Music News Headlines

LONDON (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones are set this week to reveal plans regarding upcoming live gigs, guitarist Ronnie Wood told Reuters in an exclusive interview on Thursday as part of celebrations marking the band's 50th anniversary. "What we do is live in hope and hopefully this week we'll unfold some plans," Wood said, …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Chris Brown scored his second No. 1 debut with new album "Fortune" topping the Billboard 200 chart on Wednesday, despite failing to impress critics in early reviews last week. "Fortune" sold 134,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a considerably lower debut than the …

LONDON (Reuters) - Maybe it's the panama hat. Or the diamond earring. Or perhaps it is the eight-stringed ukulele on which he does constant little runs. Taj Mahal looks every bit the part of the U.S. music legend he is. Chatting over a beer the day before a recent concert at the Africa Utopia Festival at London's Southbank …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Florence Welch, lead singer of the British band Florence + The Machine, has suffered a vocal injury and canceled two European festival performances, the singer said on Wednesday. "Yes it's true ... it finally happened, I've lost my voice," Welch posted on her official Twitter feed. "I've sustained …

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A proposed EU law to give musicians more rights over their royalties has angered bands like Radiohead and Pink Floyd, who accused the European Commission of breaking promises to tackle the problem of musicians' missing pay. The Commission announced a draft law on Wednesday designed to make sure that …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood rocked on Tuesday when former Guns N' Roses lead guitarist Slash received a star on the Walk of Fame, which seemed fitting for the musician who first won fans in the nightclubs along Los Angeles' Sunset Strip. "I've been a part of the Hollywood fabric for a long time and to actually be …

MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) - Brazil's Gilberto Gil showcased joyful African-inspired music despite being tinged with themes of poverty, slavery and painful reconciliation at the Montreux Jazz Festival on Tuesday night. Teaming up with South African folk star Vusi Mahlasela also on guitar, Gil's "Viramundo" concert …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pop star Rihanna has sued her former accountants for mismanaging the singer's finances, including claiming they earned huge commissions from concert tours that resulted in her losing millions of dollars. In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court that surfaced on Thursday, the 24-year-old singer …

LONDON (Reuters) - R&B; singer and rapper Chris Brown scored his first British number one album on Sunday as his new release "Fortune" span to the top of the charts in its first week on sale, the Official Charts Company said. Fans of the 23-year-old U.S. artist ignored poor critical reviews and snapped up his fifth studio …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A singer who competed on the second season of "American Idol," filed a libel lawsuit on Thursday against MTV Networks for more than $40 million, claiming he was unfairly ridiculed by one of its news reporters. The lawsuit claims that after Corey Clark was disqualified from "American Idol," having reached …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Grammy-winning pop singer Pink will release her sixth studio album, "The Truth About Love," on September 18, ending a roughly four-year record drought for her fans. Her label, RCA Records, described "The Truth About Love" as the singer's "unique take on the different shades of love - the dark, the …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man has admitted to a break-in this spring at Sean "Diddy" Combs' Long Island estate, where he helped himself to some of the hip hop mogul's liquor to wash down a meal he had brought along with him, officials said Friday. Quamine T. Taylor, 30, pleaded guilty late Thursday to criminal trespass …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. album sales for the first half of 2012 slumped after seeing growth last year, while digital track sales rose, according to music sales figures released by Nielsen SoundScan on Thursday. At mid-year 2012, album sales were down 3 percent from 2011 at 150.5 million units sold over the last six …

(Reuters) - Pitbull, the gravelly voiced rapper known for hits "I Know You Want Me" and "Give Me Everything," may be going to a far-flung Alaska town after a promotional contest that promised he would pay a visit to the most-liked Wal-Mart store on Facebook. The Wal-Mart on the island of Kodiak, which can only be reached …

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - For a guy who's primarily known as "the one who's not Paul Simon," Art Garfunkel has amassed a pretty impressive body of work. And that catalog will get a thorough revisiting with "The Singer," a two-CD retrospective spanning his work as one half of Simon & Garfunkel as well as his solo material. …

MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) - Lana Del Rey gave a Fourth of July concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival that left fans wanting more of the American chanteuse, who swept to fame last year on the back of her haunting 'Video Games' single. The New York native, looking like a vintage-inspired bride in a white lace mini dress …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It started as just another concert film, but as Katy Perry's marriage to comedian Russell Brand unraveled, her new documentary transformed into what she called a "warts and all" depiction the pop star is happy to show her fans. "Katy Perry: Part of Me," which debuts in 3D on Thursday, is anything …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer Frank Ocean, a rising star who is part of the rap collective Odd Future, has revealed online that his first love was a man, an admission of same-sex attraction that is seen as groundbreaking for the world of hip hop. Ocean late on Tuesday posted on Twitter a link to his writings on his Tumblr …

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Universal Music Group has been given two extra days to allay EU concerns on its planned purchase of an EMI unit, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday after regulators warned that the combined entity would hit competition. The European Commission, which has been assessing the $1.9 billion …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - R&B; singer and rapper Chris Brown may be trying to redeem his tarnished image, but he has failed to impress critics with his latest album "Fortune," which was released on Tuesday. Brown's fifth studio album follows on the heels of his 2011 record "F.A.M.E," which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard …

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - The Stone Roses staged one of the most eagerly anticipated reunions in British pop over the weekend, and despite rain and an overloaded transport system to and from the gigs, the Manchester band left hundreds of thousands of fans wanting more. Lead singer Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire, …

LONDON (Reuters) - Album sales in Britain fell 13.8 percent to 43.6 million units in the first half of 2012 compared with 50.5 million in the same period of last year, according to figures from the BPI record industry body published on Monday. The overall decline came despite continued growth in digital album sales, which …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The BET Awards on Sunday split top honors among several artists, including Beyonce and Chris Brown, in a telecast filled with lively performances and an emotional tribute to late singer Whitney Houston. Beyonce was named best female R&B; artist, while Brown, who performed his hit single "Turn Up the …