Apr
13
50 Cent, Yayo Named in ‘Gangsta’ Lawsuit
A New York City mother and her 14-year-old son filed a civil lawsuit against 50 Cent, Tony Yayo, Violator Management and the Universal Music Group labels Interscope, G-Unit and Shady Records on Wednesday. The teen is the son of the Game’s manager, Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond, and he claims Yayo and three other men jumped him on a Manhattan sidewalk in March of 2007 when they saw him wearing a Czar Entertainment shirt. (Czar is the Game’s management company, and the Game hasn’t been on good terms with G-Unit since a feud in 2005.)
In one of the strangest record label partnerships of the past few years, Island Def Jam Music Group and TAG body spray have announced a joint hip-hop venture headed up by Jermaine Dupri.
Blondie has announced a series of shows in support of Parallel Lines’ 30th anniversary. The tour starts on June 5 in Baltimore and winds down at Milwaukee’s Summerfest on June 28. More dates are also expected soon.
Alison Sudol, the 22-year-old songbird behind A Fine Frenzy, isn’t afraid to flaunt her soft spot for the sentimental. Her debut album, One Cell In The Sea, finds Sudol’s fragile vocals and diary lyrics entwining with haunting piano, to craft ballads of love and heartbreak. Last year these poignant compositions struck an empathetic chord with music fans around the world, resulting in international chart activity for her first single “Almost Lover,” and earning her an opening slot on tour with Rufus Wainwright.
Bacardi and Groove Armada have signed a one-year partnership that covers recordings, touring, and audiovisual content. As the liquor company’s global experiential manager, Sarah Tinsley, explained it to Billboard.com, “Essentially we are taking over the role of a record label—producing the music, promoting new music, and the artist is playing at our events.”
When a remixed version of “Apologize” wound its way onto Timbaland Presents Shock Value in early 2007, OneRepublic was faced with an odd predicament — the group had a number one pop hit without an accompanying album. Dreaming Out Loud corrects that problem, delivering a marketable brand of piano-led pop/rock that recalls the melodies of the Fray and the vocal acrobatics of Maroon 5’s Adam Levine. It’s a testament to the band’s talent that “Apologize” fares better in its original setting than in the Timbaland remix, most likely due to frontman Ryan Tedder’s own experience as a producer. To his credit, Tedder was one of the - 
Sugababes were one of the most consistently successful British pop acts of the 2000s, with an unparalleled string of innovative Top Ten singles and solid if not faultless full-lengths. Their fourth, the awkwardly named Taller in More Ways, was no exception — indeed it was their first album to hit number one, and among their strongest. As usual, the singles tend to shine the brightest, but there are only a handful of truly lesser tracks scattered among the state-of-the-art dancefloor stompers and towering ballads. The simple yet effective electro-pop club ditty “Push the Button” was the first single (and it topped the charts as handily as its predecessors had), but even better in that category is the - 
This is the seventh awakening of Juno Reactor, which has transformed its sound through film music. From The Matrix films (”Reloaded” and “Revolutions”), to his work in the Japanese films “Brave Story” and “Dimension Bomb”, composer Ben Watkins’ fascination with Japanese animation makes its way to this release. The evolution of Juno Reactor defines the moment; it changes day by day as Watkins surrounds himself with the best musicians that realize a vision consumed by multiple worlds and diverse cultures. Into the mind portals we travel, eternally dancing to the Reactor’s hum in a world consumed by “Gods & Monsters”. - 
Madonna’s eleventh, and final, studio album for Warner Bros., Hard Candy is a brilliant up-tempo collection that adds a hip-hop beat to the cultural icon’s club sensibilities, thanks to collaborations with Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, and Nate “Danja” Hills. Following her previous studio album, 2005’s Confessions On A Dance Floor, which debuted #1 and has sold more than 8 million copies around the globe, Hard Candy punctuates the first 25 years of the album career of the most successful female artist in history with a musical exclamation point. - 
It’s easy to take potshots at actors turned musicians, since it often seems like the actors are taking advantage of their celebrity by turning into recording stars. This ignores two facts: first, often these actors have been playing music for as long as they’ve been acting; and second, who’s to say that these critics, if put in the same position, wouldn’t take advantage of their celebrity to pursue their dream projects? In the case of 30 Seconds to Mars, the metallic post-grunge quartet led by Jared Leto (after all these years, still best-known as Jordan Catalano on the alt rock-era TV series My So-Called Life, although he has been excellent in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream and David Fincher’s Fight Club and Panic Room, -