New Album | featured news

Carrie Underwood promised that her fourth album, “Blown Away,” would be “darker” than the country-pop sun rays she’s been known to radiate. False alarm. This is merely a trans-faux-mation — that thing pop stars do when they dabble in minor-key melodies, frowny lyrics and/or smoky eye shadow, hoping their listeners will mistake a superficial shift in tone for a meaningful artistic left turn.

Norah Jones unveiled something new at South By Southwest - again. Ten years after she shook Austin and the music world with "Come Away With Me," the 25 million-selling debut she released just weeks before the 2002 conference and festival, she returned to play her entire new album "Little Broken Hearts" at La Zona Rosa on Saturday night.

As press briefings go, it rocked. On Thursday night, Van Halen took to the stage of the venerable Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, capacity 250. “Last time I stood on a stage this low, we had to have the car back by midnight,” said the singer David Lee Roth. The objective was to prove Van Halen is alive and amicable for an arena tour that starts Feb. 18 in Louisville, Ky.,after the Feb. 7 release of a new album, “A Different Kind of Truth.” It’s to be Van Halen’s first full album with Mr. Roth as lead singer since the band fired him in 1985, although they have done previous reunion tours.

Amy Winehouse's record label said today that "Lioness: Hidden Treasures" will contain 12 songs - previously unreleased tracks, alternative versions of existing classics and brand-new songs.

“Metals,” Feist’s album that is to be released Oct. 4, ignores all the glossy, computerized, impersonal pop of the 21st century. It’s made for intimacy, not for mass-market broadcast.

It was supposed to be a comeback of sorts, this strange, disjointed album, Sly Stone’s first release of new material since 1982. “I’m Back! Family & Friends” is part star-studded collaborations disc meant to evoke Carlos Santana’s career-reinvigorating “Supernatural,” part remix disc and part redone greatest hits, with a few new tracks tacked on near the end.

It was Spears’ birthday that prompted her to reveal the news.

Singer wants to be The Only Girl in the World. Rihanna is turning up the volume for her fifth album. The R&B singer announced that Loud will be the name for her next musical offering, telling fans it s the next step in the evolution of Rihanna.

The album, which Iglesias worked on for three years, includes tropical ballads, reggae, dance and pop.

The title of Usher's strong new album alludes to his recent divorce from Tameka Foster.