Riding off the back of the biggest ARIA Awards since Ben Hur (please don’t mention that ARIAs didn’t necessarily operate during the time of Christ), it’s difficult to let the party die down. After all, it’s only 3 weeks til Christmas!

So indeed the good times continue with the news that we (that’s EMI worldwide, not my band) have FIFTY SIX Grammy Award nominations in the whopping one hundred and nine categories – far too many to list, but here are our EMI highlights!

Multiple nominees include our favourite shaggy-haired, bikini-babe-surrounded Frenchman David Guetta (who also produced The Black Eyed Peas’ Grammy nominated album and record of the year), Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Keith Urban and American Classic legend Willie Nelson.

Katy Perry announced the Best Rock Album nominees and discussed the Black Eyed Peas nominations – watch the videos.

And yes, the reason why the Grammy artwork is so cool this year is no other than Shepard Fairey – the man behind THAT Obama / Hope and Obey / Giant artwork – is responsible. OBEY (great music)

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
	Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
Best Dance Recording
	When Love Takes Over – David Guetta & Kelly Rowland
Best Electronic/Dance Album
	One Love – David Guetta
	Yes – Pet Shop Boys Read the rest of this entry »

Well, we never doubted you… Some of you kids sure do love The Chains!

It was hard work picking a winner from all you hardcore Alice In Chains fans. How do you pick dedication to such a cause!? In the end we just had to pick dedication to the picture.

And so it came to pass that John Klotz, who became the ultimate Man In The Box, scored himself an autographed Alice In Chains L&G Fender. Congratulations! It’s in the mail.

But we have to give some serious kudos to the great entries we received… Here are our picks!

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been 10 years since Alice In Chains have released a studio album and I think it’s safe to say that it was well worth the wait. This is an album not force fed by a record company or some comeback album money-making scheme so the Chains can feature on the next MTV Cribbs… No sir-ree-bob!!! This is one of those moments you can officially look up to the metal gods and goddesses and scream with all your might… “FUCK YESSSS!!!”

Taking that original raw Seattle sound that we all miss and love so much to the next level. With over 14 million albums in the United States, the sounds off this album are not only iconic to 90’s rock era but they have been injected with new energy and new recoding methods that were never available 10 years ago.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few days back we brought you the Check My Brain video, but now we have a whole lot more of the album for you…

Give the tracks from Black Gives Way To Blue a whirl:

1. All Secrets Known
2. Check My Brain
3. Last Of My Kind
4. Your Decision
5. A Looking In View
6. When The Sun Rose Again
7. Acid Bubble
8. Lessons Learned
9. Take Her Out
10. Private Hell
11. Black Gives Way To Blue

And keep checking back in at theinsound.com for a MASSIVE Alice In Chains competition right around the corner!

TheInSound offices got slightly louder than usual when the first Alice In Chains album in ten years, Black Gives Way To Blue (out Sept 25) landed on our desks…

The first official single from the album is Check My Brain, and the video is a hazy West Coast acid-trip directed by Alex Cortez. Moreover, it’s the first clip featuring new vocalist William DuVall – for those not acquainted with Alice In Chains history, he’s the chap with the slightly-outta-place-amongst-flowing-metal-hair afro.

Watch Check My Brain:

• Quicktime (mov)
• Windows Media (wmv)

The album’s title track Black Gives Way To Blue is a piano-laden tribute to AIC’s late singer Layne Staley. And yes believe it or not, it features Elton John:

“We were thinking about adding piano to the track and a friend suggested we call Elton,” recalls guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell. “I remember laughing and saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll get right on that.’ But I decided it was worth trying and wrote Elton an email explaining what that song means to us—that it’s a real, raw openhearted song for Layne. We sent him the track and got a call shortly after saying he thought it was beautiful and that he wanted to play on it. We were blown away.”