Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Blog, page 121

Inside Bon Jovi's $200 Million Payday

Bon Jovi: Plenty of Reasons Not to Go Home.

Five years ago, Bon Jovi released the song "Who Says You Can't Go Home." Seems the New Jersey rockers abandoned that notion in 2010 — the road was just too lucrative.

Bon Jovi took in $200 million in gross concert receipts over the past year, the most of any musical act according to concert information purveyor Pollstar. The group performed 80 shows, including 27 international dates, selling an average of 36,000 tickets at $105 a pop for a nightly g...

From Akon to Jay-Z: Music Stories of 2010

Jay-Z got a lot of ink in 2010. Expect even more in 2011.

If you've been listening to the radio over the past few days, you may have noticed the orgy of mash-ups and "best of" remixes that now seems to dominate the airwaves around the end of every calendar year.

Since I write about music, I figured I ought to add to the cacophony with my own remix of sorts — a selection of the better stories I've written over the course of this calendar year. Though I spent the bulk of 2010 writing a...

Paul McCartney Continues to Have a Wonderful (Financial) Christmas Time

Paul McCartney's holiday gift to the world -- and to himself -- keeps on giving.

Christmas is still days away, but Paul McCartney has already given himself the gift that keeps on giving: The song "Wonderful Christmastime."

Released in 1979, the ditty was written, produced and performed by the knighted Beatle. He even played all the instruments himself. As a result, he receives royalties as a songwriter and performer, and doesn't have to share the pieces of this festive sonic pie with...

Michael Jackson Fails to Outperform Living Artists, For Once

Michael Jackson's album landed at No. 3, which is not bad for someone who's dead.

There aren't many living musicians who'd be disappointed with opening week album sales of nearly a quarter of a million units and a No. 3 spot on the Billboard chart. Of the artists who've passed on to another world, there's probably just one for whom such a performance would be a letdown: Michael Jackson.

The King of Pop's posthumous Michael moved 228,000 copies in the U.S. its first week, trailing only No. 2 S...

EMI's Final Resting Place

Is EMI headed the way of Vanilla Ice?

Most holiday presents aren't accompanied by a fat load of debt, but Citigroup may end up in control of EMI — and accompanying liabilities estimated to be as high as $3.5 billion — by Christmas.

The venerable record label, home to The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Sinatra and others, was acquired by British financier Guy Hands's firm Terra Firma for $6.7 billion in a 2007 leveraged buyout. Citi provided Hands with a $5 billion loan to make the deal happen...

Fab 5 Freddy Goes to Las Vegas

Fab 5 Freddy: Bedazzling Las Vegas, one canvas at a time.

The first thing you notice is the g-string, shimmering in Swarovski crystals on the surface of a canvas the size of small European car. Take a step back and you'll notice the undergarment's owner and a cast of compartiots — bedazzled strippers and boxers — grinning triumphantly at one another from canvases across the room.

Scheduled for a debut at the grand opening of the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas later this week, the canvases are the...

Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Diddy: "I Get Money (Forbes 1-2-3 Billion Dollar Remix)"

Jay-Z, Diddy and 50 Cent: Three Cash Kings of Hip-Hop

It's been more than three years since Jay-Z, Diddy and 50 Cent released this epic collaboration to celebrate their inclusion on our first-ever FORBES Hip-Hop Cash Kings list in 2007. So it's about time we posted "I Get Money (Forbes 1-2-3 Billion Dollar Remix)" in embeddable format on the site that bears its name. Click below to play the song. Enjoy!

For more on the business of hip-hop, pre-order my Jay-Z biography for an inside look at...

Miley Cyrus Tops Yahoo Most-Searched List

AP Photo

Click Here For Full Gallery: 10 Most Searched Artists

Miley Cyrus is the most searched-for musician, followed by Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.

Miley Cyrus is officially more popular than the iPhone — at least if you measure popularity by Yahoo! searches.

The former Hannah Montana star garnered more searches over the past year than any other recording artist, and her name was the third-most searched term across the entire internet, topped only by No. 2 "World Cup" and No. 1 "BP Oil...

The Big Payback: Hip-Hop's Business Bible

Dan Charnas' The Big Payback.

The book's opening line couldn't have set the stage better: "The man who invented American money lived and died in Harlem."

Thus begins The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, a 638-page tome by Dan Charnas that details the rise of rap music from the burned-out blocks of the South Bronx in the 1970s to the top of the international mainstream music world today. Tracking more than 30 years of hip-hop's history, the book gives readers a peek at the...

Universal CEO Doug Morris Jumping to Sony?

Doug Morris: Playing musical chairs.

Music industry veteran Doug Morris has already served as CEO of Warner Music and Universal Music Group. Now it looks like he'll be leaving the latter for a post at a third major record company.

According to a report in The New York Post earlier today, Morris–who had been planning to step down from Universal's top spot at year's end–is in talks to take the helm at Sony's struggling music group. Morris has spent the past 15 years at Universal, helping it...