Real Music People

Metallica drummer Lars Ullrich has hinted that they’re thinking of doing what Radiohead popularized by giving away their material online for free. The famed drummer told Rolling Stone magazine that “We’re looking at how we can embrace everything. We want to be as free players as possible. We’ve been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) and in 27 years or however long it takes for the next record, we’ll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the internet.” Considering their highly public with Napster, this is one shocking move. I’m sure those Napster people are having a really good laugh at this.

Justin Timberlake’s Amazon/Pepsi commercial has been released and it’s a funny clip. Let’s hope that he wore a cup for this one. The ‘Sexyback’ singer had two of the hottest rising stars for his commercial – SNL funnyman Andy Samberg and Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo. Justin also pimped out his own music, ‘LoveStoned/I Think She Knows’, and his own restaurant, Southern Hospitality. His advertisement is to promote the 4 billion Pepsi products which will have collectible points on them that can be ‘banked’ starting February 1st on PepsiStuff.com and can be later redeemed for purchase on Amazon MP3. Justin is pimping a lot!

Janet Jackson is officially back and she is on fire! The youngest Jackson singer is ready to toss her hat back in the ring of the music industry with a new album coming out next year. The lead single has already leaked on the internet and it is hot!

‘Feedback’ is the name of the comeback song and here’s some feedback for her, it’s absolutely great! It’s not retro, it’s not futuristic – it’s just now. It’s current, it’s fresh and it’s fun. It’s a classic ‘Janet’ song. It’s also quite smart of her to lead the album with a dance track too.

Remember the ‘Grey Album’? It’s the one where Gnarls Barkley’s Danger Mouse took Jay-Z and mashed it up with the Beatles and became one of the most downloaded bootlegs of all time. Now, a DC-based DJ named DJ Doc Rok has made a CD which mixed Jay-Z’s new album ‘American Gangster’ with some classic Led Zeppelin tracks. It’s a pretty cool mix.

Jay-Z is proving to be one hot commodity for these remixes. And it’s not just with new bands like he did with Linkin Park. Even when you mix his stuff in with some of the best known classics, it still turns out great.

Radiohead isn’t signed to any major record label right now but in the end, it works out for the best. The band decided to release their album via the internet and letting fans pay whatever they wanted for it.

On average, more than 6 out of 10 people who downloaded their new album ‘In Rainbows’ downloaded it for free. Of the people that decided to pay even just a bit for it, the average price paid was around $6. Close to 1.2 million people downloaded the album and if you’re quick with the numbers, that’s a total of $2.736 million.

It may not be as much had they released the album normally but when you take away the money they would have to fork over to a record label, they’d probably make even less than that. It’s a very smart move on their part.