Janet Jackson’s boyfriend, producer Jermaine Dupri, is out at Virgin Records. Dupri was head of urban music at Virgin. According to sources, Dupri quit—i.e. was forced out—after disappointing sales of Jackson’s comeback album called “20 YO.” Three weeks into its release, the album is a dud with less than 500,000 copies sold. The CD had dropped an astonishing 77 percent in sales in its second week. Also, ’20 YO’ was the last album on her Virgin contract and now faces the task of negotiating a new deal with little leverage.

KOAR Higher Learning artist Fermata has been picking up airplay with their single ‘Frustrated‘ on stations like WDYL, WKGB, WRIF and many more. In support of their recently released EP ‘Vessel,’ Fermata have been touring across the US. Check out the new demos Four Letter Words and When The Hero Dies.

• Army of Freshman was picked up by lawyer Dan Friedman. They just finished a 60 date tour with Bowling for Soup and have a string of dates in the UK 2007. Labels reps are expected to attend the November 11th performance in Dallas, Texas.
• KOAR’s Higher Learning artist My Favorite Highway will be performing for labels on November 11th at Jammin Java in Virginia.

• Sting Says Today’s Rock is a Bore
  Sting said contemporary rock music is so stagnant that he prefers to sing 16th century English ballads. Rock music has come to a standstill — it’s not going forward any more, it only bores me,” Die Zeit quoted Sting as saying.

Today’s rock music a bore. You think?

• KOAR recently talked about 90’s grunge band Sponge that wrote new songs and looking for a partner. Sponge is now confirmed on the “Rock Never Stops” tour that features headliners Motley Crue. For more information email lawyer Dan Friedman.
  Check out the tracks Fame and Glory and No DOA on Sunday.
• Labels Profited Directly from YouTube Buy – Will Artists See the Money?
  The New York Times reports that YouTube gave each label an equity stake that just hours later was valued at up to $50 million from the Google acquisition. Three of the four major music companies — Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony and Bertelsmann’s jointly owned Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and the Warner Music Group — each quietly negotiated to take small stakes in YouTube as part of video- and music-licensing deals they struck shortly before the sale, people involved in the talks said yesterday.
• Labels Market to Illegal Music Fans.
  A video clip from Jay-Z’s live concert in June at Radio City Music Hall is popping up on all sorts of illicit music-sharing hotspots. But Jay-Z isn’t upset.
  In a tactic little known outside the music industry, record labels have hired outside companies to plant “decoy,” or fake, files on the sites. (One such company, ArtistDirect Inc.’s MediaDefender, says it has deployed decoys for as many as 30 of the top 100 Billboard songs at any given time.) Audioslave, Ice Cube, Yellowcard and other music groups have used decoy files for their own version of viral marketing.
• Yoko Ono sued music company EMI Group PLC and a subsidiary for $10 million Wednesday, claiming she was cheated out of royalties due from the sale of music recordings by her late husband, John Lennon.

Still the same..Great Rock
Rod Stewart
TW 184,304
**Clive Davis did a great job cultivating his career.

Open Door
Evanescence
TW 164,042
612,988

Sam’s Town
Killers
TW 101,657
Total 417,531
The guitar line in “When You Were Young” is one of the best written. Unfortunately the whole record doesn’t speak.

Extreme Behavior
Hinder
76,204
Total 972,260

All the Right Reasons
Nickelback
TW 54,606
Total 3,759,854

Crusade
Trivium
TW 31,156

Shine On
Jet
TW 15,546
Total 66,709

Universal alleged that Grouper.com – recently acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment – and Bolt.com had built up traffic by encouraging users to share music videos from its artists without their permission. It claimed a video for the Mariah Carey song “Shake it Off� was viewed more than 50,000 times on Grouper without the company’s permission.

Josh Felser, co-founder and CEO of Grouper, said: “The lawsuit is without merit and we expect to prevail. Our website is protected by federal law and we’re vigilant about taking down copyrighted content when we’re properly notified.�

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