In late 2009, Janet Jackson released her 34-track hits collection 'Number Ones,' but kept busy in 2010 by penning her first book, 'True You,' and appearing in two Tyler Perry films -- 'For Colored Girls' and 'Why Did I Get Married Too?' -- the latter which spawned her 35th hit 'Nothing.' All that time away from touring has led Janet to miss her fans much and make plans for her biggest escapade yet ... but there's a catch. The icon wants her fans to pick the 35 cities for her "largest ever world tour" in 2011 behind 'Number Ones.' Fans can vote and map out the schedule at JanetJackson.com.
On Tuesday, Nov. 30, we'll post an exclusive Q&A with Ms. Jackson featuring questions submitted by her loyal followers. Fans are encouraged to submit questions about her recent turn in movies, book and music to @theboomboxblog on Twitter and The BoomBox on Facebook, of which fifteen will be chosen. Janet reveals more details in the video below.
For all Janet news, check out her official website, Facebook and Twitter. 'Number Ones' is available now at all online retailers and and preorder her book 'True You' here.
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Randy Jackson has insisted that several tracks on Michael Jackson's new album do not feature his vocals.
The late singer's brother claims that a number of new songs on the album are not sung by Jackson, and admits he was immediately "suspicious" of the project when music bosses banned family members from visiting the studio while the tracks were completed.
In a series of posts on his Twitter page, he said: "Me and my nephew were the first to say that it wasn't his voice on some of the tracks. The family and the executors of the Estate, Branca and McClain, are not on the same page.
"I became suspicious about the album when I heard [that] armed guards were involved. Since my brother's passing, John McClain insisted that no family members were allowed at his studio where the project was being completed."
He continued: "My first thought was, 'What are they trying to hide?' Teddy Riley (producer) was brought in just to mix and insisted on switching studios, at which [point] he called me to come down and hear my brother's music.
"I heard the music and I immediately said it wasn't his voice. Some of the songs are him, and some aren't. I would bet my life on that."
Jackson also insisted that music bosses were being "harsh" and "more concerned about making money off his death".
He added: "They could care less about why and how he died, or maybe they already know."
Michael Jackson's posthumous album Michael is released on December 14.
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Could the Beatles be Ke$ha for a day after the iTunes announcement? Well, no. As of 5pm EST today the top charting Beatles song on the iTunes daily Top 200 comes in at #75, leaving Ke$ha, Katy Perry, and the Black Eyed Peas safely in the top three. The chart had a couple songs on there twice (for the same version, from the same release), so it might be a little off. But it gives you a small idea of how all of their songs would have have performed as singles — for instance, “Something” was the Harrison single from Abbey Road, not “Here Comes The Sun.” Here’s the list:
1 “Here Comes The Sun” (75)
2 “Let It Be” (77)
3 “Black Bird” (94)
4 “In My Life” (103)
5 “Come Together” (118)
6 “With A Little Help From My Friends” (122)
7 “Hey Jude” (142)
8 “Twist And Shout” (151)
9 “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (168)
10 “I Saw Her Standing There” (174)
11 “Eleanor Rigby” (176)
12 “Yesterday” (185)
13 “A Day In The Life” (191)
14 “Help!” (196)
15 “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” (197)
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The Beatles soared up the iTunes record charts on Tuesday, with five of their classic albums entering the Top 20 less than 24 hours after the band's catalog was released for the first time on the world's No.1 digital retailer.
"Abbey Road" was leading the pack on Tuesday evening, with "The White Album" and "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" also proving the most popular Beatles album downloads on Apple's iTunes store. The special digital "Beatles Box Set", priced at $149 was also climbing up Top 20 along with the "Blue Album" of greatest hits.
On the U.S. iTunes singles charts, "Here Comes the Sun", "Let it Be" and "Blackbird" were among six Beatles singles moving steadily up the top 100 downloads, according to real-time data on the iTunes website.
Detailed figures on the numbers of U.S. downloads will be available next week from chart tracker Nielsen Soundscan.
Apple's iTunes store on Tuesday released 13 of the albums made famous more than 40 years ago by the Fab Four, ending years of fruitless negotiations between Apple founder Steve Jobs, the Beatles management company Apple Corps, and record label EMI.
Paul McCartney said he it was "fantastic to see the songs we originally released on vinyl receive as much love in the digital world as they did the first time around."
Drummer Ringo Starr said he was "particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes" and John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono said it was an appropriate move in what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday year.
In London, the Official Charts Company said it was certain that "their music will make a big impact" on the official UK singles charts, starting on Sunday when weekly sales and download figures are released.
According to Apple Corps, the band had sold more than 600 million records, tapes and CDs of its 1960s songs before Tuesday's iTunes releases.
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Steve Jobs is nearing the end of his long and winding pursuit of the Beatles catalog.
Apple Inc. is preparing to disclose that its iTunes store will soon start carrying music by the Beatles, according to people familiar with the situation, a move that would fill a glaring gap in the collection of the world's largest music retailer.
The deal resulted from talks that were taking place as recently as last week among executives of Apple, representatives of the Beatles and their record label, EMI Group Ltd,, according to these people. These people cautioned that Apple could change plans at the last minute.
Spokesmen for Apple and EMI declined to comment.
Apple on Monday posted a notice on the home page of its iTunes store that it would make "an exciting announcement" Tuesday morning.
Terms of the deal that brought the Beatles music to iTunes couldn't be learned, and it was unclear whether other online music services would gain access to the catalog too. However, Apple maintains a roughly 90% market share in the digital-music business.
EMI has been under financial strain following an ill-timed leveraged buyout by Terra Firma Capital Partners LP in 2007. If the iTunes tie-up generates significant cash advances or sales, it could delay breaches in the company's loan covenants. Terra Firma borrowed £3 billion ($4.9 billion) from Citigroup Inc. to finance the deal, but has fallen into breach of those covenants, forcing it to add millions more to its equity position last year.
Even as recorded-music sales have plummeted, the Beatles have remained one of the most reliable franchises in the business. In 2009, 39 years after breaking up, they sold the third-highest number of albums of any act in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, with 3.3 million copies sold.
The Beatles aren't the only big iTunes holdout. AC/DC, Bob Seger and Kid Rock all have witheld their music from the online store. Other longtime digital wallflowers such as Metallica and Led Zeppelin have relented in recent years.
The Beatles' arrival on iTunes was delayed in part by ongoing trademark litigation, the most recent round of which was resolved in 2007.
The Fab Four's arrival in the digital age comes very late compared to most other major acts'. The group also was a latecomer to the CD era, waiting until 1987 to issue their main body of work on a medium that the industry had embraced in the early to mid part of the decade.
People who have done business with the group and its corporate entity, Apple Corps, describe a very slow-moving process in which the two surviving bandmembers, and the heirs of the other two, can take a long time to reach consensus.
The group started moving with a bit more alacrity following the 2007 death of Neil Aspinall, the long time Beatles confidant who ran the band's company, Apple Corps Ltd., for many years. Founded in 1968, Apple Corps controls certain rights related to the Beatles recordings, although the recordings themselves are owned by EMI. Mr. Aspinall was replaced as Apple Corps' CEO by Jeff Jones, a former executive of Sony Music's well-respected Legacy division, which handles back-catalog releases for Sony Corp.'s various record labels.
After the arrival of Mr. Jones, the Beatles started modernizing their affairs more quickly than they had previously. In 2009 the group issued remastered CD versions of their studio albums with improved sound quality, something for which fans had been clamoring for years. The band struck a deal to release a videogame, The Beatles: Rock Band, last September. That title has seen mixed sales.
Even the solo catalogs of the members of the Beatles have become available via iTunes and other online music services for varying lengths of time, prompting headscratching in the music and technology worlds about why the Beatles albums proper still weren't available.
The Beatles-iTunes agreement represents a watershed in a fraught, decades-long relationship between two of the biggest icons in their respective fields.
The two sides have traded lawsuits since 1978, when the Beatles alleged that the computer maker, incorporated as Apple Computer in 1977, infringed on the band's trademark in the name and logo of Apple Corps.
The lawsuit was settled in 1981 for an undisclosed sum, plus an agreement that the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker wouldn't compete in the music business.
Then in 1989 Apple Corps sued again, charging that Apple Computer had violated the terms of the earlier settlement by giving its computers increasingly powerful musical abilities, such as hardware that enabled its computers to control synthesizers.
The two sides announced a settlement in 1991, after 100 days in court, with Apple Computer paying roughly $29 million to the band.
Then in April 2003, Apple Computer again raised the band's hackles by launching the iTunes music store. Two months later, Apple Corps sued Apple Computer in High Court in London, alleging that the online music store violated the 1991 agreement.
In 2006, after a one-week trial, the court handed the computer maker a rare victory in the long-running legal saga, dismissing the claims of the musical entity. Judge Edward Mann ruled that the Apple logo on the iTunes Store doesn't appear "in connection with" any particular music being sold, and instead is simply an icon for the store itself.
The two sides announced a settlement in early 2007 under which the computer maker, then known by its current name, Apple Inc., took control of the trademarks at issue and licensed them back to Apple Corps Ltd. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
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My Chemical Romance will hit the road for a 24-date tour next April in support of their new album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (out next week). The trek — dubbed the World Contamination Tour — kicks off April 1 in Portland, OR and wraps on May 24 in Phoenix, AZ. Check out dates below.
When SPIN.com caught up with guitarist Ray Toro to preview the album, he offered an early peek at the production for the tour. Expect bold visuals and bright costumes — a stark contrast to their last Black Parade Tour.
"It's going to be a celebration of color," says Toro. "The costumes for Black Parade were a restrictive military look. But what's cool about the Killjoys [the main characters of the new album] is that there's a lot more freedom and life, even in the way we dress. It looks cobbled together from different styles and it's really open and free."
Starting November 17, My Chem will offer a ticket pre-sale through their fan club; general on-sales kick off November 20.
In the meantime, check out SPIN's history of the band in photos here.
4/1, Portland, OR (Roseland Theatre)
4/2, Vancouver, BC (Center for Performing Arts)
4/3, Seattle, WA (Showbox Sodo)
4/5, Edmonton, AB (Edmonton Event Centre)
4/6, Calgary, AB (MacEwan Hall)
4/8, Salt Lake City (In the Venue)
4/9, Denver, CO (Fillmore)
4/10, Des Moines, IA (Val Air Ballroom)
4/12, Minneapolis, MN (First Avenue)
4/13, Milwaukee, WI (Eagles Ballroom)
4/15, Chicago, IL (Aragon)
4/17, Cleveland, OH (House Of Blues)
4/20, Montreal, QC (Metropolis)
4/22, New York, (Terminal 5)
5/5, Boston, MA (House Of Blues)
5/6, Philadelphia, PA (Tower Theater)
5/7, Sayreville, NJ (Starland Ballroom)
5/10, Washington, D.C. (9:30 Club)
5/11, Atlanta, GA (The Tabernacle) 5/17, West Palm Beach, FL (Revolution) 5/18, Orlando, FL (House Of Blues)
5/20, Houston, TX (House Of Blues)
5/21, Dallas, TX (House Of Blues)
5/24, Phoenix, AZ (Marquee)
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The song can be heard
here.
