January 15, 2008

Tuesday’s Snoozy Music News Day

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News Jan 15

  • Surprising no-one, record label EMI announced that it would cut up to 2,000 jobs in an attempt to cut costs. Trouble with EMI’s roster of artists continues to foment: Coldplay and Robbie Williams may leave the label, and The Verve may be “withholding” their next album “until they receive assurances about marketing and the company’s financial health.” Well how about Richard Ashcroft give us assurances he’s going to eat something?
  • Bjork Attacks, Part Deux: Apparently the Icelandic singer had just arrived at Auckland International Airport in New Zealand, and went after a photographer when he ignored her request to stop taking pictures. As the photographer put it, “she grabbed the back of my black skivvy and tore it down the back. As she did this, she fell over.” The best part of this story is “skivvy”: most stories are saying “T-shirt” but the New York Times insists “sweatshirt.” I say: female domestic servant.
  • Ever wonder how 50 Cent and Timbaland got so buff? No? Me neither, but now they’ve actually been named as part of an Albany, New York-based steroid investigation. The report indicates the musicians, along with Wyclef Jean and Mary J. Blige, received performance-enhancing drugs from a pharmacy in Orlando. Well, jeez: those microphones are heavy.
  • Barack Obama gets two, ahem, “important” endorsements from the world of rock music: Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, who says he’s been an Obama supporter “from day one,” and Win Butler of the Arcade Fire who says Obama is “the first candidate in my lifetime to strip some of this bullshit away.” Wait, aren’t you from Canada?

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