While finalizing Yeezus, Kanye commissioned Rick Rubin to executive produce the album. Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Rick speaks on how it came into fruition and the experience. [RapRadar] When and why did you join the “Yeezus” project? Kanye came over to play me what I assumed was going to be the finished album…

As many as eight new releases could debut in the Top 15 next week. The biggest and probably loudest of these, of course, will be 13 from Republic‘s reunited metal godfathers, Black Sabbath. Here’s how it looks headed into the weekend: *Black Sabbath (Republic) 115-125k Daft Punk (Columbia) 45-50k *Big Time Rush (Columbia) 40-45k *Hans…

At the National Music Publishers’ Association annual meeting yesterday at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, NMPA president David Israelite pointed out that the music industry has moved beyond the period of copyright theft and denial of the industry’s rights but there are still challenges ahead, and he urged record labels, music digital services…

X Ambassadors recount how they got their start as musicians, having been playing music since their early gradeschool years, while their manager chimes in and discusses how he fell into becoming a manager.

Of Monsters and Men came to New York City to perform on the first day the 2013 Governors Ball music festival, and Billboard’s cameras were there to chronicle this day in the life of the Icelandic folk-poppers. Though it was exceptionally rainy, the dense mud and heavy winds weren’t enough to keep members Nanna Bryndís…

Good week for Columbia‘s Nine Inch Nails, whose return is a most welcome development in PoMoland (“Haunted” also got added at SiriusXM’s Alt Nation, as we noted earlier). Meanwhile, Thirty Seconds to Mars landed on KROQ and Jason Flom‘s teen discovery Lorde got the “Royals” treatment at crosstown station KYSR. Here’s what else is new…

Bravado, the global merchandising arm of Universal Music Group, has announced a deal with Apple Corps., the management boutique founded by the Beatles in 1967, covering rights to Beatles merchandise in North America, making UMG, for all intents and purposes, the home of the Beatles in North America. As today’s statement put it, the deal…