THE BLANK TAPES

I’ve never seen so many musicians Online shopping go out for a candidate,” says a campaign vet.
fornia Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg¬ger and Sylvester Stallone; when the U.S. senator VideoArizona aired John Mellencamp’s “Our Country” at a campaign rally, the politically Advanced Metal – Riffs, Arpeggios & Speed Runsliberal singer demanded that he stop using the song.)

San Francisco

Butler declared on his blog that Obama was the “first can¬didate in my lifetime to strip some of this bullshit away, and I just hope we don’t blow this chance.” Echoing that the browser sentiment, on February 4th the Grateful Dead reunited for the first time in four years to play a San Francisco fund-raiser. Comparing Obama to Robert F. Kennedy, bassist Phil Lesh told ROLLING STONE backstage, “I think Hill¬ary would make a good president, but Obama is my man.”

OBAMA

OBAMA
[Cont.from n] what you could have done.’”
Willi.am declared his support with his “Yes We Can” video, in which he edited an Obama speech templates to music — with appearances by Common, Scarlett Johansson, Herbie Hancock, John Legend and others. It appeared online on the eve of the February 5th Super Tuesday primaries, and it got 13 million YouTube views by mid-February. “I just thought it was a little RocketThemeTemplate thing we’d do, and it might be a little circulation,” Legend says. “I was completely surprised by how popular the video became. The number of views it’s gotten has been incredible.”

Inside the London sessions

Inside the London sessions for her new disc with Timberlake and Timbaland By Evan Serpick L AST SPRING, JUSTIN TIM’ berlake, Timbaland and Nate “Danja” Hills jetted to London to TV & Video help craft a new sound for Madonna, who was , beginning work on her eleventh studio album. “She wanted up¬tempo, dance, club music, and for everything to have a hip-hop underlining,” says Danja, who co-produced four tracks on the still-untitled album, out April 29th. “It’s a different sound for her.”

ROLLING STONE

Winehouse and Hancock win big as ratings fall
By Brian Hiatt
I
F THE GRAMMYS ARE SUP-posed to reflect the state of the record industry, this year’s ceremony music succeeded: Just like album sales, ratings were way down. Viewership was the second-lowest in thirty years, for a fiftieth-anniversary show that relied on many less-than-current stars – from a digitally reanimat¬ed Frank Sinatra to a back-from-retirement Tina Turner. “I don’t know that this year was one of the great years of music,” says the show’s co-executive producer
Ken Ehrlich. “And when that hap-pens, it kind of gives us a platform to be able to look outside the cur-rent year.”