Thursday, May 17, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Taylor Swift is Pop’s Biggest Earner in 2011
Country singer Taylor Swift earned more than any other pop act last year. According to Billboard, Swift made a cool $35,719,902 last year if you include music sales, royalties and touring income.
Rock legends U2 came second with $32 million while another country singer Kenny Chesney was third with $29.8 million. Lady Gaga could only manage fourth place.
Top Earner of 2011:
1. Taylor Swift - $35.7m
2. U2 - $32.1m
3. Kenny Chesney - $29.8m
4. Lady Gaga - $25.4m
5. Lil Wayne - $23.2m
6. Sade - $16.4m
7. Bon Jovi - $15.8m
8. Celine Dion - $14.3m
9. Jason Aldean - $13.4m
10. Adele - $13.1m
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Dave Grohl: ‘We Don’t Feel Like the Biggest, Best Band in the World’
Nearly two decades after forming Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl continues to view the group as “a really simple band.” In a wide-ranging interview with Billboard.com, the Foos frontman said, “We [still] think we suck and we try really hard to make good records and we practice. We don’t feel like the biggest, best band in the world. We just feel like the same five dorks that were touring in a van 17 years ago.”
Asked about the current state of rock and roll, Grohl seemed optimistic, although he assessed that, in America, “rock and roll isn’t as much in the forefront of the mainstream as it is the rest of the world.”
“The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music,” Grohl said. “You make that human connection with a song like ‘Let It Be’ or ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ or a song like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘Roxanne.’ They sound like people making [real] music.”
Grohl went on to say that today’s musical climate reminds him of 1991, the year grunge broke.
“The late ’80s was full of over-produced pop that kids had nothing to grab hold of,” Grohl said. “They had no way of connecting to a hair metal band singing about strippers in a limousine on Sunset Boulevard. Who can relate to that? Then you had a bunch of formulaic pop songstress [stuff], and music was boring. And then a bunch of bands with dirty kids got on MTV and rock and roll became huge again. And I feel like that's about to happen.”
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Stereophonics’ Kelly Jones is the U.K.’s Biggest AC/DC Fan
Welsh guitar rockers Stereophonics have always written insightfully about daily life in their hometown of Cwmaman. From the 1997 debut, Word Gets Around, to 2009’s album, Keep Calm and Carry On, frontman Kelly Jones has often written about his teenage years in the small Welsh town. Now, Jones promises Stereophonics’ forthcoming eighth album will be a “bit different” and will hopefully have a foreign flavor to it.
Speaking at the launch of rock group AC/DC's Live at River Plate DVD premiere in London, Kelly told Bang Showbiz: “The album is really good so far. We’ve been in the studio for a few weeks and we’re off to Europe next week to do some more recording. The style is a bit different, we’re doing some stuff for films, so you’ll have to wait and see.”
“Stuff for films” sounds intriguing. Jones completed film studies training as a teenage student and the BBC showed interest in some of his early screenplays. He later turned his lyrical observations of local life into Stereophonics lyrics.
But Jones was at the AC/DC premiere to talk up his heroes. Jones declared it was “unbelievable how AC/DC are still kicking every young band up the [expletive]… They are one of my favorite bands I’ve ever seen since I was a kid. I’m the biggest AC/DC fan in the country.”