Universal Music Group

Pazz & Jop: Top 40 Albums

Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire is Ready For His Close-Up

Fresh Out the Box

Crossing Over: Michael Jackson, Ne-Yo, and the Sound of Pop in 2012

100 & Single: "Call Me Maybe," Justin Bieber, And Teenpop Idols' Ongoing Love-Hate Relationship With Radio

After three weeks of patiently waiting at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100, Carly Rae Jepsen this week became the first solo female Canadian since Céline Dion to top America's premier song chart. Right on schedule for the start of summer, the ubiquitous "Call Me Maybe" finally climbs into the penthouse ... More >>

James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond Implicated Himself in 1994 Tupac Shakur Attack: Court Testimony

For nearly two decades, drug lord James Rosemond, a/k/a "Jimmy Henchman," denied accusations of his involvement in the near-fatal 1994 ambush of rap star Tupac Shakur at New York's Quad Recording Studios that marked a pivotal moment in American pop history. The attack on Tupac triggered a bicoastal ... More >>

Is Google Censoring Links?

Not too long ago, there was talk that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the Recording Industry Association of America might sue Google, claiming that the web behemoth has used its search engine service to shape the online music market in a way trade groups do not like. T ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Birdman Is Rap's Richest Second Banana

A few weeks ago, Forbes published The Forbes Five, which estimated the net worth of hip hop's wealthiest moguls, and put Cash Money Records boss Bryan "Birdman" Williams in fourth place with $125 million. Just two weeks later, Williams announced that his label's most successful artist, Lil Wayne, ha ... More >>

Lil B and Other Forward-Thinking Artists Do It Themselves

Off the cloud

Bruce Springsteen's New Single, And Four Other Songs That Might Show Up On Pazz & Jop 2012

Last night at midnight—just like the old days!—the new single from Bruce Springsteen, "We Take Care Of Our Own," premiered on the radio—just like the, oh, you know. The song, taken from Springsteen's forthcoming Wrecking Ball (out March 6), is a slow-build, string-spangled anthem t ... More >>

Lana Del Rey Hides in Plain Sight

This is my confession

100 & Single: The Erratic Chart Fortunes Of TV-Crowned Idols, From Kelly To Scotty

​Scotty McCreery—winner of the 10th edition of American Idol, and owner of the new No. 1 title on Billboard's album chart, Clear as Day—sets a handful of chart records this week that certainly sound impressive. As Billboard reports, McCreery is the first country act to debut at No ... More >>

Hip-Hop's Top Ten Otis Redding Samples

​"Otis" fever is in full effect, thanks to the Otis Redding-sampling song from Jay-Z and Kanye West's much-ballyhooed Watch The Throne project leaking Wednesday night. The track's production, based around a slick chop of Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness," might be the most impressive thing a ... More >>

Lady Gaga Thinks 99-Cent Albums Are Great (In A Way)

Don't worry, Universal Music Group—she's not really betraying you. ​Much is being made of Lady Gaga's admission to the Wall Street Journal that her album Born This Way—at least, the digital version of it without the bonus tracks—isn't worth more than the 99 cents Amazon charg ... More >>

How Your Cover Sausage Gets Made: The Likely Inspirations For Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" Cover

​Late Friday night Lady Gaga released the cover for her forthcoming big deal of an album Born This Way, and reaction to it was fairly swift, and mostly "huh?" The cover, as you can see at left, features Gaga as a half-woman, half-motorcycle, and the more vocal Gaga fans out there tried to spin ... More >>

News Corp. Can't Give Myspace Away

​Myspace, the long-floundering social networking site acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580 million in 2005, has been planning a mid-2011 sale for some time, though interest has been decidedly low. Last year alone, ad spending dropped 37%, while they lost 15% of total users, a ... More >>

Changes At eMusic: Def Jam In, Matador And Merge Out

Better go get this now.​If you want a one-URL "major" vs. "indie" battleground -- what defines and/or divides them, which lifestyle brand the discerning-legal-downloader demographic really prefers -- you could do far worse than eMusic, the excellent monthly-subscription MP3 service (which empl ... More >>

Attention 14-Year-Old Reggaeton Artists: Your Moment Has Finally Arrived (According to This Shady Flyer)

​As spotted and carried away from the intersection of 4th and Bowery this morning. Could this flyer possibility be legitimate? Interscope, Young Money, and Universal are in fact all the same company (if three very disparate wings of it); those are indeed their logos. But is this really how bad ... More >>

The Top Seven Most Surprising Revelations From Jay-Z's Roundtable Conversation With Warren Buffett and Steve Forbes

​Recently Forbes staged an event a long time coming, bringing Jay-Z and the billionaire Warren Buffett to the same table as part of something they're calling the Forbes 400 Summit. People have been speculating about this meeting for years now--some quite prophetically--and as interlocutor, the ... More >>

Remy Ma's Victim Presses On With Suit Against Label

Rapper Remy Ma's shooting victim is borrowing legal strategies from suits against pedophile priests to press her multimillion-dollar claim against the femcee's label, Universal Music Group. It's the label's fault, so the argument goes. Remy Ma is currently serving an eight-year jail sentence at Rik ... More >>

So Was Lil Wayne's Rebirth a Modest Success Or a Total Commercial Failure? Maura Johnston Reads the Charts

"Billboard's 'Tastemakers' chart is the one we should all paying attention to, don't you think?"​This week's Billboard 200 is headed once again by Lady Antebellum, the milquetoast country trio whose second album Need You Now moved 481,000 copies in its debut week, and 209,000 copies in the sal ... More >>

The 50 Worst Songs of the '00s, F2K No. 7: Nicole Scherzinger, "Puakenikeni"

F2K is a countdown of the 50 worst songs of the decade. Track our progress here. In which the lead Pussycat Doll does her best Georgia O'Keefe impersonation, and nobody notices.

The 50 Worst Songs of the '00s, F2K No. 15: Hinder, "Born To Be Wild"

F2K is a countdown of the 50 worst songs of the decade. Track our progress here. Get your motor runnin'...head out on the fast track to synergyville.

News Roundup: Ryan Adams, Raekwon, The-Dream

​--The onetime musician Ryan Adams, whose next new book of poetry, Hello Sunshine, just landed on top of his last one, Infinity Blues, at SOTC HQ, is taking his act to the Awl, where he'll be reviewing video games. Ahem: "Playing Gorf is like getting wasted, or what I remember about getting wa ... More >>

Shooting Victim Fires $80M Lawsuit at Remy Ma

Jay-Z, Returning Yet Again

Ten Favorite Moments on Kanye West's Graduation

Universal Records Fucks Up Bad

Gimme "Indie" Rock

Another payola settlement promises us better, braver radio. Let's not get too excited just yet.

'Favela Rising'

So Sick

Biz bites the kids that feed it as radio battles everybody

Music

Pulling the White Strings

Light-skinned acts ride hip-hop’s changing tide with dark-skinned Svengalis

Fair Useless

Corporations vainly scheme to the beat of a different DRM

Music

Sick and Mortar

Real record stores open, close, move, struggle, and thrive

MLK Fever

Bill O'Reilly, we salute you, now please give us all our frankincense and myrrh back

Five to Three

Merger mania picks back up; a smaller Warner gives up

A Void Named Sued

Driving independent retailers, and you, out of business

Everything's on Sale

Universal Reversals, Webcast Battles, RIAA-Safe Tuneage

Take the Long Way Home

Missouri Loves Company

Made for Walkin'

New Boots and Panties

Blacked Out

Hip-Hop and R&B Artists MIA in Music Industry Struggle

Born to Be Alive

One-Hitter

Crossover Dreams

Latin Alternative Rock Sets Its Sights on New York

Still Rough Enuff to Break from NY To Long Island

Can you picture this?

headline

'Some dubious motive or initiative'?

At the Interactive Music XPO, mp3 everywhere but no SDMI