By Sara Morrison LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Chet Flippo, a former Rolling Stone editor who had been serving as editorial director of CMT since 2001, died Wednesday morning in a Nashville hospital. He was 69. CMT said Flippo had been suffering from a "lengthy illness." Billboard, where Flippo served as Nashville Bureau Chief from 1995 to 2000, reported that he had pneumonia. Flippo, best known for his writing about country music, authored several books about musicians including Hank Williams and the Rolling Stones. He started writing for Rolling Stone while a student at the U. ...

By Tony Maglio LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jay-Z once spit, "I deserve platinum plaques, to match my bezel." And while the rapper's got a bunch of those (and plenty of bezels), after Samsung announced it would purchase a million copies of his new album "Magna Carta Holy Grail," is there another platinum disc in the mail already? The answer is "not yet," according to a music industry insider. A record cannot be certified platinum (or gold, or multiplatinum) before it's out, regardless of presale numbers. ...

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran heavy-metal band Black Sabbath landed its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, more than four decades after the rockers debuted their first album in the United States. "13," the 19th studio album from Black Sabbath, sold 155,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan, knocking last week's No. 1 album by Queens of the Stone Age off the top spot on the weekly U.S. album chart. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones released a career-spanning digitally re-mastered back catalogue on Apple Inc's iTunes Store on Wednesday as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations. The new iTunes release chronicles the British group's entire oeuvre, from their introductory 1963 cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On" to last year's Greatest Hits collection "GRRR!", their record label Universal Music said on Wednesday. The Rolling Stones - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts - emerged alongside the Beatles in the early 1960s. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Country singer and songwriter Slim Whitman, known for his smooth falsetto and yodeling talent, died in Florida on Wednesday at the age of 90, his son-in-law said. "He died last night at the Orange Park hospital at about 12.45 this morning of heart failure," Roy Beagle told Reuters. "We had a 90th birthday party for him in January and he looked good, but he had been in failing health since then." Born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr., he was self-taught on the guitar and had a string of hits such as "Rose Marie", "Indian Love Call" and "Secret Love". ...

Babies in neo-natal intensive care units may be benefitting from listening to music.        

By Tim Molloy NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - With "The Voice" finale hours away, tell us if this scenario sounds familiar: A give-it-your-all reality competition becomes a national fascination, and people agonize over whether their favorite competitors will be voted off. Other shows mimic its formula - and eventually another show becomes the nation's reality spectacle of choice. It outpaces its predecessor and makes many of us forget just how original the original once seemed. ...

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Kanye West pushes the boundaries of hip hop with his latest album "Yeezus," using aggressive electro-dance music beats to channel his anger and win over critics, who have called the record "daring" and "ambitious." "Yeezus," the 36-year-old rapper's seventh solo studio album, has also sped to the top of the iTunes digital music chart upon its release on Tuesday, led by the single "Black Skinhead. ...

By Todd Cunningham LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - 28 Entertainment has begun work on a movie about iconic country music singer George Jones and his wife Nancy, the company announced Tuesday. It has acquired the rights to the project, written by Dennis L. Baxter and produced by Baxter and 28 Entertainment's Jay Hoffman and Brian A. Hoffman, which depicts George's life as a country music legend while battling his personal demons. Nancy Jones will executive produce and consult on the project. ...

By Tim Molloy NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - With "The Voice" finale hours away, tell us if this scenario sounds familiar: A give-it-your-all reality competition becomes a national fascination, and people agonize over whether their favorite competitors will be voted off. Other shows mimic its formula - and eventually another show becomes the nation's reality spectacle of choice. It outpaces its predecessor and makes many of us forget just how original the original once seemed. ...

Sure, you’ve heard of “Prancercize,” but now that its creator Joanna Rohrback has teamed up with John Mayer, get ready to “Romancercize.” In the video for Mayer’s new single “Paper Doll,” Rohrback, who created the unorthodox workout in 1989, introduces herself and asks, “What about a...        

(Reuters) - Teen pop star Justin Bieber was involved in a late-night traffic accident, which Los Angeles media said injured a photographer who had been among a crowd trying to take pictures of the singer. Video taken outside the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles showed Bieber, 19, behind the wheel of his white Ferrari, surrounded by photographers as he tried to leave the club shortly before midnight on Monday, KCAL-TV reported on Tuesday. ...

(Reuters) - British folk band Mumford & Sons' bassist Ted Dwane posted a message on Monday saying he was recovering after brain surgery to remove a blood clot. Dwane posted a picture of himself with a shaved head on the band's official website with the caption, "Bear with a sore head! Thanks so much for all the well wishing, it seems to be working! I'm home." The Grammy-winning London band was forced to cancel the final three U.S. dates of its "Summer Stampede" tour last week after doctors discovered a clot on the surface of Dwane's brain, which required immediate surgery. ...

By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Jay Z's upcoming studio album will go to a million users of Samsung smartphones three days before its official release in a promotional deal, but the distribution is unlikely to count toward official sales figures, an industry expert said on Monday. Jay Z, 43, announced on Sunday in a three-minute television commercial during the telecast of basketball's NBA Finals that his latest album "Magna Carter Holy Grail" will be released on July 4 exclusively to 1 million users of Samsung smartphones who had downloaded a special app. ...

By Ellen Sowerby LONDON (Reuters) - Veteran British rock bands Motorhead and Black Sabbath were crowned the kings of heavy metal on Monday, winning the top accolades at the UK's top metal music awards, the Metal Hammer Golden Gods. Motorhead, best known for its 1980 hit "Ace of Spades", received the Golden Gods awards at the 11th annual ceremony for making a significant contribution to the rock and heavy metal industry over nearly four decades. Black Sabbath won the award for best album for "13" which soared to No. ...

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