Real Music People

Usher has re-hired his mother just over a year after he fired her. The ‘Love In This Club’ singer – who ditched his manager mom Jonetta Patton in May 2007 - has now employed her for a second time in a bid to kickstart the success of his latest record ‘Here I Stand’.

The pair released a statement saying: “Usher has dissolved his management arrangement with Benny Medina and has re-engaged Jonetta Patton as his manager.”

Usher’s decision to get rid of Jonetta last year was reportedly due to a rift between Jonetta and Usher’s wife Tameka Foster.

At the time, Usher said: “This is great for me because it means I now get to have my mother strictly as my mother, with no added pressure.”

However, executives at Usher’s label, Jive Records, were said to be concerned about Jonetta’s sacking. A source said: “They think Jonetta’s done an incredible job with his career.”

‘Here I Stand’ sold just 433,000 copies in its first week, compared to Usher’s 2004 album ‘Confessions’ which sold 1.1 million.

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.

The prodigal son is set to return. Rush & Molloy is reporting that Usher is quietly talking with his mom about making her his manager once again. The singer is apparently livid that music big shot Benny Medina couldn’t deliver big sales for his latest album which only sold 433,000 on its first week. Shouldn’t he be blaming himself for controversially firing his mother in the first place or that his choice of tunes just didn’t cut it for today’s audience? He must have been ticked off that Lil Wayne pulled in bigger numbers than he did. He definitely didn’t see that one coming.

Most industry insiders are saying that Madonna or Mariah Carey would be the top-selling album of the year. However, some think that it’s not the case. Some people are saying that both divas will get beat for biggest sales of the year by rapper Lil Wayne. It turns out that his album was helped out by all the internet leaks of his songs. Industry experts are saying that it’s the most effective free publicity. Lil Wayne’s ‘Tha Carter III’ came out on Tuesday so exact numbers are yet to come in but his label estimates that the album will sell around 850,000 to 950,000 on its first week. If that is the case, he’s a shoe-in.

R&B singer Ashanti is featured in the June 2008 issue of Maxim. The singer is sexily promoting her new album ‘The Declaration’ which will drop in stores on June 3. Ashanti talks about the album in her interview saying “I’m declaring that I’m here. The album is a new sound for me. I found out so much about myself working with new people. Everything had kind of been in-house for me, so I was used to having a security blanket—like Linus from Peanuts with his blue blanket. I’m declaring that it’s been four years and a lot of people had questions, but I’m here, baby.”

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.

Noel Gallagher is flogging his Ibiza villa to get away from pop irritant James Blunt.

The rocker has put the gaff up for sale for $10 million, because it is too close to Blunt’s. Lord Noel can’t relax in his holiday Oasis knowing Blunt is just a CD’s throw away. He is also worried about bumping into the annoying-voiced Blunt out and about on the sunshine island.

A pal revealed: “Noel has been going to Ibiza every summer for years. But he wants to find a new holiday destination. He’s fed up of hearing James Blunt bang on about Ibiza like he owns the place. It’s taken the charm out of it for him so he’s put his villa up for sale. It’s very close to Blunt’s place, and he says he can’t stand the thought of Blunt writing cr*p tunes up the road.”

Charming.

Noel stands to make a tidy profit on the sale. He bought the villa for $5million in 1999 from Tubular Bells creator Mike Oldfield. He even kept some of Oldfield’s specially made carpets, which had the Tubular Bells symbol woven into them.

It’s been swirling around the rumor mill for a while now and it has finally been proven to be true. Rapper/entrepreneur Jay-Z is stepping down as president/CEO of Def Jam Records after 3 years with the label.

Jay-Z announced it on Christmas eve saying “It’s really about trying to invest in the future, trying to invest in maybe coming up with a new model. Because going in hard making records with artists and throwing those records into a system that’s flawed is not exciting for me. It’s not the music; people ingest music the same way. It’s just that the model of selling CDs has changed. So doing things the typical way is not in the best interests of anyone and not exciting for me. My whole thing is, how do we invest in the future? If everyone is committed to doing that, then I’m sure there’s a deal to be made.”

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.

Celine Dion was photographer with her 6 ½-year old son Rene as she waved goodbye during the final run of her Las Vegas show ‘A New Day’ at The Colosseum at the Caesars Palace on Saturday night.

Since the show opened in March 2003, nearly 3 million people have watched the 39-year old songstress perform 717 live shows. Gross ticket sales have totaled a cool $400 million. For those that missed the show, you can still catch it on the newly released five-hour double DVD ‘Celine Dion: A New Day – Live in Las Vegas’.

Celine will be kicking off the North American leg of her concert tour next month.

Out of four albums released over the span of her career, all four have debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. Her most recent album was released last week, entitled As I Am.

A #1 debut is not her only Thanksgiving blessing this week, though. Keys has already sold 742,400 copies and is her highest performing debut yet. Her first album Songs in a Minor (2001) sold 235,800 copies while her sophomore album The Diary of Alicia Keys sold 618,300. Unplugged (2005) sold approximately 196,000 copies. This year, her closest competition was Josh Groban’s Neel, a Christmas themed album, which hit #2 with around 223,000 copies.

This recent increase in album sales has shown us that it is indeed beginning to look at a lot like Christmas. And a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised to find a copy of the R&B songster’s latest gift in their stockings!

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!

50 Cent has promised that should his rival Kanye West beat him in record sales for their newest albums, he would retire. But the rapper is finding more and more loopholes after finding out that Kanye did beat him. First, he said that he beat Kanye in the UK charts and now this.

It seems that 50 doesn’t believe in retirement as he is quoted in saying “I don’t know if it’s possible for a rapper to retire, rappers are like fighters. They condition themselves to be the best. All rappers think they’re the best. And they are just waiting for everyone else to recognise they are the best. You’ll see them come back and back.” He just can’t admit that he got beaten.

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.

Jennifer Lopez is pissing off her record label because she is way too expensive to take care of and doesn’t really make any money for the label. “She costs too much money and doesn’t sell enough,” says a source. “Her last album cover alone cost $60,000 in hair and makeup, lighting, photographers, re-touching, etc. The video budget was in the neighborhood of $300,000.” Since she’s married with Anthony, her carrier is down, she sell all in Spanish, a flop with “como ama una mujer”, flops with Latinos film….. She can really thank P Diddy!!! She is and always has been a mediocre singer. I admire a husband that would encourage his successful wife to step out of her comfort zone and take on new challenges, weather she succeeds or not. She hasn’t changed with the times. The consumer wants an artist to evolve. Her “Brave” album would have done well in the late ’90s, but not anymore. Just doesn’t cut it.

They would have to pay ME to buy that garbage. I’ve never spent one cent on Britney and I never will. She represents everything that is wrong with the music industry. Crappy music created by a corporation trying to make money off of teeny boppers. It worked for a while, but those days are over. This album is going to bomb horribly. She needs a year off. Leave the spotlight, spend time doing something that has nothing to do with the career. She can make her comeback after a year-long retirement. Leave LA, spend time with friends and family, and no more ‘handlers. ‘When she comes back, everyone will have missed her, she’ll enter a new phase of her career, and she’ll stop having to try so hard. Mariah Carey went nuts because she was overworked, being a popstar and paying dozens of people to keep the train rolling. Britney is doing the same thing, with her panties off, at the expense of her kids.

Mariah Carey has just pushed back the release of her new album until February which has her rabid and impatient fans quite upset. Everyone thought that her new record was coming out this November.

A fan wrote to celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and was pretty vocal about being upset about the release being pushed back. She says that maybe, instead of whoring it up all over LA clubs, she should work on new material.

Mariah has been ‘whoring it up’ with basket ball player Rick Fox. A basket ball player and not a music producer who can actually do something to help Mariah with her career.

Radiohead’s experiment of letting the fans download their new album for free has proven to be a success when their website topped the chart of music websites. Now, some of the music industry’s biggest names are following in their footsteps.

Jamiroquai and Oasis are not contracted to a record label much like Radiohead. They are also rumored to be considering on following Radiohead’s actions. Oasis has already announced that their next single will be available for download for a mere 99 pence. The Charlatans are also offering their next album for free if they visit the site of radio station XFM. Madness is considering giving away its next album for free as well.

With rapidly declining CD sales and increasing download sales but still the same wide fanbase, the performers who choose to give away their music are expected to make money from sales of concert tickets and other merchandise.

I dislike all this feuding when there is so much more to think about. We have a war going on and president who has no clue of what he is doing. With the money you all have should invest in putting music back in schools. You are role models for not just the young but everyone. Step back and stop thinking about self. In the dope game it is said, “There is a lot of money for all of us.” Greed is the problem. Can’t we all get along anymore? The war is not against one another it is those who did the 911 attacks. Get your mind in the swing of things. We all have little people looking at our behavior, what message are you sending them? It is time to grow and take a stand as adults. Ridiculous, but this was going to happen, all long Kanye and Curtis have been saying that who will be outselling whom. And now the game has just begun.

It’s not uncommon to see some stars partnering up with some other outlets especially these days when record sales are at a low due to internet downloading and piracy. John Mayer, despite being the intellectual cutie pie that he is, is not above all of that.

The singer has added a new side gig to complement his crooning as a tatted-up model for The Gap. LA motorists, keep your eyes on the road. His larger than life ad was posted over The Gap at Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles.

For those not in the know, the ‘SRV’ skin art is a reference to his guitar god, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan.