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Greatest song of the past 25 years |
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Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' has been voted the greatest song of the
past 25 years in a new survey.
The track, which is always at the upper reaches of the music polls frequently
being commissioned, triumphs in the latest survey compiled by VH1.
The 1991 single, which features on the landmark album 'Nevermind', propelled
the group to superstardom and a legacy which refuses to wain, particularly in
the wake of this year's self-titled compilation album. Elsewhere in the chart,
which was actually decided by executives at VH1, just one song from a UK act
makes the Top Ten, with the 20-year-old 'Every Breath You Take' by The Police
at number nine.
Only one track from the past decade made it into the top ten - Eminem's 'Lose
Yourself' - which was released in 2003, is at number four.
The top ten:
1. Nirvana - 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'
2. Michael Jackson - 'Billie Jean'
3. Guns N' Roses - 'Sweet Child O' Mine'
4. Eminem - 'Lose Yourself'
5. U2 - 'One'
6. Run - DMC - 'Walk This Way'
7. Prince - 'When Doves Cry'
8. Whitney Houston - 'I Will Always Love You'
9. The Police - 'Every Breath You Take'
10. Madonna - 'Like A Virgin'
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Rolling Stamps |
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Current images of The Rolling Stones are being immortalised in a series
of stamps.
The Austrian post office is commemorating the band's 40 Licks Tour by
issuing the stamps of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and
Ronnie Wood to coincide with the band's show in Vienna.
Each Stone stamp - personally authorised by the band - is worth 0.55
Euro and marks the first time that anyone apart from the country's heads
of state have appeared on a stamp.
"After 40 years of rock 'n' roll it's not often you get a first," a
spokesman for the band told The Sun. "The band are absolutely delighted."
A limited run of a million stamps is produced and they are on general
sale since June 18.
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Dido's come back |
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"When I make a record, all I'm ever trying to do is make something I
want to listen to," says Dido, who just wrapped up work on her second
album, Life for Rent, due September 9th. What she wants to listen to is a
mix of dance, hip-hop and rock, a pairing of electronic and acoustic
music much like her debut, 1999's No Angel. But this time around, she's
"gotten more extreme with the beats."
Dido describes the first single, "White Flag", as an "anthem type song"
set to hip-hop beats. It's a classic,
I-still-love-you-but-I'll-never-admit-it song in which she sings,
"And when we meet, which I'm sure we
will/All that is there will be there still/I'll let it pass and hold my
tongue/And you'll think that I've moved on." "A proper love song," Dido
says, laughing. "Just that things don't work out . . . what a
surprise!"
And the title track, she explains, is an equally anthemic song about
"not being afraid to do all the things that you actually dreamed of doing
in your life." Elsewhere, Life for Rent offers up big dance tracks.
"Sand in My Shoes" is a "summery dance song" about the letdown after
returning from vacation. But Dido also drops the electronic tools for a
simple acoustic sound on "Mary's in India" and "This Land Is Mine."
Despite No Angel's multi-platinum sales and the hype around the Eminem
collaboration (he sampled her "Thank You" to popular effect on his
single "Stan"), Dido kept production work in the family, working once again
with her brother Rollo, a producer and member of Faithless.
And don't expect any "Dido From the Block" songs. "I'll never as long
as I live write a song about what it is to be famous," she says. "At
that point, remove me from this life -- I've lost it."
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Queen Plot Comeback |
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Putting together the DVD version of Queen's 1986 Live at Wembley album
rekindled something for guitarist Brian May. "It's been a voyage of
rediscovery," he told Rolling Stone last night at the Songwriters Hall of
Fame induction in New York. "What impresses me most is the spontaneity.
You can see us kind of eyeing each other to see what to do next. We
were a great partnership."
Those memories might finally push May and drummer Roger Taylor back on
the road for a new tour, with guest-star singers replacing the late
Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1992. "We're getting closer to the
idea," Taylor admitted.
"We wrestle with it daily," May said. "We don't want to go out and
replace Freddie. It would be unseemly, and it wouldn't feel right. But if
we can go out in some kind of partnership way, and have some special
guests, we'd be up for it. We love Robbie Williams, who's quite a loose
cannon but quite a phenomenal artist. George Michael, Elton. It would
probably be more than one special guest."
May and Taylor warmed up to the idea even more after backing Pavarotti
at his charity concert in Modena, Italy, last month. "The whole
audience treated us like it was 1986 and we were still something to scream
and shout about," May said.
And last night at their induction into the Songwriters Hall, they
played "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" with Wynonna Judd before May took
the microphone for "We Will Rock You."
Queen Live at Wembley, featuring those two songs as well as "Bohemian
Rhapsody," "We Are the Champions," "Under Pressure" and other hits, is
due June 17th.
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Rimes Has Fun With "Blonde" - Christmas album due this fall |
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It's an inspirational, rockin' song," says LeAnn Rimes of "We Can," the
track she cut for the upcoming Reese Witherspoon movie Legally Blonde
2. "I definitely get up to the huge high stuff that everyone expects out
of me, but it's a little different too. It's exciting for me to let
loose."
Rimes again paired with writer Diane Warren for the song, the lead
single from the movie's soundtrack, due July 1st. The two previously teamed
up on "Leaving's Not Leaving," from the soundtrack to the 1999 Susan
Sarandon-Natalie Portman film Anywhere But Here, as well as on a number
of album tracks Rimes has recorded since she debuted as a
thirteen-year-old prodigy with 1996's Blue.
Rimes' next album-length release will be a Christmas record of eight
traditional holiday numbers alongside several originals. Due this fall,
the set also features guests spots from the Brian Setzer Orchestra on
three tracks.
"They were an amazing band and fun to work with," Rimes says. "The
album started out very organic and moody -- something you'd chill by the
fire and have a glass of wine with. We wanted to step it up a little bit
with songs like 'Santa Baby.' We put our own little spin on it."
Rimes is on tour this summer, playing intimate shows in support of last
year's Twisted Angel. "It's much different from seeing me as a child,"
Rimes says. "I used to be too shy to talk to everyone in the audience
and now I can't shut up. I do an acoustic set in the middle of the stage
and then we rock it out at the end."
The singer has also been at work on a series of children's books with
her husband Dean Sheremet. Jag, the first, out in late August, follows
the struggles of a young jaguar on its first day of school.
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New Norah Song in Film |
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A new Norah Jones recording, "Those Sweet Words," will be featured in
the new romantic comedy, Alex and Emma, starring Kate Hudson and Luke
Wilson, which opens this Friday.
The song, which Jones wrote with her band member Lee Alexander, is her
first new recording since the release of her multi-platinum debut Come
Away With Me, which won eight Grammy awards earlier this year. Jones
spent part of the spring working on demos with her band for her second
album, but further progress will likely be hindered by a three-month U.S.
tour, which began earlier this month. Gillian Welch will open in June,
with Richard Julian handling warm-up duty for the remainder of the
tour.
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Cheap Trick - First studio album in six years due in July |
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Cheap Trick will release Special One, their first album of new material
in six years, on July 22nd. Over the last three years, the band has
released two live sets and a greatest hits collection, but lingering
problems with record companies delayed efforts to record new material until
recently.
"Our last two studio releases were fiascoes," says guitarist Rick
Nielsen. "For [1994's Woke Up With a Monster], Warner Bros. fired the two
guys that signed us, so nobody wanted to take a shot with us. Then on
[1997's Cheap Trick], the record company went bankrupt days after the
album came out. After that, we were in no hurry with new material."
Nielsen, Robin Zander, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos wrote all the
material for Special One together -- a far cry from when Nielsen wrote
entire albums by himself. But for one song, "Low Life in High Heels,"
they had to turn to producer Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, known for his
work with Blur, Beck and Gorillaz.
"We had that thing in the can for a year or more and couldn't seem to
get the right arrangement," Nielsen says. "The Automator's kind of a fan
of the band, and he thought he could do something with it. The guitar
riff is completely different and there's new drum breaks in there. We
call the remix 'Hummer.'"
More than twenty-five years after Cheap Trick rose to fame with "I Want
You To Want Me," Nielsen says they have moved beyond their signature
song but haven't abandoned it altogether: "In the acoustic version of
'Scent of a Woman' we did the other night, Robin snuck in a verse of 'I
Want You to Want Me.' It's not a bad sentiment."
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Iron Maiden's new album, tour coming from metal vets |
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Iron Maiden's thirteenth studio album, Dance of Death, is slated for a
September release on Columbia. The album will be the band's second
since the reunion of its classic early-Eighties lineup, starring singer
Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith.
The band re-teamed with producer Kevin Shirley, who co-produced 2000's
Brave New World, to record Dance's eleven tracks in London in late
2002. "Recording this album was almost like being back when Number of the
Beast was recorded in that the speed and the energy that went into the
writing and recording was phenomenal," Dickinson said.
In other Maiden news, the band will release a double DVD, Visions of
the Beast, on July 15th. In the meantime, fans will have to hope for a
sneak peek of Dance through Maiden's Give Me Ed 'Til I'm Dead tour, which
will make its way to these shores next month. The twenty-nine-date
itinerary begins on July 21st in Worcester, Massachusetts.
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