News from the Music Industry

New Candid CD by sensational jazz vocalist Robin McKelle
A unique new voice on the jazz scene who someday soon will require no introduction - Jazz Week First-rate jazz album - All About Jazz Top 10 Billboard chart entry Barnes & Noble bestseller Extensive plays on BBC Radio 2 2nd July 2007 will mark the release of Introducing Robin McKelles debut album that is already a best seller in the USA and Europe. Critics compare he voice to Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald! Produced …

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST
Afternoon Buzz: Raspberries to release new live CD/DVD set - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Cleveland Plain DealerAfternoon Buzz: Raspberries to release new live CD/DVD setCleveland Plain Dealer, OH - 6 hours agoThe project will be available as single-disc edition and a three-disc CD/DVD set. The Cleveland-born Raspberries reunited in 2004 and toured briefly the …

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:11:12 GMT

CD/DOWNLOAD RELEASE: NPR Shop Offers an NPR Jazz Christmas and Car Talk’s Greatest Stories Ever Told for the Holidays
? CD Box Set Also Available Washington, D.C.; November 15, 2006 - For those seeking unique audio gifts this holiday season, look no further than the NPR Shop (shop.npr.org). The NPR ?

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 03:22:46 GMT

“I wish I could videotape what we see every day and let you watch it, because you wouldn’t believe it,” Roberson says. “These kids are absolutely taking these lyrics to heart and translating them into their everyday lives, in the way they dress, the way they talk and act. They aren’t able to separate fantasy from reality, and it’s destroying their innocence.”

The Musical Divide

Of course, grown-ups have always had generational differences with kids over music. Our parents couldn’t wrap themselves around the gangsta trappings of Biggie and Tupac. Their parents abhorred the haze-infused guitar licks of Jimi Hendrix and Sly & the Family Stone. The difference with our children’s music, though, is that more and more it’s saturated with very sexually explicit, misogynistic and violent words and images. And too often it aims to convince young fans that there’s much more value in sexing, slapping, slinging and slinking their way through life than in going to school, honoring basic social norms, and treating themselves and others with respect.

What’s more, today kids can hear questionable music everywhere–from morning radio to after-school television shows to the local beauty salon and barbershop. The result is a generation of young people who are being taught to think it’s cool to grow up to be somebody’s bitch, ho, thug or worse, says Michael Rich, M.D., director of the Center on Media and Child Health at the Children’s Hospital Boston. “We all have to recognize that kids learn from the media they see and hear,” says Rich, a pediatrician and adolescent psychologist who has long studied the effects of media on kids. He explains that children, who are trying to figure out the way the world works and how they fit in it, are looking to popular music, movies and TV shows to help them figure out who they should be.

Given that many children spend more time with some form of media than they do at school or with parents, Rich says, they’re more likely to be influenced by the likes of a Nelly or an Eminem. “We are fooling ourselves when we think they’re not being changed by that,” Rich says.

What Parents Can Do

Protecting our children from harmful images can be a tall order as we struggle to balance work schedules, relationships and time for self with child-rearing challenges. But you can make it happen. Some ideas:

Listen and learn. You may not appreciate the musical value when Snoop Dogg warbles, “Drop it like it’s hot,” but your child has her own reasons for liking it, and a big part of that may be because you don’t. Instead of telling your child to turn it off, ask her to turn it up. Have her play some of her favorite songs for you, and ask her in a nonjudgmental way what she likes about them.

She may resist at first, but eventually she’ll find it gratifying that she’s “teaching” you something about the music she likes. This will open up the door to a discussion about the merits of the music’s content and make her more open to hearing why it concerns you. “Kids like it when parents learn from them,” Rich says.

Challenge your child to analyze the content. When Lisa Cockerham, 31, of Chicago, heard her 12-year-old daughter, Lana, singing the chorus to a popular Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz song–”To the window/To the wall/Till the sweat drop down my balls”–she turned the radio off and asked her daughter point-blank whether she knew what “balls” were. Cockerham was glad to learn that her child didn’t know, but she still took the time to explain to her in an age-appropriate way why she felt the lyrics were offensive.

Photo Coverage: High Fidelity CD Release Party - Broadway World
Broadway WorldPhoto Coverage: High Fidelity CD Release PartyBroadway World, NY - 3 hours agoFollowing the CD release party was another installment of Cast Party, which is held every Monday night at Birdland and is hosted by Jim Caruso (folk singer …

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:14:39 GMT

The Trout Supershow CD Release Party
Taped at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco, this is the album release party of the musical magazine The Trout Supershow as performed by the Preoccupied Pipers, and eclectic rock and roll collective.

World’s most expensive city
World’s most expensive cityMoscow is the world’s most expensive city for the second year in a row, thanks to an appreciating ruble and rising housing costs, a new survey reports. The cost of living for expatriates in the Russian capital is nearly 35 percent higher than in New York, which served as the base city for the survey…Read the full post from Asian Greenhouse
via Blogdigger blog search for cd release.

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:04:29 EDT

“These licences will make it easier for new European-based online services to take off,” Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said in a statement.

Starting an online music service in Europe such as Apple’s iTunes currently requires the consent of dozens of license holders in each country—record labels, royalty collection societies, music publishers, and, in some cases, from the artists themselves.

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The resulting lengthy negotiations pushed back the launch of services such as iTunes and Napster by months, and some popular U.S. music services such as Yahoo have yet to appear in Europe in part because of licensing red tape.

With the devastation and human suffering caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the mounting casualties associated with the war in Iraq and other dilemmas, many of those who have been affected are in need of a good dose of hope and inspiration.

The holiday season is a good time to reflect on God’s goodness and to use the healing power of music as a source for strength to triumph over tragedy.

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Inspirational music ministers, including CeCe Winans, Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, Byron Cage, Kirk Whalum, Israel Houghton, Hezekiah Walker, and gospel groups Anointed and Mary Mary, among others, offer listeners uplifting and comforting messages from their hearts and from their inspirational music that is perfect for the holiday season.

During interviews, some artists revealed that a variety of inspirational music has helped them to overcome their own personal tragedies. “We all face different storms” says six-time Grammy Award winner CeCe Winans. “You have to still know that there is a bigger plan, and God is in that plan.”

The gospel superstar, who has spent her singing career inspiring others, says she needed healing herself after the recent death of her brother, gospel singer and minister Ronald Winans. “I had never lost a sibling,” Winans says. “Oh, God, the emotions that you go through.” Searching for answers, Winans not only looked to God, but she also listened to her own song, “He’s Concerned,” on her new CD, Purified.

“The same song I had been sending out to friends who had lost a loved one, I now needed to listen to myself,” she says. “When you have a message in the music that is healing, it sheds light on a dark situation. It brings laughter and peace. Nothing is more satisfying.”

As a big first step, Apple Computer and Motorola have partnered to create an iTunes-compatible mobile phone, dubbed the ROKR, capable of storing 100 songs and currently offered by Cingular.

Will the result revolutionize both industries or just be another wireless hype machine met with tepid response and consumer apathy?

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“We’re heading into areas where there is no market research,” says Andrew Seybold, a veteran wireless industry consultant. “The only way we’re going to find out what consumers will buy is to try various things and see what sticks.”

The opportunity is clear. There are 180 million mobile phones in the United States, most of which can be used to access the Internet and buy products with charges added to the user’s monthly phone bill.

The result is an on-demand, impulse-buy capability accessible to all age ranges that the still-struggling music industry sees as a lifeline out of the doldrums. Wireless carriers, meanwhile, hope access to music will be the application that compels subscribers to migrate to the new high-speed networks they have spent billions on developing.

HURDLES AHEAD

Research group IDC expects 1.8 million U.S. wireless subscribers to download music wirelessly by the end of the year once carriers launch their stores. It forecasts the market will grow to 50 million users and $1.2 billion by 2009.

Yet for all the opportunity, fully realizing it requires solving significant challenges, which is expected to take several years.

The leading question is cost. By all accounts, downloading a song to a mobile phone will cost twice the typical rate of 99 cents online. For many, this is a doomed strategy.

“To pay double or treble the amount of what you would be paying for the same track online is not going to receive the traction they’re looking for,” says Nick Holland, an analyst at Pyramid Research. “They will probably start off with a price point that is high and then discount it quickly as they realize that demand is not as anticipated.”

Hard Rock Cafe CD Release
Hard Rock Cafe CD Release Ourmedia