Hot Music Beat

John Mayer wasn’t able tospend the holidays with his girlfriend Jennifer Aniston. Instead, the singer spread some holiday cheer at the 95.5 WPLJ-FM’s 17th Annual Holiday Concert at Blythedale Children’s Hospital last week in Valhalla, New York. He liked doing charity more than getting some loving from Jen. The 31-year old musician joined Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas onstage for a rendition of Ben E. King’s classic ‘Stand By Me’. About 400 people turned out for the invitation-only concert, which hospital officials said raises about $250,000 a year. John and Rob weren’t alone in their causes though as they were also joined by musicians Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles.

For $40,000, you can hear a wasted John Lennon sing about sucking nipples. There was a recent auction at the auction house Bonham’s which sold Lennon’s outtake of the 1973 song ‘Just Because’ to the highest bidder. According to the NY Post, on the track, you hear the former Beatle slue “I wanna take all them new singers, Carol and the other one with the nipples, I wanna take ‘em and hold ‘em tight, all them people that James Taylor had… I wanna suck your nipples, baby!” I’m guessing that Carol is Carole King and the so called other one with the nipples is Carly Simon.

Rihanna and boyfriend Chris Brown kept their romance going strong in Paris last week. Rihanna looked like she was freezing. I hope Chris was a gentleman and offered her his puff jacket. Earlier that day, the 20-year old Barbadian singer performed at French reality TV show ‘Star Academy’. She performed her hit song ‘Umbrella’ with one of the contestants. Rihanna also performed her latest single ‘Rehab’. In other Rihanna news, Rihanna’s participation at an inauguration charity ball on January 20, 2009 has been confirmed as Feeding America and Recording Industry Association of America announced her performance. All of the proceeds will go directly to Feeding America.

From one couple’s marriage troubles to another. Despite all the divorce rumors surrounding Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, the Coldplay front man is denying that they are having any trouble at all. He said “I’m trying to think of when the last bit of bad news was. Well there hasn’t been anything for a while. I’m supposed to be getting divorced but those things aren’t happening so don’t really count as bad news.” That’s what they all say. But look at Madonna and Guy Ritchie. They went that route before but we all know how they ended up don’t we?

These Green Eyes, fresh off the Atticus tour, have decided to celebrate the coming Holidays with a cover of The Kinks “Father Christmas.” The track can be heard exclusively on AbsolutePunk.net, but will be made available to the public to download for one day only (Tuesday 12/23) on LiveDaily.com. For a glimpse into the recording of “Father Christmas” check out the video diary here.

The recording of “Father Christmas” only half completed the Holiday and end of the year traditions for lead singer Colin Cunningham. The other half  of the tradition has come in the form of an end of the year list packed with the best albums and best songs of the year along with the album he deemed “biggest disappointment”.

And for 2009, Colin has resolved… you’ll have to check his list to find out!!

Top Albums of 2008
Polar Bear Club – Sometimes Things Just Disappear
Alkaline Trio – Agony & Irony
Kill The Frontman – Songs From The Game Room
Why? – Alopecia
Gym Class Heroes – The Quilt
Nada Surf – Lucky
Valencia – We All Need A Reason To Believe
The Streets – Everything Is Borrowed
Rise Against – Appeal To Reason
Mitch Hedberg – Do You Believe In Gosh?

Top Songs of 2008
”Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” – Dustin Kensrue
”Half The World Away”  – The Anix
”Breaking” – Anberlin
”Don’t Stop” – InnerPartySystem
”I Found Away” – Alkaline Trio
”Abracadavers” – The Classic Crime
”Sleep With Your Soul In” – Alive In Wild Paint
”Ruby Room” – The Foxboro Hot Tubs
”Miles Davis & The Cool” – The Gaslight Anthem
”Abandon Ship” – Less Than Jake

Best Newcomer – Search/Rescue
Biggest Disappointment – Reggie and the Full Effect – Last Stop: Crappy Town
New Years Resolution – To not add to my credit card debt in 2009

These Green Eyes Video link:

Leona Lewis is still out promoting her album ‘Spirit’. It’s not like it needs any more support really. The 23-year old singer remained at number one in the singles chart for a second week in the UK with her cover of Snow Patrol’s ‘Run’. Leona will also be performing with other female acts to celebrate New Year’s Even in the main square in the UK. She was also recently named America’s Top New Artist for this year by Billboard magazine. Leona has done all the right things this year and it can only get better. She’s someone I’m really rooting for to have great success.

Check out this week’s episode of Clique Girlz TV! The girls get all dolled up to be special guests at the City of Hope event honoring Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris. Watch Paris, Destinee and Ariel practice their version of “Stop In The Name of Love,” discuss what it will be like share the stage with Stevie Wonder and Mariah Carey, and perform “Sweet Talkin’ Guy” with Stevie Nicks.

Clique Girlz are in the holiday spirit and have started posting Christmas countdown videos on their YouTube channel. Watch the first clip featuring Paris as a Christmas tree and a Chipmunk version of “Silent Night.”

EMBED the episode:

Buckcherry have just released a live video performance of their new single, “Rescue Me.” The clip was filmed in Japan during their recent tour there supporting Black Butterfly. “Rescue Me” Building on the success of their current co-headlining tour, Avenged Sevenfold and Buckcherry have announced the next leg beginning on January 28th in Salt Lake City, UT. The next dates on the arena tour include Papa Roach and Saving Abel, offering fans 4 bands for under $40.00. The Buckcherry and Avenged Sevenfold package is considered to be one of the three major successful rock tours of the season, along with AC/DC and Metallica.

Check out “Rescue Me (live in Japan)” here:

Check out the tour announcement video here:

BUCKCHERRY/AVENGED SEVENFOLD 2009 TOUR DATES
With Papa Roach and Saving Abel
* Buckcherry/Avenged Sevenfold and Papa Roach only
JANUARY
28 Salt Lake City, UT “E” Center
30 Phoenix, AZ Jobing.com Arena
31 Albuquerque, NM Tingley Coliseum
FEBRUARY
2 Bakersfield, CA Rabobank Arena
3 Oakland, CA Oracle Arena
5 Yakima, WA Yakima Valley SunDome
6 Portland, OR Memorial Coliseum
7 Tacoma, WA Tacoma Dome
9 Spokane, WA Star Theater at Spokane Arena
12 Rapid City, SD Rushmore Plaza Civic Center
14 Council Bluffs, ID Mid America Center *
17 St. Louis, MO The Family Arena *
20 Cleveland, OH The Wolstein Center
21 Battle Creek, MI Kellogg Arena *
23 Cincinnati, OH The Bank of Kentucky Center *
24 Pikeville, KY Eastern Kentucky Expo Center
25 Pittsburgh, PA The Peterson Events Center

Chris Cornell has just premiered the video for “Scream,” the title track off of his Timbaland produced album due out next year. Directed by Alan Ferguson (Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes), the cinematic piece captures the two opposing moods of the song. “My role in the video is performing the song in super-slow-motion,” explains Cornell. “I’m existing in this Zen-like world, singing these song lyrics and everything going on around me is super-fast, super-chaotic, and I’m just suspended in it.”

video:

The All-American Rejects third studio album, When The World Comes Down, is available now! The highly anticipated follow up to Move Along was produced by Eric Valentine (Good Charlotte, Maroon 5) and features the infectious single “Gives You Hell.” The deluxe edition of the album features a bonus disc with six demos, a track by track commentary with Tyson and Nick, and the enhanced video for “Mona Lisa.” Amazon is offering a special deal to grab all of the mp3s from the album for only $2.99!

AAR “When the World Comes Down” Deluxe iTunes:

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus have just released the first video from their upcoming Lonely Road album. “You Better Pray” is directed by Tony Petrossian who has also worked with bands like Rise Against, Taking Back Sunday, and Slipknot among others. The clip also is the first to not include guitarist Elias Reidy who is no longer with the band.

Vocalist Ronnie Winter explains, “As some of you may already know or have noticed by now (album cover, new video, myspace, etc.), Elias is no longer with RJA, and has not been since late October. As history goes, RJA was started by Ronnie and Duke about seven years ago, and there have been seven lineup changes since then, especially in the guitar department, where Elias was the 5th replacement guitarist (such is life in a rock n roll band). Anyway, more on this shortly, but regardless have no fear – the core of RJA remains intact.”

EMBED CODE FOR VIDEO:
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus – You Better Pray

Lonely Road will be out on February 3rd

As REV THEORY continues to rock the stage in cities across North America they are shedding light on the red hot video for “Light It Up.” The second single off their Interscope Records debut, Light It Up, again showcases the bands adeptness to arena rock anthems. Not only does the hard-hitting track fuel a rock fire but the video epitomizes everything that is right about rock ‘n roll… booze, babes and pure adrenaline. The “Frying Pan,” a run down Manhattan ship, plays the backdrop to an underground fight club that would rival anything seen in Brad Pitt’s epic film Fight Club.

Fans can catch Rev Theory on tour throughout January. Light It Up featuring, “Hell Yeah” and “Light It Up” is in stores now.

Video embed:

Tokio Hotel are featured on the Yahoo Music homepage, in the latest installment of “Pepsi Smash: Another Side Of”. Watch as the band members candidly describe their experiences in the US during a heated game of Jenga in their LA hotel room!
For another insider look at Tokio Hotel, check out Teen.com and the 5 part video piece they put together. Each video captures another side of the German quartet that cannot be missed.

Tokio Hotel have just released a new DVD, Tokio Hotel: Caught On Camera which is available exclusively at Hot Topic, and Hot Topic on-line. Tokio Hotel Play Jenga For Yahoo

Tokio Hotel on Pepsi Smash:

No Line On The Horizon, the new studio album from U2, will be released in North America on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.

Written and recorded in various locations, No Line On The Horizon is the group’s 12th studio album and is their first release since the nine million selling album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, released in late 2004.

Sessions for No Line On The Horizon began last year in Fez, Morocco, and continued in the band’s own studio in Dublin, before moving to New York’s Platinum Sound Recording Studios. It was completed at Olympic Studios in London.

The album calls on the production talents of long-time collaborators Brian Eno and Danny Lanois, with additional production by Steve Lillywhite.

Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg is about to add a new profession to his resume – serious musician. His debut album ‘Incredibad’ is from his Lonely Island project, the 3-man musical groups consisting of Andy, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. The album is set to drop on February 10th and will have star cameos from celebrities like Justin Timberlake, T-Pain, Norah Jones and Jack Black. It will include some songs featured on SNL, such as ‘Dick in a Box’. Andy said “We definitely wanted it to be a classic comedy album, but also one you put on more than once. We’ve gone out of our way to make it musically pleasing. We started on a few songs that were not funny enough, for us, but they sounded pretty cool. And the bottom line for the project was, ‘Is it going to be funny first and music second?’ I think it’s 95 percent music, and we hope people would throw it on and bump it.When we did ‘Dick in a Box’ — and that’s what most people know us for — it’s an uphill battle from there.”

Feel free to fire any type of ammo at Paula Abdul just as former American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe has done. He was recently asked to comment on Paula’s claim that Idol allowed her alleged stalker Paula Goodspeed to audition. Nigel said “You do not take somebody in that room that you believe is a danger to herself or a danger to Paula… [Goodspeed] had been through an audition process with the producers, an audition process with the executive producers, and we were wheeling her in as a huge fan of Paula Abdul. This is what we knew: She was a great fan, she was a lovely girl. And a great fan of Paula.” He also said that he doesn’t even remember Paula making a request to have Goodspeed removed.

A lot of things have been going on around Mariah Carey. Most recently, it is rumored that the diva is actually pregnant. So what of that tour that she had planned? I’m telling you that she is most likely pregnant because the singer has apparently decided to discard plans for a new tour which has sent dancers and costume designers into a tizzy because they were banking on being employed by Mariah. Now, the ship has sailed and have left them stranded. A spokesperson for Mariah said “A tour was discussed, but nothing was confirmed. I have not been told she’s [MC] pregnant.”

Coldplay has responded to the accusations of rock guitar icon Joe Satriani that the UK band ripped him off with their hit single ‘Viva La Vida’. The band released a statement on their website saying “With the greatest possible respect to Joe Satriani, we have now unfortunately found it necessary to respond publicly to his allegations. If there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental, and just as surprising to us as to him. Joe Satriani is a great musician, but he did not write the song Viva La Vida. We respectfully ask him to accept our assurances of this and wish him well with all future endeavours.”

Andy Samberg took the lead in another great SNL Digital Short entitled ‘J—In My Pants’. He reunites with Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, fellow members from sketch comedy group Lonely Island. Former ‘Las Vegas’ actress Molly Sims and former ‘Sopranos’ star Jamie-Lynn Sigler made cameos as the hot girls. Justin Timberlake was also called in to o clean up on aisle 3. I wonder if Justin helped with the lyrics to the song. Here’s a sample: “Don’t tell your friends or I’ll say your a s—/Plus it’s your fault, you were rubbing my butt/I’m very sensitive, some would say that’s a plus/Now I’ll go home and change/The next day my alarm goes off and I/J— IN MY PANTS/Open my window and a breeze rolls in and I/J— IN MY PANTS/When Bruce Willis was dead at the end of Sixth Sense I/J—ED IN MY PANTS”.

Lenny Kravitz has just unveiled the video for “Dancin’ Til Dawn,” the third single off his 8th studio album, It Is Time For a Love Revolution. The video was shot and directed by seminal French photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino who has helmed videos for Madonna, David Bowie, Sting, Bjork and more. The single, “Dancin’ Til Dawn” comes across as the materialization of a career that has spanned almost two decades of classic rock, old-school soul and gritty funk sculpted into a contemporary rock smash.

The fourteen tracks that complete It Is Time For A Love Revolution were written, recorded and produced by Lenny Kravitz himself. The album is available in stores and at digital retailers now.

“Dancin’ Til Dawn” (Youtube):