it's my new life, so this is a really crazy ride so far.
Carrie Underwood made her debut at the CMA Music Festival and the Grand Ole Opry when she won. Are you headed that way too?
I think we're gonna try and get me and Lauren out there to (Fan Fair) this year. They're trying to work out the specifics right now about where we're gonna be playing, the booth signings and maybe playing at the Grand Ole Opry. They're working all this out as we speak. But we're gonna be down there for sure, I think.
'American Idol' Finale: The 10 Best Performances (Video)
You were an odds-on favorite all season on "Idol." Was there ever a point where you thought you were going home?
This week, especially. Lauren Alaina, she's something else. She sings like a bird. She's just an amazing young lady. Every week I heard people say the "front-runner" stuff, but to me it never even crossed my mind, because everybody this year, from Top 40 down, was just so talented.
Lauren kissed you when you won last night -- is there any romance between you two?
Oh, no. We've been getting that question a lot today. Me and her, it's more like the brother-sister thing. She told me before the show yesterday that she was gonna do that, kind of like a joke. She's a character. But she's lovely, we're really close friends. I met her day one of Hollywood Week, and we were schoolmates through this whole experience.
'American Idol' Runner-Up Lauren Alaina: 'I Knew Scotty Was Gonna Win'
What kind of album would you like to make now?
I'm really looking forward to getting my music out there. We recorded two [songs] this week and we weren't sure which one we were gonna do, and 'I Love You This Big' turned out to be the one we did. But the other one I'm really excited about too. I think it's gonna be a great album. I gotta pick good songs -- that's what it's all about after the show is getting good songs. The fans got me to where I'm at now, so it's my job to get them the music they want to hear and to have good songs. Hopefully me and Lauren Alaina get to do a duet at some point. I'm not sure about the first album, but hopefully sometime soon.
Lauren said that she thought you were definitely going to win going into the finals. What were your thoughts?
My thought was that she wrapped it up when she sang that finale song ["Like My Mother Does"]. That was one of the most beautiful songs I've heard. I was more than nervous coming into it last night, and it worked out in my favor. But Lauren, she's sweet, she's been supporting me and I've been supporting her through this whole process. We're really close friends, and we both came out winners last night.
An abandoned attempt to make a followup to 2009's "Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate" led Puddle of Mudd to opt instead for a covers set, "re:(disc)overed," which is due out Aug. 2.
"Since we started we've been non-stop -- make a record, go on tour, then right into rehearsals and the next record, then back on tour...," guitarist Paul Phillip tells Billboard.com. "We were really burned out, and when we started trying to write again it just wasn't time yet. And we had been doing (AC/DC's) 'TNT' and (the Steve Miller Band's) 'The Joker' and had so much fun with those that one thing led to another and we decided to make a covers record. It was just something fun to do, and we had a blast."
"Re:(disc)overed" features 11 of the 15 songs Puddle of Mudd recorded with producer Bill Appleberry during January and February at the Bomb Shelter, a studio owned by Stone Temple Pilots drummer Eric Kretz in Los Angeles. The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" is the set's first single and will be serviced to radio in mid-June, and the album also includes versions of Free's "All Right Now," Bad Company's "Shooting Star," Neil Young's "Old Man," Led Zeppelin's "D'yer M'ker" and Elton John's "Rocket Man."
"We chose a lot of things that were challenging," Phillip explains. "People hear Puddle's gonna do a covers album and they think it'll be Nirvana and the Ramones and Metallica and stuff like that. And that's something we wanted to do, but we wanted to stretch our legs, and it was a very challenging thing to have songs that have piano and these big, crazy arrangements and stuff. I mean, doing an Elton John song with piano and backup singers and stuff is not easy. It's easier to record a Puddle of Mudd song, but to tackle an arrangement like that is a lot more difficult to do, and that's what we wanted."
For the most part, Phillips adds, Puddle of Mudd chose to "pay tribute" to the songs "rather than bastardizing them like a lot of people do when they do covers. We really tried to keep them true to what they were, because they are great songs already, so who am I to go in and change a Rolling Stones song? They're not slavish copies; these songs do have a Puddle of Mudd flavor to them, but we didn't go in and change parts just to make it sound more like us."
Phillips calls the guitar solo on "All Right Now" was his "arch nemesis," but the most challenging track, he felt, was "D'yer M'ker." "I really didn't think we were gonna pull that off at all, just because the reggae feel is not what we do, and the way (John) Bonham played it, he's just got that thing that not many people can do, you know? So I was very surprised by that one, personally. I think we did a really good job."
Puddle of Mudd will be on the road this summer, starting with Memorial Day weekend festival shows in St. Louis and St. Paul, Minn., and also including an appearance at the Download Festival on June 10 in the U.K. Frontman Wes Scantlin says the shows will featuring an opening set of the entire "re:(disc)overed" album, followed by an intermission and then a set of Puddle of Mudd's original material. Meanwhile, the group is eyeballing an original album; Santlin has written four songs he describes as "really cool, heavy stuff, really wicked, almost like Soundgarden, 'Badmotorfinger' type old-school Puddle of Mudd." And both Scantlin and Phillip predict that making "re:(disc)overed" will have some impact on Puddle of Mudd's new songs, too.
"I think this kind of opens us up," he says. "I think it brought everybody's playing up to another level...and maybe a platform for us to experiment a bit more on the next record and try some different things. This is going to be a real important record for us and we really want to try to take it to the next level and surprise people, so I think ('re:(disc)overed') is a great springboard for that to happen."
The track list for Puddle of Mudd's "re:(disc)overed" includes:
"Gimme Shelter" (Rolling Stones)
"Old Man" (Neil Young)
"TNT" (AC/DC)
"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)
"The Joker" (Steve Miller Band)
"Everybody Wants You" (Billy Squier)
"Rocket Man" (Elton John)
"All Right Now" (Free)
"Shooting Star" (Bad Company)
"Funk 49" (James Gang)
"D'yer M'ker" (Led Zeppelin)
After a chart-topping debut and six Top 15 hits in his native U.K., rapper Tinie Tempah says he was confident his debut set "Disc-Overy" would be well received on the other side of the pond.
"The world is just a lot more of a smaller place 'cause of the Internet and everything," Tempah, who put out "Disc-Overy" on May 17 in the U.S. after its British release in October, tells Billboard.com. "People know what they want. They know what they're into. They know what they want to hear, and it doesn't matter where it's from or who made it. For me over here, everything is still so new and so fresh. The singles have to do the talking for people to understand who I am as an artist and what I'm all about, to compel them to go out and buy the album. 'Written in the Stars' is doing so good; I couldn't have asked for a better start."
"Written in the Stars," "Disc-Overy's" first single, peaked at No. 12 on the Hot 100 after topping the U.K. charts. Next up is "Till I'm Gone," a collaboration with Wiz Khalifa, who's "returning the favor" for Tempah's U.K. remix of "Black and Yellow." It's also one of three new songs, two produced by Stargate, that were added to "Disc-Overy" for its U.S. release.
"Because my music is as close to real-time as possible, and since so much has happened since ('Disc-Overy') came out in the U.K., I thought it as only right," Tempah, who was born Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu, Jr. in London, explains. "I'm going through a pretty interesting time in my life. I've just made that transition from being a teenager to becoming an adult... and at the same time just signed a record deal and I'm all over the world. I've met so many more people, done so many more shows, visited so many more countries and some amazing cities, so I thought people kind of need to know about that and hear a bit more of that in my music."
Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Tinie Tempah Win Big at Brit Awards
Other than supporting Usher in June at Los Angeles' Staples Center and an appearance at Chicago's Lollapalooza in August, North American fans will have to wait a bit to see Tempah live. He'll be playing Europe throughout the summer but is plotting "a little intimate tour in September, hopefully, in some of my favorite cities and states" -- a list that includes Seattle, Portland, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles. He's also developing a fashion line he's dubbed Disturbing London.
"It's as far away from the whole hip-hop mogul stereotype as possible," Tempa says. "I like to express myself with what I wear, and I always find I have to go to loads of different brands to achieve a specific look. So I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I created a lifestyle clothing brand that created everything I want out of a brand.' It's currently a work in progress."
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It's a sunny Tuesday afternoon on the west side of Nashville as Eric Church sips a beer and relaxes on the deck of a brick house. But he's not chilling at home. He's taking a break from the basement studio of producer Jay Joyce, where they're recording "Chief," his third album.
"It's the most fun I've had in the studio since we've been doing this," he says of working with Joyce, primarily known for producing such non-country acts as Audio Adrenaline, Macy Gray, John Hiatt and Patty Griffin.
Arthur Buenahora, who signed Church to a publishing deal at Sony Tree, suggested he meet Joyce. They worked together on Church's 2006 Capitol Records Nashville debut, "Sinners Like Me," and 2009's "Carolina." "Jay had never even really heard country music, much less produced it," Church says. "We were both a little wary of each other. We made a couple of tracks together and I just fell in love with them. He's a genius in the studio."
Church and Joyce's collaborations have proved successful. Fans recently voted him the Academy of Country Music's top new solo vocalist. His last single, "Smoke a Little Smoke," peaked at No. 16 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and "Homeboy," the lead single from the new album, is No. 22.
"We've had enough success now that I can push the envelope," Church says. "I held back a little bit sometimes because I was afraid people would think I'd lost my mind. Then 'Smoke a Little Smoke' was a hit... I saw it work when everybody told me it wouldn't. I decided that whatever little bit of rope they gave me on that song, I just tied it to the back of the truck and took off down the road."
Church began recording "Chief" last November and the afternoon he spoke to Billboard was the last day of tracking. "I have a couple more songs that are wild cards," he says. "We're really pushing the envelope today and seeing if I can find lightning in a bottle."
Heading down to the basement to join Joyce, Church seems relaxed as they begin working on "She Got a Rock So I'm Getting Stoned." Church delivers the song with the right combination of anger, angst and resignation. Drummer Craig Wright is in the next room, but bassist Lee Hendrix and guitarists J.T. Cornfloss and Brian Sutton are in the room with Joyce and Church.
"It's very vibe-y," Church says. "Everybody is on top of each other. It's not a big nice studio. There's no catering. We're not here to baby everybody. We're here to make music. I know how I want it to sound, how I
want it to feel... it allows me to be beside the guitar player and slap him on the arm if something is right."
Church uses his road band on some tracks (Hendrix and Wright are his players) and also enlists studio musicians. "There's a couple songs on this record that I'm playing all the guitars on and that's the first time that's happened," the North Carolina native says. "I'm playing acoustic on 'Home Boy'... and I'm singing a lot of the harmonies on it too. It just feels like I'm more involved in every aspect."
The album is slated for release on July 26. Church wrote or co-wrote all but one song (Casey Beathard penned "Like Jesus Does") and he knows he'll have to cull the 15 tracks he's recorded down to 10 or 11.
"It's the hardest part, other than capturing them," says Church, who also gets his wife, Joyce and Buenahora to weigh in on the best tracks to keep. "I have to get in my truck and ride around with all 15 and see which ones feel like they're from either a different record, or [if it] feels like we've not got there yet."
Church acknowledges he's considered a bit of a renegade. "I'm seen as the bad boy, a lone wolf. I do my own thing and that's OK," he says. "I'm not doing it to make friends. I just want to make great music and honestly kick everybody else's ass in the industry. That's my goal."