Over 450,000 Copies of The Beatle’s Albums Sold On iTunes So Far!

Apple says people have purchased more than 450,000 copies of Beatles albums plus two million individual songs during the Fab Four’s first week on sale through iTunes.

Apple Inc. says the best-selling Beatles album in the U.S. is “Abbey Road,” and the best-selling individual track is “Here Comes the Sun.” The Beatles Box Set, which costs $149, is No. 10 on Apple’s weekly iTunes top-10 list.

The Beatles’ music went on sale on iTunes on Nov. 16. Until then, the biggest-selling, most influential group in rock history has been glaringly absent from iTunes and other legal online music services.

Apple struck an agreement after on-and-off negotiations with the Beatles’ recording label, EMI Group, and their management company, Apple Corps.

This just proves that great music lives on forever.

Glee cast Bigger than the Beatles?

The “Glee” cast has surpassed the Beatles for the most appearances on the Billboard Hot 100 chart by a non-solo act.

The cast of the Fox television musical series about a high school glee club has six debuts on the chart this week. That gives it a total of 75 songs on the chart to the Beatles’ 71.

The show’s soundtrack got a boost after this week’s episode featuring the music of Britney Spears.

Elvis Presley still leads overall with 108 songs to chart on the Hot 100. He’s followed by James Brown with 91, then “Glee.”

The Beatles are sixth, behind Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. Lil Wayne, Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z round out the Top 10.

Nielsen SoundScan says the “Glee” cast has sold 2.8 million albums and 11.5 million downloads.

VH1 Reveals ’100 Greatest Music Artists of All Time’ List

VH1 goes back to its music roots and revisits the age-old question: “Who is the greatest music artist for all time?” Determined by a poll of well-known music artists and music experts in the industry, VH1 will reveal this definitive (and sure-to-be highly controversial) list declaring who is the greatest of the great. Hosted by Jim Shearer (VH1′s “Top 20 Video Countdown”), the 4-night special, VH1′s “100 Greatest Artists of All Time,” premieres Monday, September 6 at 10/9c with a 2-hour premiere.

This definitive countdown covers all genres of music – from rock to pop to rap to metal – to answer who is worthy to possess the title as “the greatest music artist of all time.” Over the 200 musicians including Alicia Keys, Ozzy Osbourne, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Iggy Pop, Nas, Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Geddy Lee (Rush), Alex Lifeson (Rush), Michael Diamond (Beastie Boys), Daryl Hall, John Oates, Noel Gallagher (Oasis), Gene Simmons (KISS), Adam Levine (Maroon Five), 50 Cent, Nelly Furtado, Mandy Moore, Carrie Underwood, Adam Clayton (U2) and many more voted on who they believe deserves this highly coveted title.

“VH1′s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time” List:
TOP 5, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
1. The Beatles
2. Bob Dylan
3. Michael Jackson
4. Led Zeppelin
5. Rolling Stones

Other notable names on the list include Madonna at number 16, U2 at 19, Jay Z at 47, Beyoncé at 52, and Justin Timberlake at 66. Read more

Kris Allen and Allison Iraheta Return To Perform On Idol

Kris Allen and Allison Iraheta returned to Idol last night and performed during the results show.

Kris recently went to Haiti as a part of Idol Gives Back to aid in the relief effort and shared the footage from his trip while he performed ‘Let It Be’. You can download a copy of Kris’ performance on iTunes and all of the profits will be sent to Haiti.

Allison performed her new single ‘Scars’. The girl can definitely sing and she’s improved a lot since her days on Idol, but could someone hire her a media coach? Please! She’s so awkward and uncomfortable to watch.

Heidi Montag “I’m not a Rihanna”

In a recent interview with MTV, Heidi Montag says she’s no manufactured star like Rihanna.

“I really wanted to go back to when The Beatles and Michael Jackson used to make albums. They spent years on making albums because they wanted the quality to be so good, they wanted the sound to be so good, and that’s really what I did. I’m brining it back to that old mentality of music and how it should come out.”

“I did everything step-by-step, whereas a Rihanna is just given a song, she sings it for a couple of hours and then walks out and then her album comes out”.

“I, literally, the last three years, have been in studios almost every day, and I’ve put more into this than anyone could possibly comprehend. I have spent all my money. I am literally broke because I did this independently.”

I wonder what Rihanna has to say about this..

50 Cent Slams Heather Mills In New Song

50 Cent said that Paul McCartney didn’t know who he was when he asked Paul for an autograph. Even though McCartney didn’t know who the rapper was he signed an autograph for him. 50 is so pleased that he included McCartney one of his new songs, titled “Do you think about me?” However I don’t know if McCartney will like what he hears….

50 Cent rhymes, “It’s like Paul McCartney stuck in my head/fell in love with a b-tch walked away with one leg/she ain’t even have to run to get away with the bread/that’s some f–ked up sh-t/think about that kid.”

The lyric references McCartney’s divorce from the one-legged Heather Mills.

50 says, “That’s interesting. You figure if you’re gonna marry a woman with one leg, she’s gonna stay!”

Remembering John Lennon 29 Years Later

Did you know that John Lennon died 29 years ago today? It was Dec. 8, 1980 when the former Beatle was gunned down outside his New York City home by Mark David Chapman. Chapman shot Lennon to death as the star was returning to his home inside Manhattan’s The Dakota. Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, had spent the evening at a recording studio known as the Record Plant, working on a song called “Walking on Thin Ice.”

The BBC has put together a timeline and photo collective of Lennon’s life and career….

Paul McCartney Announces European Tour

Paul McCartney has announced that he will be touring Europe for the first time in 5 years.

The Good Evening Europe tour will kick off Dec. 2nd in Hamburg, Germany, the city where the Beatles hones their craft.

McCartney will also play Berling, Arnhem, Paris, Cologne, and Dublin. The tour will end at London’s O2 arena on Dec. 22nd.

The Beatles and Michael Jackson Help The Music Biz

Renewed interest in the Beatles and Michael Jackson slowed the decline of U.S. album sales in the third quarter, although the industry is still on track to fall for the eighth time in nine years.

Sales were off 11.1% compared with the same period in 2008, according to Nielsen SoundScan. After the second quarter, sales were down 14.7% compared with the first half of 2008.

So far album sales are down 13.9% this year. Total album sales fell 14 percent in 2008.

Music retailers are hoping that the continued performance of Jackson and Beatles albums and a strong fourth-quarter release schedule will continue to make up lost ground.

During the quarter, Jackson’s June 25 death fueled sales of about 5 million units, and the September 9 re-release of the Beatles catalog has sold 1.3 million units so far.

So far this year 11 albums have topped the 1 million-unit mark, the same number as in 2008. In 2008, the top seller was Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III,” at 2.5 million units; this year’s top seller is Jackson’s “Number Ones,” at 1.8 million units.

‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ Dies

Lucy Vodden, who inspired the Beatles’ classic song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ has died after a long battle with lupus. She was 46. Her death was announced Monday by St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, where she had been treated for the chronic disease for more than five years.

Vodden’s connection to the Beatles dates back to her youth, when she made friends with schoolmate Julian Lennon, John Lennon’s son. Julian, then 4, came home from school with a drawing one day, showed it to his father, and said it was “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.”

At the time, John Lennon was gathering material for his contributions to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a landmark album released to worldwide acclaim in 1967.

The elder Lennon seized on the image and developed it into what is widely regarded as a psychedelic masterpiece, replete with haunting images of “newspaper taxis” and a “girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”

Rock music critics thought the song’s title was a veiled reference to LSD, but John Lennon always claimed the phrase came from his son, not from a desire to spell out the initials LSD in code.

Vodden lost touch with Julian Lennon after he left the school following his parents’ divorce, but they were reunited in recent years when Julian Lennon, who lives in France, tried to help her cope with the disease.

He sent her flowers and vouchers for use at a gardening center near her home in Surrey in southeast England, and frequently sent her text messages in an effort to buttress her spirits.

“I wasn’t sure at first how to approach her,” Julian Lennon told the Associated Press in June. “I wanted at least to get a note to her. Then I heard she had a great love of gardening, and I thought I’d help with something she’s passionate about, and I love gardening too. I wanted to do something to put a smile on her face.”

In recent months, Vodden was too ill to go out most of the time, except for hospital visits.

She enjoyed her link to the Beatles, but was not particularly fond of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

“I don’t relate to the song, to that type of song,” she told the Associated Press in June. “As a teenager, I made the mistake of telling a couple of friends at school that I was the Lucy in the song and they said, ‘No, it’s not you, my parents said it’s about drugs.’ And I didn’t know what LSD was at the time, so I just kept it quiet, to myself.”

Vodden is the latest in a long line of people connected to the Beatles who died at a relatively young age.

The list includes John Lennon, gunned down at age 40, manager Brian Epstein, who died of a drug overdose when he was 32, and original band member Stuart Sutcliffe, who died of a brain hemorrhage at 21.

A spokeswoman for Julian Lennon and his mother, Cynthia Lennon, said they were “shocked and saddened” by Vodden’s death.

Angie Davidson, a lupus sufferer who is campaign director of the St. Thomas’ Lupus Trust, said Vodden was “a real fighter” who had worked behind the scenes to support efforts to combat the disease.

“It’s so sad that she has finally lost the battle she fought so bravely for so long,” said Davidson.

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