Rock Music Today

News, Issues and Surprises from the rock world and beyond. The Rockers Hall of Fame has an unusual inductee this year, Madge?? Well, as it turns out one of the criterion for selection was that an album had to be released on a specific 1980 something date when she was on top of the world. Her breakup also stirs the world with a reported $74 mil payout. No problem for her, the ticket sales of her “Sticky and Sweet” concert tour sold tons of tickets. U2 announces the making of a new album, “No Line on the Horizon”, due to be released on March next year. Axl Rose, speaks against issues regarding the much awaited and criticized album “Chinese Democracy”. Prince also says he is releasing an album this coming year and many more to come.

写真提供:rockforlearning.com

キアヌは2004年のデビューアルバム、「ホップス・アンド・フィア」で550万枚以上の売り上げを記録しました。 次のアルバム「アンダー・ザ・アイアンシー」では期待したほどの売り上げには達しませんでした。 売り上げは250万枚ほどでした。 グループにとって大きな失望でした。 また個人的問題、特にシンガー、トム・チャップリンのドラッグの問題が浮上し、バンドとしての危機となりました。 初アルバムが非常に良かったため、米国では巨大なファンベースが存在します。 セカンドアルバムで私達がツアーに一緒に行ったとき、ファンは増えていましたが、アルバムの売り上げは期待したほどではありませんでした。 これが彼らに打撃を与え、彼らが元通りになるまでしばし時間がかかりました。 現在、バンドは「パーフェクト・シンメトリー」で準備が整いつつあります。 この英国のバンドの最新アルバムで世界を制覇する予定です。 彼らは安全なアルバムを作りませんでした。 全力を尽くしたため、彼らの本当の姿を反映する音になっています。

写真提供 :poolparty.com

ロックスターと言えば、通常、ドラッグ、アルコール、セックスの同意語と思われています。ジョナス・ブラザーズに会って下さい。ジョナたちは、健全でアットホームなイメージで有名です。活動を開始して依頼、ずっとこのイメージのままです。兄弟は皆、福音派キリスト教の信者です。さらに、父親は以前牧師をしていたという事実もあります。母親が、学校に通わせず自宅で教育しました。最も驚く事には、全員がピュアリティー・リング（純正を誓う指輪）を左手の薬指にしており、婚前交渉も持たないことを誓いました。MTV ビデオ・ミュージック・アワードの主催者、ラッセル・ブランドがそれをからかいました。後にその発言を謝罪しましたが。ジョーは、言います。そのリングは、結婚するまで婚前交渉を自制することを神に誓った事を意味するものだと。このことは、従来の典型的なロックのイメージとかけ離れている事を示しています。彼らは、両親がその指輪をしたいか否かと尋ねた時から、付け始めました。全員が同意したのです。また、アルコール、煙草、ドラッグにも手をつけていません。

Image Source: zmemusic.com

Aerosmith is planning to return to the studio this coming 2009. A very long hiatus from the music scene. As you can recall, the band has not released an all new original material since 2001 with Just Push Play. The most recent release was in 2004’s Honkin On Bobo, which was a compilation of cover songs. The band hopes to change that this coming year. They actually have recorded some of the materials already, its just that, they haven’t gone to the studio, to do the finishing touches. Aerosmith suffered recent bad health in which their guitarist and lead singer, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler underwent surgery for leg injuries. Also, Tyler entered a California rehab to recover there.

Image Source:rockforlearning.com

Keane sold over 5.5 million copies of their debut album in 2004 called “Hopes and Fears”. Its follow up album “Under the Iron Sea” didnt quite make it the way they expected it to be. Selling only 2.5 million copies. It was a huge letdown for the group. With this came personal problems, specifically, drug problems with the singer, Tom Chaplin, which almost derails the band. The band built up a huge fan base in the US and obviously, the first album did great. When we toured with the second album, the fans grew bigger but the album did not make that much sale as it was expected. That struck them low and took some time before they got their act together. Now the band is ready and in “Perfect Symmetry”. The British band’s latest album is set to conquer the world once again. They did not play safe. They gave all and this is quite the sound that they really are.

Image Source:poolparty.com

A rockstar is usually synonymous with fame, drugs, alcohol and sex. Meet the Jonas Brothers. The Jonas’ are well known for their wholesome, family-friendly image. It has stayed that way ever since they started. The brothers are all committed Evangelical Christians. In addition to the fact that their father is a former pastor. They were home-schooled by their mother. The most surprising of all is that, they all wear purity rings on their left-hand ring finger. The brothers have vowed not to have premarital sex. Which Russell Brand, the host at the MTV Video Music Awards made fun of. Although he later apologized for his comments. Joe says that the rings symbolize their promise to God that they’ll abstain from pre-marital sex until their marriage. It was one way of setting a difference from the typical rock icon image. They started wearing these rings when their parents asked them if they wanted to. They agreed. They also abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and drugs.

Image source: www.rockonthenet.com
Columbia/Roadrunner/Island Def Jam/Sony Music Soundtrax released “Spider-Man (Music From and Inspired By)” on Tuesday, April 30. “Spider-Man,” the live action motion picture released by Columbia Pictures in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the classic graphic character’s Marvel Comics debut, made its way into theaters nationwide on Friday, May 3.

“Spider-Man (Music From and Inspired By)” is a collection of music written and performed by a generation of musicians influenced by the power and mystery of the Spider-Man character, his conflicts and his adventures. The album’s lead singles and videos are “What We’re All About (The Original Version)” from Sum 41 featuring a guitar solo from Slayer’s Kerry King; and “Hero,” a new track from Nickelback vocalist/guitarist Chad Kroeger featuring Josey Scott (the vocalist from Saliva), written for the film by Kroeger.

The Ramones were loud and fast – Everyone knows that, even the poor, blind saps who never loved the band. But the Ramones were many things, and gloriously so, from the moment of their inception in Forest Hills, New York, in 1974, until their final concert, #2,263, in Los Angeles on August 6, 1996.

They were prolific – releasing 21 studio and live albums between 1976 and 1996 – and professional, typically cutting all of the basic tracks for one of those studio LPs in a matter of days. They were stubborn, a marvel of bulldog determination and cast-iron pride in a business greased by negotiation and compromise. And they were fun, rock n’ roll’s most reliable Great Night Out for nearly a quarter of a century. Which seems like a weird thing to say about about a bunch of guys for whom a show, in 1974 or ‘75, could be six songs in a quarter of an hour.

The Ramones were also first: the first band of the mid-’70’s New York punk rock uprising to get a major-label contract and put an album out; the first to rock the nation on the road and teach the British how noise annoys; the first new American group of the decade to kick the smug, yellow-bellied shit out of a ’60s superstar aristrocracy running on cocaine-and-caviar autopilot.

Above all, the Ramones were pop: stone believers in the Top 40 7-inch-vinyl songwriting aesthetic; a nonstop hit-singles machine with everything going for it – hammer-and-sizzle guitars and hallelujah choruses played at runaway-Beatles-velocity – except actual hits. According to an August 1975 article in England’s Melody Maker about the crude, new music crashing through the doors of a former country-and-bluegrass bar in lower Manhattan named CBGB, the local press was already hailing the Ramones as – get this – “potentially the greatest singles band since the Velvet Underground.” A peculiar compliment since the Velvets’ own few 45s were all crushing radio bombs.

But there was one thing you could never, ever say about the Ramones: that they were dumb. In their time, in their brilliantly specialized way, the Ramones – the founding four of Johnny (guitar), Joey (voice), Tommy (drums), and Dee Dee (bass); along with Marky, who spent 15 years and 11 albums behind the drums beginning with “Road To Ruin” and who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the original four; – later followed by CJ, who stepped out of the Marine Corps and into Dee Dee’s king-sized sneakers in 1989; and Richie, who kept the beat while Marky was on hiatus between ‘83 and ‘87 – were the sharpest band on the planet. Fully evolved as musicians and songwriters. Confident in their power and the importance of what they had.

From Ramones.com

Traditionally, books on the history of rock music begin by defining rock music as the meeting of country music and rhythm’n'blues, which is roughly correct.

However, this definition is out of touch with today’s rock music. Today, rock music is a genre that employs sampling techniques, electronic instruments, digital/computer technology, cacophony, and ethnic sources (beyond African-American and Anglo-Irish).

It was Chuck Berry who invented rock and roll in 1955. Berry was a black man playing black music. But times had changed: white kids were listening to rhythm and blues throughout the Northeast, and white musicians were playing rhythm and blues side to side with country music. Rock and roll was inherited by white singers, such as Presley, who often performed songs composed by obscure black musicians. White rockers became gentler and gentler, thereby drowning rock and roll’s very reason to exist.

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Scaruffi

One of the first American rock bands formed in 1973, they are well known for their elaborate sets and antics (fire breathing, blood spitting, smokin’ guitars and the use of pyrotechnics) that earned them quite a following. One of the true rockers of America that has survived many upheavals in their line-up, they have been given many awards with their many songs and perfomances. Some menbers of the band have even performed as late as June 13 2008 when they performed in the Arrow Rock Festival at the Netherlands. The true rock band of the US, their legacy of music and antics lives on in the hearts of their fans. Recently, they have also performed in New Zealand, UK and Australia forever making thier mark as one of the longest running/performing rock bands from the 70’s