Music Industry News

• Fans, celebs react to Rihanna/Chris Brown collaboration
  

  LOS ANGELES, Feb 22 (TheWrap.com) - With their mutual collaborations released on Monday, Rihanna and Chris Brown have taken an important step forward in mending their relationship, following the savage beating that Brown gave Rihanna in 2009. The rest of the world, however, seems to be bitterly divided over their decision to make music together. ...

  
  

• Whitney Houston open casket photo on tabloid cover
  

  LOS ANGELES, Feb 22 (TheWrap.com) - In a classy move certain to enrage fans while boosting sales, the National Enquirer has published a photo of Whitney Houston's open casket this week. The image of the late pop diva was purportedly taken during a private viewing at the Whigham Funeral Home in Newark, N.J. The exercise in sensationalism is on par with the photos of Houston's last meal and the bathtub she died in that TMZ ran in the days immediately after her February 11 death at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. ...

  
  

• Adele breaks Whitney Houston's chart record
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The late Whitney Houston was unable to oust Adele from the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart, and the British singer's "21" replaced "The Bodyguard" as the longest running No. 1 album by a woman. Boosted by her six Grammy awards and performance comeback, Adele's "21" saw its biggest sales week yet in 52 weeks on the U.S. chart, selling 730,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. That gave Adele her 21st week at the top spot, beating the record held by Houston with her 1992 "Bodyguard" album. ...

  
  

• Obama sings the blues with Jagger, B.B King
  

  (Reuters) - Bill Clinton had his saxophone, but President Barack Obama can sing the blues. Obama lent his voice to a White House jam featuring Mick Jagger, B.B. King, Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy on Tuesday during a celebration of blues and its influence on modern pop culture. After wowing crowds in January by singing a line from Al Green's classic hit "Let's Stay Together" at a Harlem fundraiser, the President sang a verse of "Sweet Home Chicago" in the all-star finale of a TV special taped at the White House. "We were trying to get you to help us sing. ...

  
  

• Chris Brown earns musical redemption from Rihanna
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - R&B singer Chris Brown has earned a measure of musical redemption and forgiveness from ex-girlfriend Rihanna by collaborating on new music together, three years after Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting the pop star. Brown, 22, and Rihanna, 24, were openly tweeting each other and promoting their collaboration on each others' singles over the weekend as the Barbadian "We Found Love" singer celebrated her 24th birthday. ...

  
  

• Jackson concert promoters out of Joe Jackson lawsuit
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The promoters of what was to have been Michael Jackson's comeback concerts were dropped on Tuesday from a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the singer's father Joe. Joe Jackson had alleged that promoters AEG Live were negligent in hiring Dr. Conrad Murray to care for Jackson as he prepared for the 2009 concerts. But a Los Angeles judge ruled that AEG Live should not be a defendant in Joe Jackson's lawsuit while the company is already named in a separate lawsuit filed by the "Thriller" singer's mother Katherine Jackson. ...

  
  

• Adele adds to awards haul at triumphant BRITs
  

  LONDON (Reuters) - Soul singer Adele added to her awards haul at the 2012 BRITs on Tuesday and set the biggest night in British pop alight with a rousing performance of "Rolling In the Deep". At the start of the evening, Adele picked up the statuette for British female solo artist and finished off proceedings by scooping the coveted best album honor for "21" at the end of a two-hour televised show. ...

  
  

• Chieftains "Voice of Ages" among year's best country albums
  
  LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The Chieftains have arrived with one of the best country albums of the year - the country in question, of course, being just a bit east of the U.K., where Ireland's traditional music can sound awfully darned Appalachian, when it comes down to it. ...

• Blur to play London's Hyde Park at Olympics closing
  

  LONDON (Reuters) - British band Blur will headline a concert in London's Hyde Park that coincides with the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, organizers said on Tuesday. Highlights of the end of the Olympics will be beamed to tens of thousands of ticket holders in Hyde Park on August 12 via giant screens. Joining Blur will be The Specials and New Order in a line-up being billed as "Best of British." Tickets for the closing ceremony celebration concert go on sale on February 24 and cost 55 pounds ($87) plus a booking fee. ...

  
  

• Whitney Houston laid to rest in New Jersey
  

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Whitney Houston was laid to rest on Sunday in a private burial before family and close friends near her birthplace in Newark, New Jersey, more than a week after her sudden death shocked the world. The pop star, whose powerful voice fueled her rise to fame in the mid-1980s with self-titled albums that made her a global pop star, died in a Beverly Hills hotel room last week. She was found underwater in a bathtub, but an exact cause of death has yet to be determined. ...

  
  

• Whitney Houston's clothes, earrings up for auction
  
  LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Whitney Houston has barely been dead a week, and already several of her belongings -- including a pair of earrings and a vest that she wore in the 1992 movie "The Bodyguard" -- will go on the auction block next month. The items, which celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien obtained following the singer's February 11 death, will be included in the Hollywood Legends auction, which will be held at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills on March 31 and April 1. ...

• Stars mourn Whitney Houston at rousing New Jersey funeral
  

  NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Stars, family and friends mourned Whitney Houston in a spirited Baptist funeral service at her hometown church on Saturday, a week after the death of the singer whose spectacular voice made her one of the biggest pop stars of her era. Gospel and soul music greats, celebrities and family members swayed to gospel hits and delivered tributes both sung and spoken to the crowded New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where Houston honed her wide vocal range as a young choral singer with her mother Cissy Houston, a backup singer for Aretha Franklin. ...

  
  

• Whitney Houston's hometown remembers her fondly
  

  NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - The New Hope Baptist Church, where pop star Whitney Houston first sang and family and friends will gather on Saturday to pay her a final tribute, sits in a hardscrabble corner of Newark, New Jersey. Its well-maintained red-brick facade seems at odds with the dusty parking lot and derelict housing projects around it. But to hear the gospel choir sing on Sundays, which once featured teenager Houston and her mom Cissy, was to be briefly transported to a faraway, trouble-free world, its patrons say. ...

  
  

• Image makers to Chris Brown: take a chill pill
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - When R&B singer Chris Brown unleashed a Twitter post taunting detractors after his Grammy win last Sunday, he broke a rule that every Hollywood image builder knows: don't show contempt for those who may be willing to forgive and forget. This week, the celebrity blogosphere, websites and media pundits have buzzed with commentary about whether Brown is truly remorseful for assaulting ex-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. ...

  
  

• Robin Thicke arrested in New York for pot
  

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Award-winning R&B singer Robin Thicke was arrested for marijuana possession after he was spotted smoking pot in a car on a New York City street on Thursday, police said. Thicke, 34, was seated in a Cadillac Escalade driven by another person near Third Avenue and East 21st Street when he was seen lighting up a joint, police said. "He was observed smoking marijuana and was found in possession of marijuana," a police spokesman said. The driver was not arrested. ...

  
  

• Adele adds to awards haul at triumphant BRITs
  

  LONDON (Reuters) - Soul singer Adele added to her awards haul at the 2012 BRITs on Tuesday and set the biggest night in British pop alight with a rousing performance of "Rolling In the Deep." At the start of the evening, Adele picked up the statuette for British female solo artist and finished off proceedings by scooping the coveted best album honor for "21" at the end of a two-hour televised show. ...

  
  

• Michael Jackson estate sues former MJ manager
  

  LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Michael Jackson has been dead and buried for nearly three years now -- but his legacy lives on in the court system. The estate of the deceased pop singer filed a lawsuit against Jackson's former personal manager, Tohme R. Tohme, for breach of fiduciary duty. In the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, the Jackson estate accuses Tohme -- who managed Jackson from the beginning of 2008 until shortly before his June 2009 death -- of exercising bad business judgment while rewarding himself handsomely in the process. "After being hired by Michael Jackson ...

  
  

• Foo Fighter's Dave Grohl defends Grammy speech
  
  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Foo Fighters' frontman Dave Grohl was forced to defend his Grammy acceptance speech on Friday after numerous fans and critics interpreted his words as a critique of modern pop music. "I love music. I love ALL kinds of music...Electronic or acoustic, it doesn't matter to me," Grohl said. "The simple act of creating music is a beautiful gift that ALL human beings are blessed with. And the diversity of one musician's personality to the next is what makes music so exciting and ... human," added the "Walk" singer. ...

• Bonnaroo music festival unveils lineup
  

  (Reuters) - This year's Grammy winners Bon Iver, Skrillex and The Civil Wars along with bands like Radiohead and Red Hot Chili Peppers are among line-up of artists announced on Tuesday for the 11th annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee. Much like the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California and the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in Britain, Bonnaroo is among the top live music gatherings of the year. Typically some 80,000 people from around the world trek to Manchester, Tenn., about an hour southeast of Nashville, for the four-day event. ...

  
  

• Whitney Houston songs race up music charts
  

  LOS ANGELES/LONDON (Reuters) - Late singer Whitney Houston's re-entered music charts on Wednesday with a greatest hits album that raced into the top 10 of the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 101,000 copies in just 24 hours after the singer's sudden death this past weekend. "Whitney: The Greatest Hits," which includes songs such as "Saving All My Love for You" and "My Love is Your Love," hit No. 6 on the album chart, selling 91,000 digital copies and 10,000 physical copies, based on Nielsen SoundScan sales weekly data that is finalized on Sunday evening. ...

  
  

• Whitney Houston's hometown remembers her fondly
  

  NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - The New Hope Baptist Church, where pop star Whitney Houston first sang and family and friends will gather on Saturday to pay her a final tribute, sits in a hardscrabble corner of Newark, New Jersey. Its well-maintained red-brick facade seems at odds with the dusty parking lot and derelict housing projects around it. But to hear the gospel choir sing on Sundays, which once featured teenager Houston and her mom Cissy, was to be briefly transported to a faraway, trouble-free world, its patrons say. ...

  
  

• Dory Previn, Oscar-nominated songwriter, dies at 86
  
  LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Oscar-nominated singer and songwriter Dory Previn died at her home in Massachusetts on Tuesday. She was 86. No cause of death has yet been reported. Though perhaps best known as the former wife of collaborator Andre Previn, she was an accomplished musician in her own right. Working alongside her husband, she picked up Oscar nominations for "Faraway Part of Town" from the 1961 film "Pepe" and "Second Chance" from 1961's "Two for The Seesaw." Their most famous work together was the theme song from 1967's "Valley of the Dolls. ...

• Stars mourn Whitney Houston at rousing New Jersey funeral
  

  NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Stars, family and friends mourned Whitney Houston in a spirited Baptist funeral service at her hometown church on Saturday, a week after the death of the singer whose spectacular voice made her one of the biggest pop stars of her era. Gospel and soul music greats, celebrities and family members swayed to gospel hits and delivered tributes both sung and spoken to the crowded New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where Houston honed her wide vocal range as a young choral singer with her mother Cissy Houston, a backup singer for Aretha Franklin. ...

  
  

• Review: Punch Brothers' "Who's Feeling Young Now"?
  
  LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The 21st-century folk scare is now in full swing, and if you like your acoustic music rough, there's no better place to get it that way than via Punch Brothers, the bluegrass band for people who hate bluegrass. The title of the group's terrific third album, "Who's Feeling Young Now?," probably isn't intended to make a statement about string-band music's staidness-vs.-vitality dynamics. But it does anyway. ...

• Stars come out for Whitney Houston's funeral
  

  NEW YORK (Reuters) - A star-studded lineup will sing and speak at pop star Whitney Houston's funeral, from Alicia Keys and Kevin Costner to the soul and gospel music royalty from which she hails, including her cousin Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin. Houston will be laid to rest on Saturday after an invitation-only memorial service at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where Houston groomed her voice singing in the church choir with her mother Cissy Houston, a soul and gospel singer who once backed up Franklin. ...

  
  

• Scott Rudin's Grammy win puts him in elite company
  
  LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - With all the Grammy-night focus on Whitney and Adele, a rather remarkable accomplishment took place on Sunday night without much notice: Scott Rudin won a Grammy for producing the original cast album to the Broadway show "The Book of Mormon." By itself, the Grammy would be just another award in a career that has already had plenty. But the honor was the final piece in an achievement so rare that only 10 other people in show-business history have ever done it: the EGOT, a nickname for winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. ...

• Adele triumphs at Grammys with six wins
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Soul singer Adele triumphed in her return to music's stage on Sunday, scooping up six Grammys and winning every category in which she was nominated including album of the year for "21" and best record with "Rolling In the Deep." As joyous as the show was for Adele, it was equally as serious with tributes to late pop star Whitney Houston, who died suddenly on Saturday. She was remembered by fellow artists in acceptance speeches and songs. ...

  
  

• Houston, Adele, Minaj bring bumper audience to Grammys
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A bumper 40 million U.S. viewers watched Sunday's Grammy Awards, drawn in by the death of Whitney Houston and the performance comeback of Adele, and kept watching by a controversial religious stage act by rapper Nicki Minaj. The telecast drew 39.9 million viewers -- the second-largest Grammy TV audience ever and the biggest since 1984, ratings data showed on Monday. Last year's Grammys show drew 26 million viewers. But critical reaction was mixed. ...

  
  

• Grammys fashion ranges from surreal to sublime
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The show must go on. Despite Whitney Houston's shocking death a day earlier, music stars came out to celebrate Sunday's Grammy Awards with typical red carpet flash and over-the-top fashion. Several artists exuded glamour, including Carrie Underwood, nominated for best country solo performance, who arrived shimmering in a silver Gomez-Garcia gown with a Swarovski black clutch. Other musicians raised eyebrows, including up-and-coming Russian-born singer Sasha Gradiva, who wore a soft pink mermaid shaped gown that featured a machine-gun adorned sleeve. ...

  
  

• Grammy party turns to tribute for late Whitney Houston
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Music producer Clive Davis's pre-Grammy party is typically one of the most fun-filled highlights of the week leading to the music industry's top awards, but this year's event quickly turned into a tribute for Whitney Houston, who died earlier in the day. On the red carpet outside Saturday night's event, the recording industry's biggest stars were stunned by news that Houston, among the biggest female recording stars of all time, died that afternoon in the same hotel, the Beverly Hilton. ...

  
  

• Adele and Ed Sheeran win at UK music's Brit Awards
  
  Adele and Ed Sheeran win at UK music's Brit Awards

• Bonnaroo music festival unveils lineup
  

  (Reuters) - This year's Grammy winners Bon Iver, Skrillex and The Civil Wars along with bands like Radiohead and Red Hot Chili Peppers are among line-up of artists announced on Tuesday for the 11th annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee. Much like the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California and the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in Britain, Bonnaroo is among the top live music gatherings of the year. Typically some 80,000 people from around the world trek to Manchester, Tenn., about an hour southeast of Nashville, for the four-day event. ...

  
  

• Whitney Houston songs race up music charts
  

  LOS ANGELES/LONDON (Reuters) - Late singer Whitney Houston's re-entered music charts on Wednesday with a greatest hits album that raced into the top 10 of the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 101,000 copies in just 24 hours after the singer's sudden death this past weekend. "Whitney: The Greatest Hits," which includes songs such as "Saving All My Love for You" and "My Love is Your Love," hit No. 6 on the album chart, selling 91,000 digital copies and 10,000 physical copies, based on Nielsen SoundScan sales weekly data that is finalized on Sunday evening. ...

  
  

• Adele tells Vogue she's done with break-up music
  

  Adele's songs about breakups and heartache have made her a multi-Grammy award winner but she insists she's done with all that.

  
  

• Bret Michaels celebrates music at Grammy concert
  

  Bret Michaels isn't above stealing a Grammy.

  
  

• Michael Rapaport picks favorite music docs
  
  Michael Rapaport clearly loves music. It's evident in every moment of his documentary, "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest," the actor's directing debut about the influential hip-hop group. The film includes the rift that divided the Tribe as well as the tensions that linger today, but a deep admiration for the music itself shines through.

• Got protest? Music mogul Simmons mad over milk
  
  Music mogul Russell Simmons wants New York's governor to pull the plug on milk from cows.

• Country music disappears from Grammy spotlight
  

  Lady Antebellum landed an unexpected knockout of Eminem and took the night with five Grammys last year, including record and song of the year for "Need You Now." Taylor Swift and Zac Brown Band broke through in the general categories the year before.

  
  

• Axed musicians to protest outside Grammy Awards show
  

  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Angry musicians will protest outside Sunday's Grammy Awards ceremony over a decision to cut 31 ethnic and minority musical categories from the music industry's top awards. Organizers said on Wednesday they hoped dozens of music artists and fans of Latin jazz, gospel and blues music would join in the demonstration, and attend an alternative concert. ...

  
  

• Grammys to feature first dance music segment
  

  Grammy show producer Ken Ehrlich had considered putting dancing/electronica music into the ceremony in the past, but could never quite figure out how to incorporate the high-energy club feel in front of a sometimes staid audience.