Kings of A&R

Bon Jovi 80’s Rock Star Crosses Over to the Other Side….

According to sources Bon Jovi’s country record Lost Highway could move 230K first week. Bon Jovi successfuly crossed over to country, a true mega star. How did he do it? It was a graceful entrance not a forceful entrance. In fact, pick up his last record ‘Have a Nice Day’, and you will hear the country roots.

Last year, his band became the first rock group to top Billboard magazine’s country singles chart, teaming with Jennifer Nettles of country duo Sugarland for Who Says You Can’t Go Home Universal Music Group Nashville chairman Luke Lewis, whose division is promoting the new Bon Jovi project to country radio, sees the potential for artists coming in from other genres.

Jon has a better shot than most,” he says. “A lot of his fans have gravitated over to country (as they get older). We’re trying to reach those folks, then build some incremental audience for him.” (USA Today)

Linkin Park’s new release Minutes to Midnight went platinum within 4 weeks.

Spank Rock a hip-hop/funk/electro group originally from Baltimore recently completed a four album deal with Downtown Records (Gnarls Barkley)

Music Producer David Bendeth speaks out on Kerrang and NME, we couldn’t agree more….

These rags kill me. They have been around longer than me and its really funny watching them try to be cool. They enlist all these semi astute writers who have all these lame records in their collection. Their main goal in life is to get every fact wrong and twist the truth into something that might seem plausable for the scenesters.

I mean how can you take a name like KERRANG seriously in 2007? I mean its fucking Iron Maiden trying to be hip, lets call it what it is. And reading Paramore’s review in NME was even a bigger Joke. I read this rag when I was a kid. Looks like they hired a bunch of teenagers from Canvey Island to write the reviews. They called Paramore EMO like 5 times..EMO???? WTF?? EMO?
Not even people from Utah call it EMO anymore! They use words like Angst and Emotional. Spare me please.
Now I know they are not crazy for my “slick” production work..thats ok. I mean it hasnt hurt me one bit on the radio , not even in England next week where the mid chart on Paramore is #30. It is blatantly obvious to me that these longhaired metalheads like shit sounding records. They like vibey records, you know the Strokes, stuff that sounds like it was recorded in your mums bathroom. Kids recording with a computer and keyboard through a 1957 mic. These guys kill me, they wouldnt know a good sounding record if Rod re recorded Every Picture tells a story.
Oh WELL, enough of the rant. Thank god for kids, at least they can sniff this crap out. And dont forget UK press, when the US bands cough, you catch a cold.
AHEM!!

KKKKK 5 K’s for this one Dave