One of the biggest splashes made over the past two weekends of the 2012 Coachella music festival was the appearance of the Tupac Shakur hologram, which allowed Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg to perform with the deceased rapper. This lead to rampant speculation that Tupac would be going on tour, something that Dr. Dre has quickly denied… then said “we’ll see.”
Coachella is a time and place for all sorts of desert wackiness to go down—especially with Snoop Dogg in attendance (just check out his smoke-able book that was released at the fest). That said, one moment during the headlining Dr. Dre and Snoop performance on Sunday night crossed them realm from wacky and dovetailed into just plain strange, if not tacky and/or kind of offensive.
This week Gotye announced that he would be making his debut on Saturday Night Live. Jack White also sat down with NME and spoke to them about what the possibilities are for a White Stripes reunion. Also, pop culture sensation Lana Del Rey performed on American Idol. Check all that and more below…
Well, live music fans, that time of year has come around again—the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has announced its 2012 lineup. And for those who can’t recall, this is the first year in which the festival will be repeated for a second weekend. It all goes down on April 13-15 and April 20-22. Check out the complete lineup below and let us know: does this rock, or is the lineup a bit of a letdown?
Some might scoff at the idea of an upper-class white woman penning the upcoming N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton, but not me—upon hearing the news that Andrea Berloff will be writing the script to the film about the seminal gangsta rap outfit, I prefer to save my scoff-ery not for Berloff’s race (‘cause I’m advanced like that), but for the fact that her one major scriptwriting credit is for the terrible, terrible Hallmark-Card-in-film-form World Trade Center, the hyper-sentimental, borderline-insulting Oliver Stone film.
Last Sunday night’s match-up at Boston’s Fenway Park between hometown heroes the Red Sox and bitter rivals the New York Yankees featured a musical invasion of sorts, with appearances by Dr. Dre, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, and God… er, Neil Diamond (don’t even make a joke—I will gladly knife-fight anyone who makes fun of the Diamond), with both Tyler and Diamond turning in musical performances of, let’s say, ‘varying’ quality.
Live Daily reports that Dr. Dre appeared pre-show to hawk a new set of Red Sox-themed headphones, called “Beats By Dre,” while Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine talked up Dre’s new single with Jay-Z, “Under Pressure.”
Say what?! Death Row, the infamous record label that rose to popularity during the mid-nineties, has found a new hustle. According to Yahoo, Death Row is getting into the movie making business. The label’s new CEO Lara Lavi plans on expanding the company with her newest division, Death Row Films. More on the story below.
In case you haven’t had much time between watching the inauguration and laughing your ass off at Joaquin Phoenix (a.k.a. hip-hop’s newest disaster), here are some interesting news tidbits from the music world that you might have missed:
