“Talking Metal” has posted its latest podcast/episode in which hosts Mark Strigl and John Ostronomy resume their countdown to one of the world’s most-anticipated albums, Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy”. Download the podcast at this location.

“Chinese Democracy” is tentatively set for release on November 25 exclusively through Best Buy, according to RollingStone.com. The unconfirmed report came from a “vendor convention” held by Best Buy last month in Dallas, where Guns manager Andy Gould reportedly told 900 Best Buy employees the news before previewing three songs. Cellphone recordings of the event later surfaced on Guns N’ Roses fan message boards.

Gould also told the crowd that a new GN’R song called “If The World” will play under the closing credits of “Body Of Lies”, the new film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe due out on October 10. That news was confirmed online at film web sites whose representatives had attended a press screening of the flick. “If The World” will not appear on the film’s soundtrack album.

“If The World” features the guitar work of Robin Finck and Buckethead, who have both since departed Guns N’ Roses.

Another new GN’R song, called “Shackler’s Revenge”, appears on the Rock Band 2 video game.

There has been no official confirmation of the new Guns album’s release date or Best Buy deal, although Billboard.com has also reported that the latter is nearly finalized.

“Chinese Democracy” has been more than 13 years in the making, with every original member of Guns N’ Roses except for frontman Axl Rose long since gone from the lineup.

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MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine has revealed in an online posting that acclaimed British producer Andy Sneap (NEVERMORE, EXODUS, ARCH ENEMY, MACHINE HEAD) will fly over to Southern California on September 8 to “tweak some last-minute stuff” at Mustaine’s new recording studio before returning again at the end of the month, presumably to helm the recording sessions for the group’s new album.

Sneap produced MEGADETH’s last album, “United Abominations”, which came out in May 2007 via Roadrunner Records. Mustaine previously stated about working with Andy, “We’d been working with Jeff Balding, who does a great job. But we knew we needed something else to give the material that extra push, so we brought in Andy. It was cool because he isn’t like some big rock-star producer. He was just another Joe to me. So we were trading jokes and laughing and it was fun. My sense of humour is pretty close to a British one, so we worked well together. Also, Andy told me I was the reason that he got into playing metal in the first place, which was really flattering.”

MEGADETH’s forthcoming album will be the group’s first with guitarist Chris Broderick (NEVERMORE, JAG PANZER), who replaced Glen Drover at the end of last year.

Thanks for the report to Blabbermouth.net.

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The wait is over. AC/DC released their new single, Rock ‘n’ Roll Train, worldwide. The song has been posted on their official MySpace page. Some people have already posted videos on YouTube containing the song. Following review taken from Blabbermouth.net:

Rolling Stone has posted a short “review” of the new AC/DC album “Black Ice”, which the magazine apparently heard during a listening session the Sony headquarters on New York’s Madison Avenue. According to the Rolling Stone, the 15-song CD, which was recorded in Vancouver in just eight weeks with producer Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Velvet Revolver), features AC/DC singer Brian Johnson wailing “about skies on fire, blood in his eyes, storms raging, lightning flashes, hard rain and pretty women. Angus Young [guitar] shreds throughout (we dig his slide work on ‘Decibel’), and the rhythm cats — Malcom Young [guitar], Cliff Williams [bass] and Phil Rudd [drums] — are solid as a rock. The first single is ‘Rock ‘n Roll Train’; ‘She Likes Rock ‘n Roll’ will be a stripper anthem; and ‘War Machine’ (our favorite) will tear you to pieces.”

“Black Ice” has had its release date pushed up one week, from October 28 to October 21. The record, AC/DC’s first in eight years, will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.

“Rock ‘n Roll Train” will arrive at radio stations August 28. A source at Harddrive Radio described it as “smoking hot. It’s AC/DC like we love them, loud, anthemic and hard!”

“Black Ice” is AC/DC’s first new studio effort since 2000’s “Stiff Upper Lip”.

The legendary rockers are slated to begin an 18-month world tour in October, with the trek reportedly kicking off on around Halloween in Chicago.

The 1977 AC/DC song “Let There Be Rock” will be featured in the new Rock Band 2 video game, due out in September. This will mark the band’s first and so far only contribution to a video game soundtrack.

Hear the song, hear the sheer awesomeness!

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In the eighties it was all new romantics and hair metal, then grunge and britpop in the 90’s among other things. Now we’ve got, um, skinny jeans but enough about them. The difference with now is that all of those new genres in the past never went away. This is evident when you take a look at what acts are playing in your nearest city. There’s new music like arctic monkeys and rhianna next to acts like AC/DC and Bob Dylan. It always surprises me who’s still touring. So while punk, grunge, rave and all the rest all faded out of the mainstream after the initial scene wore out they never went away entirely.

Whatever music you play there will be a market for it somewhere no matter how small. How do you attract the attention of your market? Well, to start you need to decide what genre your music falls into. A lot of acts will pipe up and say “we’re a fusion of rock, ska and pop”. Unless you do genuinely fall into a mix of genres don’t say you do. It will only confuse your potential audience. It also leads people to expect some crazy new sound. If you have one go for it but genres are there for a reason. So that people can find new music that they will have a better chance of liking. It’s possible to alienate potential fans by describing your sound as emo hardcore when you’re actually just rock.

Once you’ve decided what you sound like you can start to target the right people. Instead of random friend adding (something i’m guilty of) on social networking sites or putting up posters all over town (this works a treat if you’ve got a good budget behind you) try and focus your efforts on the people with an interest in your genre, people that are in your local area and also postering the hell out of your local venues. Social media sites have made it easier than ever to connect with your fan base and in my opinion do away with the middle man. I.e. The label. Once you’re connected with your audience make sure you have something to offer them like a download, mailing list, video or a gig in their area. This should help you get your music in front of the right ears.

Rock n Roll

I’m sorry that I am writing another article about Michael Jackson, it’s just that I’ve been busy, and since this site used to be only about MJ, I still receive alot of news so its very easy for me to write about him, but I promise that I’ll write about more subjects soon :0Þ

There is one major reason why I am not a super huge MJ fan anymore. One of the main reasons is (well besides how boring he is lately): he keeps releasing the same crap over and over again, and its embarrassing. I’ve talked about this before on his last two greatest hits releases, and now there is another? How damn pathetic. I think it’s also wrong of him to even take advantage of his MJ LOYAL desperate fans out there. He knows they’ll buy whatever lame crap that he places his name upon, and that’s why I feel he keeps doing this.

Some of the fans say to themselves "It’s Sony doing this, not Michael", but whatever. I’d like to think that he has some say over his music, and name being put out there.

So it turns out for his 50th Birthday, Sony is going to release another MJ album called "King Of Pop: Greatest Hits". Which is why I am going to call him "King of releasing the same shit over and over again", or "King of greatest hits albums". its so lame. I know other artists such as Elvis have tons of greatest hits albums, but they’re dead and cant make any new material, and plus the songs were recorded decades ago, so its very different, still lame, but different.

they’re going to run out of clever names for these releases soon enough.

So let’s see.  The new Greatest hits album will have the following tracks:

CD1
‘Billie Jean’, ‘Bad’, ‘Say Say Say’ (with Paul McCartney), ‘Thriller’, ‘Ghost’, ‘Will You Be There’, ‘Heal The World’, ‘Smooth Criminal’, ‘Jam’, ‘Scream’ (with Janet Jackson), ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ (with Siedah Garrett), ‘Black Or White’, ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, ‘Come Together’, ‘We Are The World’ (Demo Version)

CD2
‘Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough’, ‘Beat It’, ‘Dangerous’, ‘Dirty Diana’, ‘You Are Not Alone’, ‘Remember The Time’, ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’, ‘Man In The Mirror’, ‘Earth Song’, ‘She’s Out Of My Life’, ‘The Girl Is Mine’ (with Paul McCartney), ‘You Rock My World’, ‘Blood On The Dance Floor’, ‘Wanna Be Starting Something’, ‘Billie Jean 2008′ (feat. Kayne West), ‘Thriller Megamix’ (Radio Edit) 

Almost all of these songs have been released several times now, but only repackaged different. All the original songs were released twice as an entire album. First for the original album, and again in 2001 on the "Special Edition" albums, which were really just the same thing as the original, with some special tracks, and each song was supposedly "Remastered".

Then Michael released "HIStory in 1995, which had a separate cd with his older greatest hits songs. So we can actually count that as greatest hits cd 1. It was also released later on as a separate disc, so we can count that as Greatest hits # 2, since it was released twice with a new package.

In 2003 - "Number Ones" was released, which was…. a greatest hits album. Which makes 3 Greatest Hits album so far, in less than a decade.
in 2004 - "The Ultimate Collection" was released, which in my opinion is the only real greatest hits album, and the only one worth buying so far. It had 4 cd’s and 1 DVD concert dvd. The songs ranged from his Jackson 5 days, til the 2004 Present. I do love this collection, but again he ruined it with all the other releases that had the same exact songs on it.

So that’ll be 5 Greatest Hits albums in less than a decade.

2005 - "The essential Michael Jackson" was released, which had 2 cd’s of mostly the same songs that were released on the previous greatest hits albums less than a year before. I bought this album, but only because I was a fan at the time, and it did have "Can you feel it" which is a great song, and I had money to spend. I kinda regret it, ha.

So that’ll make 6 greatest hits albums in 10 years.

For some reason, I really feel that im leaving one out, but it looks to be about right.

Oh yeah, we don’t want to forget about the "25th Thriller Anniversary"  album that just recently came out. Which means that album was released 3 times, only repackaged. Original release was in the 80s. Special Edition in 2001, and now this one. Ah. At least they made it appear to have a valid release point, lets see if there is a 30th, 35th, and then 40th version. I’m going to wait until the 95th version is released.

I seriously think that Michael owes his fans. He needs to quit releasing the same stuff over and over again, with silly new labels and titles, just to get money from his desperate fans. It’s not right, and actually seems a bit evil. Remember  MJ’s song "Money". The line goes "You’ll do Anything for money".
It honestly looks bad. one or two may have been acceptable at least 5 years apart. but not 6 in a 10 year time frame.

Fellow or recently ex mj fans: Do not buy these albums anymore. I know you want to support Michael for the idea of what he once was. But he is doing this to get money, and us buying them really just tells him it’ll work. it’s not right, and we fans deserve better. And do not think that it is just Sony and that michael has no say so over this. He owns his lyrics, songs, music and has rights to disagree to a release.

So I started Listening to the songs, and really I wasn’t interested. I mean female entertainers singing about hot sex and such isn’t anything rare anymore, at least it wasn’t 40ish year old Janet Jackson this time right? ha.

The songs on the album are actually pretty decent musically. They have nice melody and sounds, even though they are all mostly about the same thing. I didn’t really have time to listen to the complete entire album song such as complete tracks, and I wanted to find a slow song that has meaning such as her song “Everytime” which I do love, so I was skipping through the songs ( an actual review of the album will come later, and I will listen to each song through and give a final review). and waited to I got to a slow one as I stated, or one that just caught me.

Actually none got my ear, until I got to the 10th track labeled “Ooh Ooh Baby”.
This song has a really nice vibe to it, and is completely unique to the rest of the album excluding the sexual lyrics.
The first verse really reminds me of the 70’s song “Happy Together”. The melody way of the verse sounds just like it, but with a tad bit a originality to it, but not much. I think others will find the similarities as well.

I am pretty sure that this song will be a hit if not already in some regions, if only people would give her a chance. She should have performed this song on last years MTV VMA’s.

I’ll write a more in depth review of the album soon.

Here is the song, check it out!

Although its said that she may as well be a junkie and crackhead, her music is still much better than most of the commercial BS that is out there right now due to it actually being from her and about how she feels and such. Gotta give her credits for that.
If the media reports were right, and all these pictures I’ve seen of her being cut all over and looking like a druggy, then I hope she finds a way to clean herself up.

Anyway’s
I do wish her well though.
Full News Story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080729/ap_en_mu/people_amy_winehouse;_ylt=AmakH1Gjng8hRKE5wXhi6mWVEhkF

This song isn’t a recent one, however I do think that Michael could be updating the sound and vocals for his next album. At least I really feel that he does, because this is his unique style, and I love it so much. It really reminds me of my favorite album of all time, which is his “Dangerous”,

I believe that he was working on this song with Barry Gibb of the BeeJee’s before the last child molestation thing started. I suppose the trial put it on hold? or Canceled the entire project? This song actually appeared around a time when I was unsure that Michael still had his gift, because Invincible had been released and the album just wasn’t the style or anything like him, and I was a bit let down by it, but this song made me so happy to hear him and his actual style again. I love it.

It’s rare to ever find a good song anymore, and the peeps at the other forum were wanting to hear rare MJ stuff, so I told them that I’d post this for them, and for anyone else who hasn’t heard it.

And let’s hope that Michael DOES include this song on his next album. It’d be such a shame if he doesn’t.
also pay special attention  to the bridge in the song, its very beautiful

Download click icon to hear - Michael Jackson “Escape”

I even remember being like 6 or 7 years old and wishing I was a member of the group. I don’t know why really, but the youngest group member of NKOTB was only a few years older so why couldn’t it be me? ha, but anyway’s. I was never a real big huge fan, them and the music was just there.

A couple months ago I heard that they were getting back together and having at our in the upcoming fall, which I thought was very odd since they are super old, so I googled it and found their performance on the Today Show while searching youtube. The song starts out with a beautiful piano and goes into a nice instrumental melody, which I was instantly attracted to. This type of music was lost long ago. Music with melodies and actual lyrics. Instantly I was hooked. It sounded like something from the 80’s but updated to the now and future, and I honestly loved it.

I miss this type of music. I can admit that I am a huge fan of Pop music, and I seriously miss it. Lately all the music seems to be the same and only made to sell albums rather then to create feelings and all that good stuff. So this was “music to my ears”.. yeah I just said that. It made me happy and excited about the future because honestly there wasn’t much to look forward to in the music world. Same old thing over again really besides a good hit here and there.

I do think that they may have a chance to be big though, they have tons of older fans now that want to relive their teen days, and I really think that them alone will sell out the stadiums, at least at first until the hype is over with.
I have also seen alot of new teen fans online that reply to these videos, so Maybe they can even sell out stadiums with younger fans. I can say that I honestly would not be surprised.

They actually seem to be more talented and appealing now than they did back in the day when they were all young and being teen heart throbs or whatever it is they call them, ha. Easier to take seriously now, but only if you forget the entire boy band and age concept.

I do however wonder what will happen to Donnie’s acting career, which really seemed to be taking off lately. He seemed to be a badass in most of the movies he was in, and now he’s a middle aged man in a boy band singing about girls on beaches. I wonder if people will take him seriously again as a badass actor? Maybe he can still pull it off. I am fan of his though via the movies.

I must say that I am very disappointed in the actual video for the song. If they are wanting to get back to the mainstream, they need to take it a bit more seriously. I have never really watched NKOTB videos before, besides the live concerts my sister used to play, but since hearing the new song it got my interested nad I googled and watched some of the videos. NKOTB do make some seriously lame cheesy videos, that they don’t even seem to be trying to act or show emotion in. They have seemed to have done this their entire career from what I can tell, and its nothing new with the new video for SUMMERTIME.

There is no real plot for the video, it’s just random clips of them walking on beaches, running in the jungle, driving cars in circles, and going to a party. nothing really interesting. So yeah it was a big let down.

So I refuse to post that video on here, it’s sad. ha.

But I will post the first live broadcast performance of summertime, where I actually heard the song for the first time.
Here you go, hope you enjoy it.
Let’s hope that Pop music does come back! (but less cheesy/corny)

The song is actually pretty good. It’s a bit simple lyric-wise but its really nice to hear MJ out doing what he does best, which is music.

I love how Michael opens the song up with his amazing voice which reminds me of the Bad and pre Bad eras, and it’s actually gotten me pretty excited about the future and what Michael has in store.

To be honest, I’m not much of a fan of Akon’s. I never have been. But I do love this song, and its not only because Michael is in it, but because overall it is a pretty damn good song.

However I really cant seem to get over the entire thing where it sounds as though they are singing it to each other as a duet.

Enjoy:

Download click icon to hear - Akon Ft MJ - Hold My hand