Itseems that EMI boss Guy Hands can’t get no satisfaction. After Robbie Williams threatened to go on strike and Radiohead quit the record company following his NT$193 billion private equity takeover last year, the financier suffered another blow when the Rolling Stones decamped to Universal on Friday.
The veteran rockers, led by Mick Jagger — who qualified for his old-age pension Saturday — have handed on their entire post-1971 catalogue of such classic albums as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. The band will also release all new albums through Universal’s Polydor label.
“Universal are forward thinking, creative, and hands-on music people,” the Stones said in a statement. “We really look forward to working with them.”
The deal brings all the band’s output over a 46-year career under one roof, as Universal’s Decca label already owns the rights to Stones recordings made before 1971. The pre-1971 rights in the US are held by ABCKO, the company run by the Stones’ former manager, Allen Klein.
The Stones turned down the chance to sign up with Live Nation, the concert promoter that has album deals with the likes of Madonna, U2 and the rapper Jay-Z. Universal capitalized its release earlier this year of the soundtrack to Shine a Light, the Martin Scorsese film of a Stones live performance in New York in 2006.
Singer Britney Spears will pay US$20,000 a month in child support to ex-husband Kevin Federline for the care of their two children and will make a final payment of US$250,000 to his lawyers, according to a final custody agreement filed in court on Friday. The monthly child support payment is a US$5,000 increase over what Spears and Federline, a dancer and rap singer, agreed to last year, the court papers showed.
Two paparazzi in camouflage gear scuffled with bodyguards of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt after they were found hiding on the grounds of the Hollywood stars’ French estate, the couple’s security chief said on Friday. Tony Webb, head of the team guarding the Chateau Miraval estate where the couple are staying following the birth of their twins earlier this month, said the incident took place on Thursday afternoon.
Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, Arab cinema’s most celebrated director, died yesterday aged 82 after several weeks in a coma, his friend and fellow director Khaled Yussef said.
Chahine was flown back to Cairo on July 17 after a month-long stay in Paris where he underwent surgery after suffering a brain hemorrhage and falling into a coma. He was being cared for at the Maadi Military hospital in south Cairo.
“Youssef Chahine died this morning at 3:30,” said Yussef, who co-directed Chahine’s latest film Chaos last year.
Chahine won official plaudits for his pioneering role in Egypt’s film industry and was awarded the Cannes film festival’s 50th anniversary lifetime achievement award in 1997.
He never shied away from controversy during his long career, criticizing US foreign policy as well as Egypt and the Arab world.
Chahine made his first film in Egypt in 1950 and it was there that he also discovered and launched the career of Omar Sharif, who shot to international stardom with Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago.
US jazz tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, who played alongside such luminaries as Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey and Thelonius Monk, died Friday in France, his agent Helene Manfredi said. He was 80.
Nicknamed the Little Giant, Griffin was due to perform Friday evening alongside US organist Rhoda Scott, French saxophonist Olivier Temime and drummer Julie Saury.
Griffin died at home in Mauprevoir, a village in the west-central La Vienne district, where he had spent the last 18 years of his life. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Nana Mouskouri has bid adieu to a remarkable half-century in music with a farewell concert in her native Greece at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens.
Fans filled the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus on Wednesday evening to hear the 73-year-old songstress — one of the best-selling recording artists of all time — perform from her wide repertoire.
Hours earlier, the city of Athens bestowed its gold medal on Mouskouri, who has been on a worldwide farewell tour since she announced her plans to retire three years ago.
Born on the island of Crete, the bespectacled Mouskouri has sold more than 300 million records in French, English, Germany, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Hebrew and Japanese, her record company Universal says.
She was also engaged in humanitarian work, serving as a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ambassador, and served as a Greek member of the European Parliament in the 1990s.
Anyone who has been to Alishan (阿里山) is familiar with the railroad there: one line comes up from Chiayi City past the sacred tree site, while another line goes up to the sunrise viewing platform at Zhushan (祝山). Of course, as a center of logging operations for over 60 years, Alishan did have more rail lines in the past. Are any of these still around? Are they easily accessible? Are they worth visiting? The answer to all three of these questions is emphatically: Yes! One of these lines ran from Alishan all the way up to the base of Jade Mountain. Its
The only geopolitical certainty is that massive change is coming. Three macro trends are only just starting to accelerate, forming a very disruptive background to an already unsettled future. One is that technological transformations exponentially more consequential and rapid than anything prior are in their infancy, and will play out like several simultaneous industrial revolutions. ROBOT REVOLUTION It is still early days, but impacts are starting to be felt. Just yesterday, this line appeared in an article: “To meet demands at Foxconn, factory planners are building physical AI-powered robotic factories with Omniverse and NVIDIA AI.” In other words, they used AI
Nov. 25 to Dec. 1 The Dutch had a choice: join the indigenous Siraya of Sinkan Village (in today’s Tainan) on a headhunting mission or risk losing them as believers. Missionaries George Candidus and Robert Junius relayed their request to the Dutch governor, emphasizing that if they aided the Sinkan, the news would spread and more local inhabitants would be willing to embrace Christianity. Led by Nicolaes Couckebacker, chief factor of the trading post in Formosa, the party set out in December 1630 south toward the Makatao village of Tampsui (by today’s Gaoping River in Pingtung County), whose warriors had taken the
The rhythms of bustling, working-class Mumbai are brought to vivid life in All We Imagine as Light. The stunning narrative debut of filmmaker Payal Kapadia explores the lives of three women in the city whose existence is mostly transit and work. Even that isn’t always enough to get by and pay the rent. One of the women, a widow, recently retired from working her whole life at a city hospital, Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), is even facing eviction. The other two, roommates and co-workers in the maternity ward are in different parts of life. Prabha (Kani Kusruti) has a husband from an
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