Bloggers and activists from China, a Middle East and Latin America pronounced Friday they were fearful that new Twitter policies could concede governments to bury messages, gloomy giveaway expression.

Image Credit: Lester Cohen/WireImage.com

One of a vast stories of this week’s Oscar nominations was a proclamation that, for a initial time in history, usually dual songs have been given a curtsy in a Best Song category: Bret McKenzie’s “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets and a Rio series “Real in Rio,” that was co-written by mythological Brazilian musician Sérgio Mendes. Below, Bruce Broughton, who is chair of a Academy’s Music Branch Executive Committee, explains how usually a prop of songs came to accept noms and since a conditions competence prompt a order change.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Were we astounded usually dual songs were nominated this year?
BRUCE BROUGHTON: we was surprised. we consider everybody was surprised. The good news is that, a approach a manners are set out, there could have been no nominations. But we do get a sincerely vast response from voters. So it’s not like it was a organisation of 7 people who sat together and thought, “Oh screw it, we’re gonna come adult with two.” we mean, it’s not like dual lousy songs were nominated. They’re both good songs. It’s usually that there’s usually dual of them.

The strain bend introduced a new assignment voting complement a integrate of years ago. Could we explain it?
It’s a 1 to 10 indicate scale, though a lowest we can opinion for is 6. So, if we saw a strain that was unequivocally not estimable of nomination, we competence give that a 6 or a 6.5 or a 7. If we suspicion it was unequivocally terrific, we could give it a 9 or a 9.5 or a 10. Then all these things are combined up. Any strain that creates during slightest 8.25 will be nominated.  If there’s usually one strain that has reached that indicate level, afterwards a subsequent top point-getter will be changed adult so there will be a contest.

So it is probable we were one usually one “good” strain divided from not carrying a difficulty during all.
Yeah. It was an component of a order there was a lot of review about. It was like, “Do we unequivocally wish to risk not carrying a category?” The reason that led to this was that we wanted to be certain that a best songs would come out.

What kind of greeting have we had from strain bend members?
Surprise. I’ve gotten a few phone calls. I’ve got some emails. we can contend this: The strain bend is famous for modifying a rules. I’m certain that we will demeanour during this one and see either it indeed produces a outcome that we wanted or either it indeed does something that we unequivocally didn’t wish and didn’t intend. Because we don’t wish to find that estimable songs and artistic people are released from being recognized.

You competence caring to know that, on Tuesday, we spoke to both Sérgio Mendes and Bret McKenzie and they were both perfectly happy about a fact usually dual songs had been nominated.
[Laughs] I’m certain they will. And good fitness for both of them.

I trust Madonna’s Golden Globe-winning strain “Masterpiece” was incompetent for assignment since it was a second strain on a shutting credits of W.E. rather than a first. Is a order governing that conditions one a bend competence also reconsider?
No. That one we doubt would get reconsidered.

Do we know if both nominated songs will be achieved during a rite itself?
I’m not unequivocally sure. The governors have a assembly with a producers [of a show], we think, subsequent week. At that they’ll speak about how a songs will be performed. we would say, this year, if a uncover goes long, it won’t be since of a songs!

Read more:
Sergio Mendes says a ‘Rio’ supplement ‘looks like it’s going to happen’
Oscars 2012: Why did usually dual tunes get nominated in a Best Song category?
‘Muppets’ songwriter Bret McKenzie talks about confronting off opposite Sergio Mendes in a Best Song Oscar race: ‘I’m anticipating we have a drum conflict on a red carpet!’

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) – Digital song revenues rose 8 percent in 2011 to $5.2 billion, though it was not adequate to forestall another annual decrease in a altogether marketplace to $16.2 billion from $16.7 billion in 2010.

Figures expelled on Monday by record attention physique a International Federation of a Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reliable expectations that a downward trend that began in a late 1990s continued final year.

The good news was that a 2011 decrease of around 3 percent was smaller than a 8 percent dump in 2010, and there were signs that a attention was finally commencement to get on tip of a prevalent online robbery it blames for a woes.

Record tag bosses were carefully confident that song revenues would finally lapse to expansion in 2013, a perspective not common by everybody in a business.

“The destiny is looking intensely bright. Has a attention incited a corner? I’m really some-more certain now than I’ve ever been,” pronounced Rob Wells, boss of tellurian digital business during Universal Music Group, a world’s biggest label.

“I consider 2013 is substantially a protected bet,” he told an IFPI lecture in London. “However, notwithstanding all a good news, still good bid needs to be put on a robbery problem that still exists.”

Edgar Berger, boss and CEO International during Sony Music Entertainment, added: “I consider a sourroundings is changing agreeably and we’re going from headwind to tailwind.”

Frances Moore, arch executive of a IFPI, pronounced vital authorised digital song services widespread dramatically final year to 58 countries from 23 in 2010.

She welcomed a attainment of new models for accessing music, including cloud-based services like iTunes Match, and pronounced a series of subscribers to sites like Spotify and Deezer had jumped to 13.4 million from 8.2 million in 2010.

But notwithstanding signs that governments were holding a emanate of robbery some-more seriously, it continued to criticise a recording industry’s efforts to lapse to growth.

The IFPI estimated that 28 percent of internet users accessed unapproved services on a monthly basis.

Wells pronounced piracy’s stress could not be played down.

“Spain, that should be a powerhouse of repertoire for Latin America and a U.S. Latin market, is effectively a passed market,” he said. “Yet in South Korea, where we have new anti-piracy laws, a marketplace is surging and now swelling a repertoire distant over a possess borders.”

“PIRATE” BATTLES

The IFPI news came only days after a U.S. supervision close down a Megaupload.com calm pity website, a latest push in a conflict opposite a robbery of cinema and music.

Soon after, FileSonic, another website providing online information storage, infirm a file-sharing services.

The film and song industries wish Congress to moment down on Internet robbery and calm theft, though vital Internet companies including Google and Facebook have complained that stream drafts of a legislation would lead to censorship.

A priority for 2012, a IFPI’s Moore said, would be to inspire hunt engines like Google to do some-more to prioritize authorised song sites and assistance forestall a appropriation of bootleg sites by advertising.

In 2011, a IFPI estimated that 3.6 billion downloads were purchased globally, mixing singles and manuscript downloads, an boost of 17 percent.

The many renouned digital singular final year was Bruno Mars’ “Just a Way You Are” with 12.5 million downloads.

Industry executives interviewed by a IFPI pronounced they saw expansion intensity in both categorical models of online song services — “ownership” and “access” — and softened record and broadband invasion should also help.

There were enlivening signs for a manuscript format, too, with digital manuscript volumes surging 24 percent in 2011 and defying predictions that a download age would spell a finish of a LP as listeners cherry picked their favorite singles.

Overall a song marketplace has shrunk each year given 2004, notwithstanding digital revenues rising.

In 2004, when digital sales initial purebred in IFPI statistics, a altogether song attention was value $24.3 billion, according to a latest practiced figures.

Other sectors, like edition and movies, are endangered that a pain a recording attention has left by for a best partial of a decade awaits them in a future.

Digital sales accounted for 32 percent of tellurian song revenues in 2011, compared with 5 percent for newspapers, 4 percent for books and only one percent for films.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, modifying by Paul Casciato)

Sixteen months later, he’s walking. And he wants to write a strain about it.

Sargent’s phone is full of Prince hits. He likes Merle Haggard, too. But he doesn’t caring either his strain is RB or country. He usually wants it to be about how America doesn’t know a soldiers after a decade of war.

The 41-year-old Army staff sergeant was one of 11 veterans collected during a plush hotel in this dull towering city nearby Fort Carson final weekend to unseat their many formidable memories into music. The four-day stay was hosted by LifeQuest Transitions, a Colorado Springs-based nonprofit classification that helps veterans navigate a uncharted jump from a terrain to municipal life — and one of a few doing it by a arts.

On Friday afternoon, Sargent plopped down on songwriter Radney Foster’s hotel room lounge and began to talk. About Iraq. About a suffocating heat. About a incessant highlight of combat. About a insensibility that solemnly crept adult his legs in a becloud hours after a blast that pennyless his back. About a basin that clamped down once he returned home. About a nights he spent laying on piles of unwashed washing in his bedroom closet, anticipating to find adequate quiet, adequate dark to nap by his nightmares.

Foster and Darden Smith, dual venerable songwriters who have been concerned with a stay given a inception, listen closely. As Sargent lets a difference spill, they collect them up, allot them a shape, a melody, tortuous them into rhyme.

Ninety mins later, they’ve finished “It Is What It Is,” a strain about a infantryman finally embarking on a homeward tour that he’s prolonged expected — yet in a medevac helicopter.

“These dog tags on my belt loop,” Foster sings, “remind me I’m still alive.”

The puddles that have been building in Sargent’s eyes brief over. “This is a initial time I’ve listened myself speak,” he says. “It’s like I’m conference myself talk.”

He slips out a shifting potion door, onto a hotel patio. Smith and Foster set down their guitars and follow him outside. As a afternoon object sinks into a Rocky Mountains, Sargent crushes his Marlboro underfoot and exhales.

“I’m recovering myself by we guys,” he says.

According to a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, some-more than 13 percent of post-9/11 veterans were impoverished final month, compared with 8.5 percent for a country. Veterans comment for 20 percent of suicides in America, even yet veterans make adult usually 7 percent of a altogether population. And according to a Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a divorce rate among use members increasing from 2.6 percent in 2001 to 3.6 percent in 2010.

LifeQuest started a strain stay as partial of a altogether bid to assistance quarrel a existence those total represent. The participants that they’ve invited are group and women, ages 26 to 56, from a Army, Air Force and Marines. Most are grappling with post-traumatic stress. Some have suffered dire mind injuries. Two will lapse to avocation this year. All are invariably bettering to a home that feels illusory after years in combat.

On Sunday, Epic Records’ authority and CEO L.A. Reid tweeted about a prolonged awaited Fiona Apple album, writing, “Lots of good strain entrance from @Epic_Records in a subsequent few weeks. Stay tuned strain fans. Welcome behind Fiona!” Apple, who hasn’t expelled any strain given her 2005 manuscript Extraordinary Machine, has been rumored to have an album’s value of new element for utterly sometime. The news widespread over Twitter, with fans posting strain lyrics from her progressing work and speculating about her new songs. “I’m so happy about this we could cry!!!” Perez Hilton gushed.

Fiona Apple manuscript rumors aren’t always arguable — after all, Machine endured so many delays that fans started a “Free Fiona” debate for a recover — so we called Epic Records to find out if a proclamation was indeed correct. An Epic mouthpiece reliable that Apple would really recover a studio manuscript in 2012 though she pronounced that Reid’s tweets were “taken a small bit out of context” and that a tunes wouldn’t arrive subsequent month. “It’ll positively be this year,” she said, “but timing wise, we don’t know accurately when.”

Artist Index

A B C
D E F
G H I
J K L
M N O
P Q R
S T U
V W X
Y Z 0

BY CHUCK DAUPHIN

January 18, 2012 4:50PM

• Reprints

Del McCoury and a Preservation Hall Jazz Band will be during North Central College Apr 8. Courtesy of North Central College

Chicago
Bluegrass Blues
Festival

Del McCoury Band; David Grisman Quintet; Joe Purdy; Giving Tree Band; Henhouse Prowlers; Majors Junction

† 2 p.m. Jan. 21

† Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress

† Tickets, $39.50-$59.50
† (800) 745-3000;

ticketmaster.com

Updated: January 18, 2012 4:50PM

Some contingency have been astounded to see Del McCoury announced final tumble as one of dual new inductees into a Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

Not by a eminence — McCoury has been one of Bluegrass’ some-more ancestral and on-going total for tighten to 5 decades — though that he wasn’t already enshrined for his career accomplishments.

Accepting a respect during Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium — a same place he started personification in a rope of Bill Monroe in 1963 — was an overwhelming fame of itself, he said. “My mind was going during about a thousand miles an hour, going from here to there to everywhere. we couldn’t speak like we wanted to. we was forgetful people’s names and everything. But, we suspicion about it later.

“When we initial started personification music, we never suspicion about awards and things like that. we usually desired to play music. Sooner or later, people commend we for wanting to do it.”

And do it he has. Starting with Monroe, McCoury has stayed with it over a years, and a McCoury name — by him and his sons Ronnie and Rob — has turn one of a many compared with Bluegrass Music. He’s in Chicago for a Bluegrass Blues Festival on Jan. 21.

For his latest album, McCoury motionless to step behind in time to those early days. “Old Memories: The Songs of Bill Monroe” is a reverence manuscript to his mentor. In recording a disc, he wanted to proceed it a small opposite than how others had paid reverence to a “Father of Bluegrass.”

“I had worked with him and sang some of a songs with him,” he recalls. ‘I consider we did ‘In Despair’ on each show, so we put that on there. we didn’t wish to put things on there that had been accessible a lot, like ‘Uncle Pen’ or ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky,’ though he had so many other good songs. we figured that if we was ever going to do a reverence to him, this would be a time — with his 100th birthday. Some of a songs on there, we had never listened him sing live. There were certain songs we would do for a while, afterwards he would start doing things from a new record, and a comparison songs would get neglected.”

Of his favorites on a disc, McCoury pronounced that “I adore a ‘Lonesome Truck Driver’s Blues.’ It kind of strike home with me since before we went to work for Bill, we was pushing a truck. we remember my hermit G.C. bought that record. He was 9 years comparison than me, so we got to listen to all a annals he bought. ‘The Girl in a Blue Velvet Band,’ we theory those competence be a closest to me than any. I’ve played them over and over,” he says with a smile.

McCoury says that a manuscript came together as it went along, as there was no vital plans for how it would come out.

“I didn’t unequivocally know what we was going to do when we got into a studio. we got in there with a few things in my conduct to do, and of course, a boys would advise something, though for a many part, we had them in my head.”

Due on CD on Jan. 31, “Old Memories” already is accessible on vinyl — as good as for digital download.

“Isn’t that something,” McCoury pronounced of a new call of technology. “It’s so fast. If a chairman wanted to hear a song, we had to hunt adult a record. we remember going to learn a song, we would have to go listen to a record in a WSM library. Now, all we do is punch a few difference in on a computer, and there it is.”

McCoury says that he is anxious with a state of bluegrass right now, observant that, “It is in improved figure than it’s ever been in, as distant as popularity, and people being means to get work. When we initial started listening to it, there were usually a few that were means to make a vital playing. You could substantially count on dual hands. The artists are great, and a strain is great, too. It’s usually a good time for bluegrass music.”

Billboard.com

Despite all a Grammy nods and side gigs personification drum with a Rolling Stones and former tag trainer Madonna, Meshell Ndegeocello seems doomed to be perpetually underrated. Too bad. Nearly dual decades into her career, she recently expelled one of her best albums yet, “Weather.”

It provides a ideal forgive to locate her energetic live show, in that she decently retools her songs alongside those by personal heroes such as Prince and Gil Scott-Heron. Ndegeocello, 43, performs Sunday and Monday during a Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. She spoke to us from her home in New York.

Q: This is your ninth studio album. It’s not ostensible to be this good.

A: I should put we in a small box and take we everywhere with me. we unequivocally conclude that. we only like creation these things.

Q: “Weather” competence enclose some of your many personal work yet. Did we know we were going to exhibit so most going into it?

A: Not really. we theory if we did consider about that, it wouldn’t come out. In my mind I’m already somewhere else. we don’t consider about it that much.

Q: But it only came out.

A: we know. It’s so weird. I’m in a whole other conduct space. The songs can exist on their possess but me carrying to be in that certain place. we only did a tour, and we solemnly found myself totally changing all a songs.

Q: You once pronounced we don’t wish to have a strike since if we had to do a same strain each night, a same way, you’d fire yourself.

A: Right in a head.

Q: I’m a small bit disturbed since a strain “Dirty World” competence be a hit.

A: Catch yourself. That’s a bad word.

Q: You’re a one who … got 10 Grammy nominations.

A: Look where that’s going. That will shortly be in a past. That’s great. we feel unequivocally unapproachable of those things. But, like we said, we would fire myself.

Q: So let me get this straight: Even yet we put out albums, you’re not meddlesome in carrying hits, winning awards or even personification your possess songs?

A: I get how it all works, and it would yield some-more confidence in my job. But we try to keep that out of my mind so we can consider about a thing that creates it fun — and that’s creation a music.

GOOD COMPANY
Kerong Chok
(www.kerongchok.com)

GOOD COMPANY

WOW JAZZ 4

‘ARPANAM’ THE FINAL CUT

SINGAPOREAN musician-composer and counsel Kerong Chok’s entrance album, Good Company, is a delight of 9 years in a strain arena, both on a island commonwealth and in a United States.

Filled with a sound of a Hammond organ by Kerong himself, Good Company also boasts Lucas Pino on effort and soprano saxophones and flute, Jake Goldbas (drums and percussion), Michael Valeanu (guitars) and Matt Holman (trumpet on marks 3 and 8).

While a manuscript is a debut, a garb works a instruments into a parsimonious weave.

Good Company is a well-spoken smoothness of nu-jazz. From a opener  Black Ice to Sounds From The Black Alley, pitch jazz rules, bringing a mood to that place of mellow coolness.

I favourite roughly all a 10 marks including a percussion-driven The First Day Of School, Incessant with a garb any carrying their say, For Kenny where a saxophone carries a tune with warmth, a musty Free And Easy and a edgier closer Rill Son.

The layering on Literacy is ethereal with an RB line to a track. Only a pretension lane was a bit too laidback for my funkier taste.

Kerong’s records states he started on a piano during 4, and during 18 had entered a strain stage personification with jazz, RB and pop-rock bands.

By a finish of his law degree, his jazz voice was honed and he got a grant to review for a Master’s in jazz opening during a Manhattan School of Jazz.

Since then, a NYC-based pianist-organist-composer has played during several venues including a Blue Note bar in New York City and with Steve Wilson, among other artistes in a US. Good Company is a superb debut.

WOW JAZZ 4
Various Artistes
Warner Music

THIS fourth book in a Wow array by Warner Music is a 2-CD gathering of singing legends and proteges. There are 30 obvious marks achieved by, among others, Willie Nelson (Always On My Mind), Eric Clapton (Autumn Leaves), a late Eva Cassidy (Yesterday) and zydeco artist Dr John (Satin Doll).

CD One has some-more contemporary artistes including Norah Jones (Sunrise), Michael Buble (Sway) and Rumer (Alfie), among others, while a second CD has some-more legends including Linda Ronstadt (I Love You For Sentimental Reasons) and Dinah Shore (It Had To Be You).

The interpretations are what make a manuscript interesting. For instance, essence thespian Bettye Swann’s delivery of a well-covered RB song, Tell It Like It Is, and Johnny Hartman’s My Favourite Things (from The Sound Of Music) is pristine jazz a la John Coltrane.

How Insensitive, loosely formed on Chopin’s Prelude No 4, gets a mellow feel from Sinead O’ Connor while Aguas De Marco by Cibo Matto, a rope comprising US-based Japanese women and Sean Lennon, among others, is samba-beat driven.

One Day In Your Life by Dutch pop-jazz thespian Trijntje Oosterhuis is a honeyed delivery that is a noted contrariety to a clarity in Natalie Cole’s Stardust.

An heterogeneous offering, accessible usually in Rock Corner outlets in Malaysia.

‘ARPANAM’ THE FINAL CUT
Mista G
Suara Network

THIS 11-track entrance studio manuscript by Mista G is a mostly a dance bar offering.

The former Lock Up cocktail rope member famous as Lock Up Guna sings in Tamil, English, and Bahasa Malaysia on many of a songs, along with guest artistes. These embody Aamigoz Sugu, Rabbit Mac, and Sasi a Don. Mista G has also created many of a songs, and a few with composers including Bob Nathan, MC Loga, and Licas Tony.

The manuscript is a excellent showcase of talent. Employing techno beats, a melodies operation from reggae and swat to hip-hop. But, they all have an trace of normal Indian ragas. For instance, Kuzhalladum, featuring a honeyed vocals of

Preeta Prasad, is a complicated Tamil hip-hop series given a normal Indian raga.

Another instance is Chal Chal, sampled from a strike strain Chal Chal Mere Haathi from a classical film Haathi Mere Saathi, that now gets a reggae twist.

The dual delayed stone ballads — Kathelley and Cinta Sepi featuring Alleycats’ Datuk David Arumugam — are memorable. Featuring David, a vocals harmonize good with a lyrics that are in Bahasa Malaysia and Tamil. Digital downloads for a manuscript are underneath Universal Music, and we can design to hear most airplay of Mista G’s familiar entrance solo album.

Get Arpanam — definition my loyalty in Tamil — to get into an upbeat mood.
 

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