Even with a barely Republican Governor in California, George Bush faces a nearly impossible battle to convince liberal Hollywood that he should be re-elected in 2004. Last week music moguls like Irving Azoff and Hard Rock founder, Peter Morton raised money for former General Wesley Clark at Morton’s ultra-chic West Hollywood restaurant amidst rumors of a future Eagles benefit concert at Morton’s Las Vegas hotel. Even Bush would be impressed with the millions of dollars that event could raise. Beyond Hollywood’s liberals, Bush faces a more daunting critic in Dixie Chick, Natalie Maines. To the dismay of far right-wingers, Maines has been consistently critical of President Bush in terms of his administration’s fervor for the war in Iraq. Her most recent barbs were launched on NBC’s Today Show where the singer accused the administration of misleading Americans about the war. Before today’s comments Maines said she was ashamed that Bush was from Texas. Comments she ...

The Julliard trained composer who brought classical music to rock in ways never before seen or heard died this week at his London home at the age of 55. The cause of death is thought to be a heart attack. Kamen’s resume is impressive including work on films like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. Musically, he helped Pink Floyd create the orchestration for one of the all-time greatest albums in The Wall. Later in life Kamen made more risky moves by merging orchestral music with the hard rocking styles of bands like Aerosmith and Metallica. While not every classical-hard rock fusion song was a hit - musicians, engineer and producers respect his work for its fearlessness. Kamen is survived by his wife, two daughters, his father and three brothers.

A lot has been said about the downfall of the music business. The record execs and the RIAA myopically blame Napster and file sharing. Analysts say that the CD is a bad value versus more audio-video oriented media like DVD-Videos and video games. Music critics say the reason music isn’t selling at the same volumes is because the music of today technically stinks as compared to the rock-pop being created during the “classic” period of 1967-1993. The cause of the music business’ ills are a solid dose of all of the above afflictions however there are still musical acts that can play their asses off and are making great music today. Beyond high resolution audio (SACD and DVD-Audio) there are good musical reasons to buy new CDs. Here are ten acts we think are worthy of a full price CD acquisition:

Musically, the period of time between 1967 and 1970 was nothing short of magic, thanks to never before seen or heard creativity from artists like Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Janice Joplin and many others. The records made in this short, politically tumultuous time in history musically defined the hopes and dreams of the Baby Boomer generation as they became adults. We may never see a more important few years of musical creativity in terms of pop-rock music. For the music industry as a business, things were just starting to get good. Despite the fact many of the best artists of the era didn’t live past 1970, the music they and their predecessors created had incredible commercial appeal. Even with Jimi, Janice and Jim Morrison gone, there were more bands and artists coming onto the scene throughout the 1970s who continued to define the sound of rock music in ...

Record executives looking to find new ways to sell prerecorded (non-download) music are addressing CD’s value problem in a new way for the coming holiday selling season by bundling special DVD-Video discs with the CD’s for about the same price. Artists reportedly bundling DVD-Video content in with their CDs include Limp Bizkit, POD, Pink and Mandy Moore. The DVD’s fit right in the packaging and add a good amount of value to consumers who in the Gen Y demographic tend to value video games or DVD movies more highly than prerecorded music. Music orientated DVD-Video releases are also bundling CDs in with their packaging to try to drive music sales from the movie bins at the local mega-stereo-record shop. Artists reportedly releasing DVD-Video music tiles with bundled CDs include Coldplay, Jennifer Lopez, Avril Levine, Primus and A Simple Plan.