Robin Thicke Reportedly Taking A Nosedive With Paula

Music industry forecasters predict that Thicke's new album, "Paula," may only sell between 20,000 and 25,000 copies during its first week of release (it was released on July 1st), according to a report from Billboard last Thursday.

The music star's previous album, "Blurred Lines", debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart with first week sales of 177,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan numbers.

Read the Billboard report for more details here.

Taylor Swift Makes Country Music History With Red Tour

Swift's tour included 86 concerts, visited arenas and stadiums in 12 countries between March of 2013 and June of this year, and reportedly grossed $150,184,971 from 1,702,933 tickets sold.

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul2Soul tour which took place in 2006 and 2007 was the previous highest grossing tour in country music history with a total of $141 million. More details.

Ed Sheeran Breaks Streaming Record

Following the album's release in the UK on Monday June 23rd, 'X' was the most streamed album in the UK ever on Spotify in a single week, with 6,248,130 streams. That topped the previous record for Daft Punk, who had 6,181,583 streams of their album "Random Access Memories").

Globally, 'X' scored the biggest ever 'week one' of album streams in Spotify history, with 23,792,476 streams, beating Eminem's 22,780,154 streams of The Marshall Mathers LP 2 in November 2013.

'X' also lived up to its name by setting the UK record for the most streams of an album in a single week so far in 2014 with over three times Lana Del Ray's previous record of 2,064,297 streams during the week of 16th June.

Steve Aoki Delays Album and Madison Square Garden Show

Dim Mak/Ultra Music have now set a September 30th release date for "Neon Future I". The album was originally set for release on August 12th but has now been delayed to "allow for additional production needs on the existing tracks."

Aoki has also been forced to postpone the August 16th Madison Square Garden appearance because the show was timed to the release of the new album.

A rescheduled date is expected to be announced soon and fans that purchased tickets for the original date are advised that they "will receive refunds at www.ticketmaster.com and will also be allowed early access to tickets for the rescheduled date."

Jennifer Hudson Calling New Album JHUD

In an interview with WPGC (a Radio.com station) in Washington, D.C., Hudson determined that her new album, which comes out this August, is titled JHUD.

In the interview, Hudson naming the album after herself isn't just a lazy flick of the wrist to get a record with a title out there - JHUD is very much a personal experience.

"It's different expressions of me as an artist, a girl, a music lover," Hudson told WPGC. Hudson's already released two songs from the record. more.

Sia Streaming New Album Online

On her follow-up to 2010′s We Are Born, which debuted at No. 2 in her home country of Australia, Sia teams up again with producer Greg Kurstin and Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi. Other guests she recruited this time around include The Weeknd, Diplo, and Lana Del Rey collaborator Justin Parker ("Ride," "Videogames").

After releasing We Are Born, Sia retreated from the spotlight, focusing her time on writing songs for others. Her writing credits include Rihanna's "Diamonds", Beyonc�'s "Pretty Hurts" and Flo Rida's "Wild Ones", among others. You can see how those experience benefitted her own writing on tracks like the addictive lead single "Chandelier", "Eye of the Needle", and "Big Girls Cry".

Still, Sia hasn't warmed up to be famous. In an interview with DAZED, she talks about how the blonde bob in the album's artwork and worn by 11-year-old "Dance Moms" star Maddie Ziegler in the "Chandelier" video is, for her, a layer of protection from the outside world.

Read what she had to say here.

Eminem Caused Busta Rhymes To Break a Windshield with His Head

"We were on the Smokin' Grooves tour in the back of one of the venues," Busta told Rolling Stone. "Wyclef has this big-ass studio on his bus so we always wanted to go hang out and he was playing the Slim Shady EP. Before I could actually get on the bus, I was standing on the three little steps that you walk up to get on to the bus and I was nodding my head so f-ing hard, going crazy, that I hit my head on the windshield and broke the whole f-in' windshield of Wyclef's bus. It f-ed the whole glass up.

"The f-ing sh*t that I was hearing from him created an animal instinct reaction," he added. More.

'70s Songs Dominate 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Soundtrack

At the start of the trailer, Djimon Hounsou's character (Korath the Pursuer) approaches Chris Pratt's Peter Quill (a.k.a. Starlord) trying to take an cosmic looking jewel, Indiana Jones style. "Who are you?" he asks. "Starlord."

"Who?" Korath asks, mirroring the thoughts of most people watching the trailer. The Guardians aren't the Avengers; there's no Captain America, Hulk or Iron Man in this collective. "Starlord, man, the legendary outlaw?" Quill asks hopefully.

After that, John C. Reilly's Rhomann Dey is conducting a police lineup where we meet the rest of the team, including Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Groot, a walking, talking tree (voiced by Vin Diesel).

But 1:40 into the trailer, when a security guard dons Quill's old-school Sony Walkman (complete with orange foam headphones - an artifact of the '80s, not the '70s) we hear what the protagonist was listening to: the Blue Swede hit "Hooked on a Feeling," a No. 1 hit on the U.S. singles charts in 1974.

The film's second trailer only waits about 30 seconds to go back to the '70s. This time, they use Norman Greenbaum's #3 hit from 1970 (although it was released in 1969), "Spirit in the Sky." But when Groot messes with the very '70s looking cassette deck (containing a tape labeled "Awesome Mix Vol. 1), the song changes back to, again, "Hooked on a Feeling."

Check out the trailer and tracklisting here.

Old Crow Medicine Show Release 'Sweet Amarillo' Video

The result is "Sweet Amarillo," and it appears on Old Crow Medicine Show's brand-new album Remedy, which was just released this past Tuesday (July 1).

This past Thursday (July 3), the band released a music video for "Sweet Amarillo," perhaps the next song in the band's catalog to capitalize on a Dylan co-writing credit.

"Wagon Wheel" was originally written and recorded by Dylan under the title "Rock Me Mama." Old Crow Medicine Show recorded a new version of the song in 2004, with new verses written around Dylan's original chorus; then Darius Rucker recorded a version and took it to the top of the country charts. Rucker's version went on to win a GRAMMY this year.

In an interview with CMT, Old Crow Medicine Show bandleader Secor explained how the group came to record another Dylan song, "Sweet Amarillo," for their new album Remedy.

Dylan, he said, was thrilled with the attention "Wagon Wheel" received. "We got an email from Bob Dylan's manager saying congratulations right around the time Darius Rucker had a No. 1 single with 'Wagon Wheel.' It's not every day that country music recognizes this great pioneer and huge influence, Bob Dylan. Bob doesn't have many No. 1 songs in any genres. So it was a big deal to get one."

Secor said that after the note from Dylan's camp, "a couple of weeks later, he sent a demo and said, 'Here's a song that I never really finished. It was recorded a few days after "Rock Me Mama." Give it a try. We'd like the boys, the Old Crows to give it whirl.'"

That song turned out to be "Sweet Amarillo." "It's quite amazing to me," Secor said of getting another chance at a Dylan song. "Bob very much cleaned out his dresser drawer and found a scrap and said [in a Dylan voice], 'Here, try this.' Just to hear that is the stuff that dreams are made of. I couldn't even write a script. The audience wouldn't believe it. 'Oh, yeah, then Bob Dylan called and said, OK, finish this song now.'"

Secor said he then finished the song with Old Crow Medicine Show and sent it back to Dylan. "He said, 'Hey, that sounds great, but I think Ketch should play the fiddle, not the harmonica, and I think the chorus needs to come in at the eighth bar, not the 16th.' We did exactly what Bob said, and it's like the song sprouted wings and flew."

Check out the video here.

Jerrod Niemann Releases New Video With Pitbull

That remix turned out to be his current single, "Drink to That All Night" with Pitbull. On Thursday (July 3) the video for the track was released and, well, Pitbull and Niemann bring the party as expected.

"One thing's for sure. We're gonna drink all night. Two things for certain, we're gonna be alright," Pitbull says at the video's start, dressed from head to toe in black with his signature sunglasses. As the guys stand around and pose, girls dressed in white and hula-hooping surround them.

While the track isn't a major departure from Niemann's original, Pitbull manages to get some product placement in his raps. "I can drink to that all night. Mix the Voli with the moonshine alright," he raps, name-dropping his Vodka brand.

Check out the video here.

Paul Oakenfold's 'Trance Mission' in America Rolls On

"The idea was to connect to the crowd, get back to my roots and play trance. From that, people started coming up saying, 'can you play some of the classics?' I was like no, this isn't a classics tour, this has nothing to do with old music," Oakenfold explained during an interview with Radio.com about the inspiration behind his new full-length, Trance Mission, which find him recreating such tracks as "Theme for Great Cities" (Simple Minds) and "Caf� del Mar" (Energy 52). "From people asking me to play some of these old classics came the idea of taking these classics and redoing them in a 2014 production sound that could fit into a current set, and also to educate the current generation of clubbers who don't know these songs from 15 years ago."

In Oakenfold's long career, his status as one of the original superstar DJs around the turn of the century catapulted him from the electro underground into the music mainstream, working with a long line of A-list artists ranging from Madonna to U2 and producing Hollywood soundtracks big budget films, inlcuding Swordfish.

Oakenfold's ambitions drove him to push dance music beyond the norms of genre and into new territories throughout the '00s, even to the point of alienating some of his peers and fans alike.

"When I started my residency in 2009 in Las Vegas, there was no clubs playing electronic music. It was mash-ups and hip-hop," he recalled. "Strangely enough, I had a lot of slack from my community. They were like, 'Vegas is old school, it's where the old acts go.' I always saw it in a different sense. For me, I felt Vegas was the right spot. So now when I go back to Vegas, to see all the billboards and to see every club doing it, I think it's a positive thing. Why shouldn't America have a home for electronic music? It's similar to what we've had in Europe for years with Ibiza."

While Oakenfold is spinning around the world this summer in support of Trance Mission (with a stop at this year's Burning Man gathering in Nevada on August 27), his next studio album, Pop Killer, is already finished and in the can, just waiting for the right release date to reveal to the world. In the tradition of his previous albums, the producer collaborates with an impressive roster of artists, including Miguel, ZZ Ward and LP.

"Look, I'd love to collaborate with Eminem," he said when asked about bucket list studio partners. "I think taking Eminem out of his genre and bringing him into the electronic world would be really interesting for me and for him to see if we could come up with a track that would work really well. (Dr.) Dre's the same. I've been a big fan of his for many years. I'd like to work with Run DMC from back in the day and put a real pumping track together at 130 BPMs and throw those guys on it."

In the exclusive video interview, watch Oakenfold talk about which of the current crop of dance music stars he finds most impressive, some of his favorite cities to play in America that you might not expect and more. Watch it here.

Singled Out: Katie Garibaldi's Follow Your Heart

The title track of this album, "Follow Your Heart," is a song very special to me that I wrote about the importance of following the voice inside your heart. No matter what people say or try to push you in different directions, as long as you stay true to the voice inside your heart, things will always work out. In my experience, I've learned that with anything in life, when I go against my gut or ignore my intuition, things end up not working out, or it's at least a harder road getting to where I want to be. And when I do follow my heart and fight for what I believe in, no matter how hard that may be, things not only work out, but they succeed even better than I ever expected or imagined.

I think it's a pretty powerful message that a lot of people can relate to. We've all had those moments where we think, "If only I had listened to my intuition." I feel like that voice inside us is a little compass that won't ever steer us wrong. Sometimes it's a loud voice, but sometimes it's only a whisper. Our job is to listen to what our heart is saying, and then not be afraid to follow through with it once we hear it.

I feel like "Follow Your Heart" is my anthem and definitely the message that I want to spread. When I wrote it, I knew it was going to be the cornerstone of the whole album, both in the theme of the songs as well as the journey I took to record it. I like to think of it as a little lullaby to remind people, as well as myself, that even when things are tough, hang in there, follow your heart, and it will guide you to where you need to be.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!

Wait there is more!

Share this article

...end