AP business writer Simon Avery writes: Free music-swapping services continue to attract millions of new users despite the recording industry’s legal efforts to shutter them, and few consumers are even aware of the handful of pay sites that have emerged over the last year. That’s unlikely to change – unless …

Sons of legends never have it easy. Life is difficult enough without the burden of comparisons impossible to meet. Most either run screaming in another direction or coast in the slipstream of parental greatness. Perhaps most difficult of all is the attempt to achieve independence within the same field. Such …

I told this story in Tres Producers back in May – it met with some skepticism. I swear it’s as true as I can remember it. The kid was real as described; he was killed in a car crash after committing a robbery as described. Recently I was flipping around …

Ryan McGee scores again with a five-year retrospective look at The Link from Jan Herman, our new best friend: September 1st, 2007 It’s only fitting on today of all days, the fifth year anniversary of “The Link”, as it has been dubbed in public discourse, to look back on the …

Ed Harcourt's Here Be Monsters is a contender for album of the year.

Reviews of the new Dead bio and an assessment of the band's career.

The Stones open 40th anniversary tour tonight in Boston without even the pretense of a new album to promote: As they launch their 40th anniversary U.S. tour — beginning Tuesday in Boston — the Stones are out to prove that age is no obstacle. So what if newly-knighted Mick Jagger …

Zomba Music, the record label of Britney Spears and ‘N Sync, won European regulatory approval on Monday for its purchase by German giant Bertelsmann Music Group. The European Commission said that BMG, part of German media group Bertelsmann, could buy the U.S. record company in a deal that public records …

This morning, NPR had a touching, revealing story about the musical ghetto of Kabul, Kharabat Street, it’s history and denizens: For hundreds of years, an ancient part of Kabul called Kharabat Street was synonymous with Afghan music. But these days Kharabat Street is in ruins, the music silenced by decades …

Cool Tunes is a radio show in a magazine format Saturday nights at 10pm ET on WAPS, “The Summit,” in Akron, Ohio. I play new music, reissues, and preview shows coming to town each week. Musically it is among the widest-ranging 2 hours in the country: modern rock, punk, electronica, …