Here are your Monday morning music news headlines…
Led Zeppelin has been entangled in a legal battle over copyright issues regarding the song “Stairway” with former Spirit member, Randy California. Randy claims a song he’d written a year before the Zeppelin classic (Led Zeppelin spent a summer opening up for the then more popular Spirit) is way to similar not to have been ripped off, thus the suit. This week lawyers for Randy offered this olive branch; the lawsuit will be dropped under the conditions of giving Randy California co-writing credit for the song, and $1. Seems fair to us!
Prince has been gone for a few weeks, and details about his life are revealing a few interesting facts. Prince was rumored to be up over 150 hours straight before his death, he did not leave a will, nor was he as rich as we thought; Price’s estimated net worth is less than $400 million dollars.
In a stunning bit of news, old music is now outselling current music according to Neilson’s latest data. Albums or catalogs at least 18 months old outsold current releases by 4.5 million copies. This is the first time in music history new music did not top sales of ‘older’ catalogs or music.
Iggy Pop is writing a memoir about the life of a puck rock band in the early days of his career. The autobiography ‘Total Choas: The Story of the Stooges’ is expected to be out very soon. Iggy is on tour as we speak supporting his new album.
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