AC/DC gives the UK economy a boost -- or not

It's silly season again as the world economy self-destructs and the U.S. election barrels toward the finish line and journalists wonder if they should feel guilty for being secretly happy they have so much material to work with. Give The Guardian's Alexis Petridis credit, though, he came up with an original angle -- AC/DC album sales as a leading indicator of Great Britain's economic health. Except, as Petridis' research suggests, it seems the better Angus and company do, the worse the British economy does... and Black Ice just went number one in the UK despite the band's refusal to provide digital downloads. Criminey!

AC/DC hit Black Ice today

The media blitz is on as headbanger heroes AC/DC return eight years after their last studio album with Black Ice, and the Vault is joining the fun with a day-of-release review.

Out of the hordes of surrounding mainstream media coverage, I would also point you to this entertaining UK Telegraph review with Angus Young, particularly his explanation for the group's decision to sell their album only in hardcopy form via Wal-mart or acdc.com, no iTunes or downloads at all:

“We don’t make singles, we make albums. We work on getting the songs on our albums to work together... So that’s how we feel about our albums being a complete piece of work. And we won’t go on iTunes unless they offer the option to us to 'lock’ our album... In the US, though, we’re looking at iTunes being the biggest music retailer in the country. We looked at who was number two and found that it was Wal-Mart. So we decided to make this album exclusively available in Wal-Mart stores... I remember when we first started touring in the US back in the Seventies, we’d arrive in these towns, and I’m talking about all these places in between New York and Los Angeles, and we’d always go straight to the local record shop. These are the places where people hung out – you could talk music, pick up a few albums and all of that. Now you go back to these places and they’re all closed down. However, there is a Wal-Mart in all these towns, so we believed this to the best alternative to iTunes."

The record shop is dead; long live the record shop. Hope it's a great run, Angus.

AC/DC still says no to iTunes

The new AC/DC disc Black Ice -- out next week -- might be one of the year's most anticipated new releases, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to buy and download it online. The band, along with the Beatles one of the most notorious holdouts against the digital download age, is distributing Black Ice only in full CD form and only through Wal-Mart stores and its own Web site. Lead singer Brian Johnson can barely hold back his disdain for iTunes and digital music in general in today's interview with Reuters, saying iTunes is "going to kill music if they're not careful."

Lucinda Williams gets happy

Newsflash: alt-country singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, long known for the intensity of her bittersweet ruminations on missed connections and failed relationships, is happy. At least so claims the New York Daily News in this recap of Williams' forthcoming album Little Honey (out Oct. 14), full of celebrations of her new relationship with co-producer Tom Overby. A happy Lucinda Williams. What's next, AC/DC singing lullabies?

Friday roundup: Pretenders, Kid Rock, Kingston Trio

Plenty of tidbits to consider this Friday...

• We're not quite sure how an article ostensibly about the new country-flavored album from The Pretenders came to be titled "Chrissie Hynde has never heard of Sarah Palin," but this piece from MSNBC is still worth checking out.
  
  
• Word from the New York Times is Kid Rock has finally joined the 21st century and made his music available online via Rhapsody (lucky them). Now if AC/DC would just end their holdout...
  
  
• Nick Reynolds, a founding member of folk-rock pioneers The Kingston Trio, has died. The group's focus on guitars and harmonies inspired Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the Beatles, among others. R.I.P.
  

Fall music preview: AC/DC, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Taylor Swift, Jessica Simpson, T-Pain, Keane

This morning USA Today offers a fall music preview that's both informative and amusing. The informative part begins with items on Metallica, Taylor Swift, Ne-Yo, Jessica Simpson, Ciara, David Cook, T-Pain, Keane and T.I, and is highlighted by another fairly glowing preview of the new AC/DC disc Black Ice, including a fun little video snippet from the making of the "Rock'N'Roll Train" video. Yes, the boys are getting on in years, but they can still snarl with the best of 'em...

The amusing part would be this item on the list of forthcoming albums: "Guns N' Roses / Chinese Democracy (Nov. 25, tentatively)." Anybody want to put money on that release date? Didn't think so.

New AC/DC album Black Ice drops October 20

The rumors are true... the release date is confirmed... and they're baaa-aaack. Columbia Records announced today the October 20th release of hard rock heroes AC/DC's Black Ice, the band's first studio album in eight years.

The new album features 15 new tracks from brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, Brian Johnson, Cliff Williams, and Phil Rudd, the very same lineup that made 1980's immortal Back In Black. The album was produced by Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Train) at the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, BC.

"Rock 'N' Roll Train," the album's first single, will debut on August 28th, with a video to premiere in September. Maybe the best news of all for fans -- the band is set to kick off its first world tour since 2001 in late October. Break out the cannons and get ready to head-bang!