Real Music People

Grammy-winning singer Mary J. Blige has been sued in New York for $2 million by a company that says she stole some of the music she used on her latest hit album and in an iPod commercial.

The Drama Family Entertainment company filed the lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday.

The lawsuit claims the company suffered copyright infringement because the singer’s Growing Pains album contains the song Work That. The suit says the song was created by a producer who worked for the company at the time.

The song was featured with a silhouetted Blige in an iPod commercial. But iPod maker Apple Inc. isn’t named in the lawsuit.

Sounds like a bad case of not learning to share…

Coldplay’s album Viva La Vida has to date been the No.1 selling album in 36 countries around the world, including in the U.S., where it held the top spot for two weeks, and in the U.K. where the album has been No.1 for the last four weeks.

Coldplay’s previous album, the 10 million-selling X&Y, reached No.1 in 32 countries in 2005.

In a number of countries, including the U.K., France, Germany and Japan, first week sales of Viva La Vida exceeded those of X&Y, and Viva La Vida has already been certified gold or platinum in 31 countries including platinum in the USA, Germany and Australia and double platinum in the U.K. and Canada.

In many countries Viva La Vida held the top spot on the album chart in its second week, including in the USA, U.K., Australia, Canada, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand.

Viva La Vida set the record for the highest first week album sales ever on the iTunes Store worldwide, in addition to being the biggest album pre-order in iTunes’ history. In the U.S., 288,000 week one sales were digital downloads, the biggest ever first week sales tally for a digital album, and with 394,000 digital albums sold in the first three weeks, Viva La Vida is the all time best selling digital album in the States. U.S. over the counter sales for Viva La Vida across all formats have now exceeded 1.1 million according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In the U.K. Viva La Vida is the fastest-selling album of the year with over the counter sales of more than 600,000 since its release on 12 June, while in Germany the album is already the biggest selling release of the year as well as the fastest.

Coldplay will launch their North American tour with two sold out dates in Los Angeles on July 14th and 15th.

Apparently the record label doesn’t have much faith in Janet’s latest album Discipline. Unfortunately for Janet, that means they’ve stopped promotion on the album, which means it’s pretty much going to flop.

Janet says, “We started off with [the single] Feedback and the label and myself haven’t quite seen eye to eye since the Feedback single so they’ve kind of basically stopped all promotion. I’m trying to figure out a way to say this, but just to say it and to be quite honest, they just stopped all promotion whatsoever on the album, so I don’t think you’re going to hear another single off the album.”

Sucks for her.

Madonna was on top of the charts last week but this week, Mariah Carey has knocked her back down. The numbers are in and the Queen of Pop’s ‘Hard Candy’ has dropped from the top spot debut to #5 in the US album charts in a mere week whereas Mariah’s ‘E=MC2’, in its 4th week of release, is I #4 this week. Madonna’s first week sales were at 280,000 and week 2 brought in 81,000 units. Mariah’s sales for week 1 alone was at 463,000. Mariah is on her second single already though so Madonna better be coming out with hers very soon if she wants to win this diva battle.

Maxim garnered a strike when they did a music review for the Black Crowes’s new album ‘War Paint’ without listening to the album. They have since apologized for the screw up but it doesn’t prevent them from doing it again. And that they did. Maxim has done a review for rapper Nas’ new album even though he hasn’t even finished recording it yet. Maxim has also apologized for the review but Nas doesn’t seem to care saying “I’d prefer [a review from] Playboy. That kind of stuff doesn’t reach my radar or affect anybody around me. I don’t know what a music rating from Maxim is . . . I don’t know what it even means really.”

Carrie Underwood sings the title track ‘How Great Thou Art’ off of the album ‘How Great Thou Art: Gospel Favorites from the Grand Ole Opry’. The American Idol champ joins legions of country music’s finest on the album which also features the likes of Trace Adkins, Dierks Bentley, The Charlie Daniels Band with Mac Powell, Sara Evans, Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Patty Loveless, Loretta Lynn, Ronnie Milsap, Brad Paisley and Ricky Skaggs and the Whites. The album is available in stores now so don’t forget to get your hands on it. Carrie has truly made a name for herself in the industry by being asked to work with such fine talent.

Mariah Carey’s new single off of her new album dropped on Tuesday and I am sad to say that it was very disappointing. A lot of people were really looking forward to it but it just didn’t live up to expectations. The song isn’t really bad. It’s actually worse. It’s just average. And we all know that mediocrity kills in the music industry. ‘Touch My Body’ is a very generic mid-tempo song. There was just nothing special about it. Better luck next time Mariah. You’re not going to get the same success for this album like what you got from ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’.

If the new promo picture that came out is any indication of the vibe that Janet Jackson’s new album is going to have, then that stuff is going to be shooting through the roof! Hot! Hot! Hot!

The lead single off of the album ‘Feedback’ is already getting massive airplay which has excited even more people about Janet’s comeback. And for those wondering just when we’ll get it, her new album ‘Discipline’ now has an official release date for February 26th. I can’t wait! I really hope that she would do a tour for this one. She needs to really go out there again.

It’s been reported that Madonna’s next studio album, her last with new material under Warner Bros., will be released in April of 2008 and will carry the title ‘Licorice’. The disc reportedly features collaboration with Kanye West and Pharell amongst others. There’s no word whether a tour will follow but it doesn’t hurt to pray for it.

However, not long after news broke out, Madonna’s publicist Liz Rosenberg has denied reports that the Queen of Pop’s new album will be called ‘Licorice’ and that it’s coming out in April. Music industry insiders are not buzzing that the disc will be called ‘Give It To Me’.

It’s always annoying when a rapper says that he’s retired then comes back only to retire again and then come back again. But in Jay-Z’s case, no one should care as long as he’s number 1.

The rapper may have flashed two fingers when he passed paparazzi on his way to TRL on Monday. But as of the middle of the week, he hit number 1. As it was projected by music insiders last week, his American Gangster-inspired album took the top spot on the Billboard charts and knocked the Eagles down a notch.

Congratulations to Jay-Z. This is his 10th #1 album!

In addition to listening to this album in it’s entirity, I was also fortunate enough to hear Laura Critchley perform some of the songs live at the album launch last Wednesday. I did not envy the poor girl, having to perform to a room full of music industry people, but she pulled it off brilliantly before heading off to another gig in her home town of Liverpool. The album is a good mixture of upbeat songs and ballads with a pinch of rock and jazz/funk thrown in. Laura co-wrote all the songs on the album, and is obviously responsible for the great lyrics throughout. She opened her set with the second song on the album, “What Do We Do?”, which was also released as a single on 5 November. This is a break up ballad, which she does so well, as is “I’ll Be Ok” , which is the fourth track on the album. “Lullaby” was beautiful but happy while the title track is a very commercial love song which is coming out as a single in January. The rest of the album includes jazzier entries like “Shoulder To Lean On” and “Don’t Say” , rocky ones like “That Kind Of Love”, and “Superstar (Song For Karen) dedicated to Karen Carpenter. If you like good songs, well written and passionately sung, this album is a must for your collection. Furthermore, I can confirm that she is just as good live as she is on CD.

Almost five years after releasing a near-classic rap debut, Freeway finally gets his second shot, and there’s some unsurprisingly frank talk about his surroundings not being identical. Since Philadelphia Freeway’s early 2003 release, there was the Damon Dash/Jay-Z Roc-A-Fella rift, so Free addresses that, despite it being old news. Free at Last has all the makings of a disappointment — a release destined to slide off everyone’s radar within a couple weeks of release. “Oh, yeah, Freeway eventually put out that second album… uh, Free Again, or something?”

The album is not the least bit deserving of that fate. Even with the amount of expectation-lowering context heavy on the mind, Free at Last sounds like a very strong follow-up. Apart from the 50 feature “Take It to the Top,” with a light and frilly production that is absolutely the worst fit for Free’s gruff and pop-unfriendly voice, there are no obvious points of weakness — unless, of course, Free’s lack of vocal versatility is something to gripe about. But his intelligible grunts and rasps are just as commanding and riveting as any other MC’s best mode. With a pilgrimage to Mecca also in his recent past, the dichotomy between his threat/boast-based rhymes and more introspective side is greater than it was on Philadelphia Freeway, and it isn’t at the expense of toughness — take, for instance, “I will squeeze and leave your spleen on the outside.” He is a sharper, more vivid lyricist, and it can also be sensed that he has done everything in his power to make up for all that lost time. And it must be said that his as-common-as-ever exultations of “Early!” — Practically a tic at this point — are more perplexing and amusing than ever

Emo dudes vary the heartbreak guitars with string ballads and a faux show tune for years, say anything leader Max Bemis has had to deal with bipolar disorder, but judging by his band’s third album, he’s got something else to gripe about — namely, bad, bad love. Loosely based on one of Bemis’ own relationships, the album mostly sticks to serrated emo but ranges from big, string-laden ballads (”Plea”) to a faux show tune (”That Is Why”). When Bemis is on –shuffling between a touching Latinate melody and an ace, bloodletting chorus on “Hangover Song,” delivering the sugar-rush pop of “Shiksa (Girlfriend)” –his songs are tuneful and invigorating. “Retarded in Love” is sort of like a Springer episode: You don’t want to watch someone fall apart before your eyes, but you don’t want to look away, either. Lyrics about his love interest, a “slender slave with sluttish, sleepy eyes,” should have stayed in Bemis’ journal. Still, it’s hard not root for him — if he could only handle ladies with the same ease with which he turns out good melodies, he’d be all right.

Reggae covers and dub-wise improvising are regular features of Gov’t Mule’s marathon shows. Mighty High focuses on that heavy Jamaica in singer-guitarist Warren Haynes’ modern-Dixie redesign of classic British blues rock. Actually, there is as much Free as Lee Perry in the opening detonation of “I’m a Ram” — from Al Green’s 1971 album Gets Next to You — while drummer Matt Abts’ New Orleans backbeat under the Band’s “Shape I’m In” affirms the mix of Crescent City and funky Kingston in the original. The Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire” is overstuffed with weed-whacked production, and the suite of dub versions in the second half of the album could use more jolting drama. But the closing remix of “I’m a Ram,” titled “Plasticine Era,” is a hip minefield of wah-wah-guitar bark, snare-drum crack and singsong bravado by Jamaican vocalist Willi Williams, whose 1978 single “Armagideon Time” is a Mule cover waiting to happen.

“Deja Vu” suffered from being a bit too familiar and a frenetic accompanying video that turned off more than a few fans. “Ring the Alarm,” tricked out with sirens and a video of Beyonce conjuring memories of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, failed to maintain attention for more than a few listens. However, “Irreplaceable” could change all that.

“Irreplaceable” was co-written by Ne-Yo and produced by StarGate, one of the most potent hitmaking teams of the year. They have collaborated on Ne-Yo’s own “So Sick” and Rihanna’s “Unfaithful,” to name just a pair of successful hits. “Irreplaceable,” with its instantly memorable melody and irresisible “to the left” hook should follow in those songs’ footsteps.

An element that makes “Irreplaceable” resonate deeper after hearing it multiple times is that the subject matter of female strength and independence is at the core of the entire B’Day enterprise. This song will remind many listeners of concepts central to Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale which remains a cultural touchstone 14 years after its release. Look for “Irreplaceable” to help Beyonce regain her pop momentum just in time for her end of the year starring role in the film version of Dreamgirls.

The 17-year-old MC known as Sean Kingston got put on the 21st-century way–through his myspace page. On his impressive self-titled debut full-length, Kingston blends elements of contemporary R&B, dancehall reggae, and radio-friendly pop over 14 tracks, all the while flowing with hungry, upstart energy.

The stand-out track and debut single, “Beautiful Girls,” quickly became the summer jam of 2007, with its infectious beats and clever sampling of Ben E. King’s classic “Stand By Me.” The rest of the album’s thump comes courtesy of West Coast producer J.R., and with a tracklist light on guest stars (Paula DeAnda, Vybz Kartel, and Kardinal Offishal), SEAN KINGSTON heralds the coming of an assured young artist brimming with potential.