Daily Digest: Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Green Day

Posted October 31, 2012 by J Matthew Cobb in News

Lady Gaga’s jazzy temptations, Taylor’s “red” takeover, Rihanna’s expensive box set and the latest news on Green Day are just some of the music headlines on Halloween 2012

Gaga Goes Big Band

It’s not something totally bewildering.

The Fame monster opened up for Tony Bennett on his No. 1 record, Duets II, with a rousing version of “The Lady is a Tramp.” She also ran through a set of jazzy renditions of Christmas classics on her 2011 holiday EP. So there’s not much surprise for those that follow Gaga’s musical whereabouts. What is startling to discover is that Gaga’s next venture is a full-length duets album with Mr. Bennett.

“Of all things, she called me from New Zealand and said, ‘I want to do a jazz album with you,'” Bennett, 86, told Rolling Stone. “And I said, ‘You got it!’ So that’s one of the things we’re gonna do.”

More details?

“We’re gonna do a jazz album with Marion Evans, a big swing band, and I’m looking forward to it because a lot of people don’t know it, but she’s a phenomenal jazz singer,” Bennett adds. The smooth jazz-pop crooner went on to call Gaga a musical Picasso. High praises, indeed.

Currently, Bennett has released a new duets album, Viva Duets.

Red Is Green

Looks like Taylor Swift is sitting on top of the world.

Her new disc, Red, sold more than one million copies (1.322 mil, actually) in one week, becoming the best-selling album debut since 2002. Eminem’s The Eminem Show took the Number One spot on the Billboard 200 that year. To just show you how mighty Swift’s record really is, compare her chart reign with Kendrick Lamar‘s highly-praised rap major label debut LP, which came in at number 2. Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City only sold 241,000 copies in its first week. There’s a huge gap in between 241,000 copies and 1.322 million. Only proves that this mp3 generation really sucks, especially if you’re not Adele or Taylor Swift.

Rihanna Preps for Unapologetic, Expensive Box Set

No wonder Rihanna released “Diamonds” as the go-to single for her next album, Unapologetic. You’re going to need the dough that buys diamonds to purchase the “limited edition” “platinum box” set when it drops December 11. Santa might be avoiding this one: It’s expected to sale at a retail price of $250 bucks (that’s almost higher than the recently-released Beatles LP box set).

What’s on the inside?

T-shirt
seven art-print lithographs
vinyl record containing remixes of latest single “Diamonds.”
An Unapologetic-branded 2GB flash memory drive
various stickers
“handwritten personal note”
a 40-page booklet of lyrics and notes.
a white-and-silver ViewMaster stocked with previously unreleased 3D Rihanna images.

The Barbadian pop mega star is quite “unapologetic” about the expensive box, but will still offer the album in physical and digital form – for the 47 percent (see Romney gaffe).

http://www.spin.com/#articles/rihanna-deluxe-unapologetic-cd-flash-drive

Green Day Greenlights ¡Dos!, Cancels Tour

Everything hasn’t been going as planned for American punk rock band Green Day. A recent meltdown by band frontman Billie Joe Armstrong at the iHeart Radio Fest in Las Vegas knocked the group off the rails as they prepared to enter the first major phase of promotion and publicity for their trilogy series of 2012 releases, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!. ¡Uno! was released, as scheduled, but tour plans were scrapped as Armstrong entered into rehab to deal with substance abuse and other issues. Meanwhile, the label and band are moving up their album releases. ¡Dos!, an album slated to take on a more “garage-rock feel,” will be launched on November 13, 2012. ¡Tré!, the last of the set, will also be moved up as well (from January 15 to December 11). Fans should be stoked.

Meanwhile the band is optimistic in Armstrong’s recovery. “Obviously the timing for this isn’t ideal, but Billie Joe’s well-being is our main concern,” Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt said in a post made on Greenday.com. “We are happy to say that Billie Joe is doing well, and we want to thank you all for the outpouring of support and well wishes that we have received, and we can’t wait to see you all again soon.”

In other Green Day news, a new music video for “Forgotten” has been released to help market the upcoming Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 film. It will serve as the film’s lead single.

DAILY DIGEST is a roundup recap of current events and headlines that involves the music industry. Although HiFi Magazine reports news throughout the week, the stories compiled for the Daily Digest column are usually deemed as being events “bubbling under the radar.”