16/06/08: London - UK: Brixton Academy
17/06/08: Barcelona - Spain: Espacio Movistar
23/06/08: New York, NY - USA: Madison Square Garden
14/07/08: Los Angeles, CA - USA: The Forum
15/07/08: Los Angeles, CA - USA: The Forum
18/07/08: San Jose, CA - USA: HP Pavilion
19/07/08: Las Vegas, NV - USA: MGM Grand Garden Arena
23/07/08: Chicago, IL - USA: United Center
25/07/08: Philadelphia, PA - USA: Wachovia Center
27/07/08: Pemberton, BC - Canada: Pemberton Festival
29/07/08: Montreal, QC - Canada: Bell Centre
30/07/08: Toronto, ON - Canada: Air Canada Centre
02/08/08: Hartford, CT - USA: XL Center
03/08/08: Washington, DC - USA: Verizon Center
04/08/08: Boston, MA - USA: TD Banknorth Garden
09/08/08: Osaka - Japan :Summersonic Festival
10/08/08: Tokyo - Japan: Summersonic Festival
01/09/08: Strasbourg - France: Zenith
02/09/08: Mannheim - Germany: SAP Arena
04/09/08: Lyon - France: Tony Garnier Hall
06/09/08: Barcelona - Spain: Palau St Jordi
07/09/08: Madrid - Spain: Palacio de Deportes
09/09/08: Paris - France: The Bercy
12/09/08: Cologne - Germany: Koln Arena
14/09/08: Hamburg - Germany: Colorline Arena
15/09/08: Berlin - Germany: O2 World
18/09/08: Stockholm - Sweden: Globe Theatre
19/09/08: Oslo - Norway: Spectrum
22/09/08: Prague - Czech Republic: O2 Arena
23/09/08: Budapest - Hungary: Budapest Arena
24/09/08: Vienna - Austria: Stadthalle
26/09/08: Munich - Germany: Olympiahalle
28/09/08: Zurich - Switzerland: Hallenstadion
29/09/08: Bologna - Italy :Palamagotti
30/09/08: Milan - Italy: Datchforum

Production issues delay Coldplay tour [Billboard]

The fake:

The allegedly real:

Hoodwinked!: Please tell me this is the real Carter III cover [Miss Info]
Lil' Wayne's Carter III Pushed Back [SOHH]

Though Nas seems confident that his controversial title will fly, Reid is not so sure. When asked if the new Nas album will be released with the n-word title, Reid replied with, "We'll have to see."

According to Reid, the album, which was originally slated for a December 2007 release will drop sometime this spring. "Hopefully we'll get it in April or May," he told SOHH exclusively. "Something like that, somewhere around there. It's getting there, we're getting close."

Who knows whether it's boardroom wrangling over the title, a late-breaking tracklist change, or the now all-too-familiar "we're gonna keep pushing this hotly anticipated album back for no obvious reason" major label marketing strategy that's actually delaying Nas' button-pushing opus, but Reid notes that anxious fans can still snag Island Def Jam's upcoming Lionel Richie album in the interim between now and the second quarter of '08 '09 TBA.

Nas ni99a [sic] Album Title In Jeopardy [SOHH]

Stalwart PCD fans should also be excited to know that Nicole Scherzinger is back with that group and they're making music again.
"We're in the studio right now," [Pussycat Dolls founder Robin] Antin said. "Nicole is 100% back with us. She actually never left. She was working on her solo stuff and it's out there and people will hear that, but she actually wants to focus on Pussycat Dolls right now. We all want to. We're going full force."

Scherzinger's "solo stuff" has been, of course, "out there" for a while, despite the general populace's unwillingness to pay it any mind. What her newfound desire to focus on the Pussycat Dolls' output right now will mean for the release date of her long-delayed solo debut Her Name Is Nicole—which now has a June 23 street date—is anyone's guess, although given that Scherzinger is the only singer credited on the Pussycat Dolls' first album and there's been a wide swath of indifference to the songs on Nicole that have made it out so far perhaps the suits at Interscope are just thinking of giving the whole project a quick rebranding and a Paris Hilton-assisted bonus track or two, if only to get the damned thing off everyone's backs.

'Girlicious' musical vibes [NY Daily News]

Announcing that an album's been pushed back is a really easy way to unleash the stink of failure around the project. Probably the biggest argument in favor of avoiding delays, particularly in these schadenfreude-laden times. Pushing back an album is more and more seeming like the recorded-music industry's equivalent of not screening a film for critics, except in the case of delayed albums no one can actually legally listen to the music and prove the critics (or, in these cases, the suits) wrong by turning what was seen as a flop into a hit.

The global music/leak market.Take Van Hunt, who parted ways with Blue Note before his third album, Popular hit stores—but after releases of the album were sent to music writers. Popular actually leaked last month, shortly before Van Hunt announced the breakup. And the ease with which one can acquire import editions of albums is important, too; I bought the German edition of Amerie's Because I Love It via amazon.co.uk last year. As of now, it's apparently being released Stateside sometime this spring—but I remember being told that it was coming out "this spring" last year, too. Prolonging the release of albums serves to depress said records' sales more and more, thanks to the increased availability of music, not to mention the sharp decrease in traditional retail outlets that music buyers would visit every Tuesday.

The potential for datedness. This was inspired by reading an Entertainment Weekly article about the long-delayed Amy Heckerling movie I Could Never Be Your Woman, which was written in 1997 and titled with what I think is a White Town reference. It's getting a direct-to-DVD release this week, and full of references to Will & Grace and the WB. In pop music, where the trends seem to go by at even greater speed, the potential for datedness is even worse (T-Pain being the last six months' Akon, etc.). Why leave an album on the shelf when, especially in the case of pop music, doing so only allows it to sound even more worthy of being passed over?

Waiting (and Waiting) for a Big Rap Moment [NYT]
Idolator's coverage of delayed albums

and i still have no record for y 'all, but its NOT MY SCHEDULE, reflected in the delivery of this record im not BLAMING anyone - everyone has a life butthe long "overdue" Courtney Love record is about other peoples schedules and being at the mercy of other people to some extent wich is a compromise i will NOT make in this or any life- i have no negativity for anyone - but ive just been put through a maelstrom in my personal life- a fucking hurricane- that i tend to be very very discreet about- NOTHING bothers me more than my personal life being examined by other people- the mere IDEA of my email being violated by a cyber friend gives me fucking shivers - beyond that account i have other accounts this person didnt get to thank GOD_ and the things - the upheaval going on in my REAL life are not public or for sale- real life changing moves - health, wealth, marriage., divorce, children, death, taxes, music, sex, i have chosen to use another account for most of these topics- thank the LORD, i suggest you all make sure your deeply personal feelings about things - no matter how triumphant or pathetic no matter how devestated or obsessive you feel be put in longhand in a JOURNAL, as i feel so raped i cant even put it into words- but darling on with the show=

Cliffs Notes version for those of you whose head hurts from that typing: The album's not ready yet, presumably because she wants it to be perfect, and also other collaborators (like Linda Perry maybe?) are busy with other projects. Also: someone hacked her e-mail (ugh!) and she thinks that real personal stuff should be written out in longhand. (Very The Artist's Way!) But! Earlier in the entry she claims that MySpace is "more secure" than her personal site, which makes me a bit, well, worried. (C'mon, I dressed up as Courtney for Halloween many years ago, I still have some lingering affection.) Given that I know about 10 people who have deleted their accounts because of spamming/phishing in the past few weeks, she might want to look into the validity of that claim (or at least change her password).

hey kids [Courtney Love's MySpace Blog]
[Photo: Getty]

From the mailbag: "Check out this link for the new Nelly record. I know it's been pushed back, but 2020? Yowza! That's worse than the Nicole Scherzinger record." Not only that, but he's gonna completely miss his chance to release a ringle!

Nelly - Brass Knuckles [Amazon; HT: Adam Graham]

If UGK's delayed date was (mostly) the result of artistic license, Jones' still-unreleased American Dream is a victim of label limbo. Its release was teased for April on posters at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin. Then a July 3 date was set. The album would be packaged with a straight-to-DVD biopic of the same name.

It was a perfect Fourth of July tie-in that never happened, likely because of the tepid reaction to singles Mr. Jones and My 64.

American Dream — the disc and the DVD — is now scheduled for October.

"It has been very frustrating," Jones says. "The album originally was supposed to come out in April, but the movie wasn't ready."

Jones' 2005 disc, Who is Mike Jones? sold more than 2 million copies, setting the stakes high for this follow-up.

I'm sort of mystified by the fact that "Mr. Jones" was tepidly received—the singalong chorus-choir combo alone definitely helped endear it to my ears—but as my fiance suggested upon first listen, maybe since the album's been so delayed so far, it should be pushed back even further, to next May? After all, there's a movie coming out around then that could be an excellent tie-in with the song's proclamation that "you'll never catch Mr. Jones."

Record labels take the rap [Houston Chronicle; HT Kate]

Anyway, with nearly twenty years of production time to its credit, Young's Archives beats Chinese Democracy as the music industry's go-to long-delayed punchline (though, for joke-making purposes, "Chinese Democracy" rolls off the tongue much easier*). We'll see who can hold out longest, but we're guessing that by the time Young finishes with this thing, there will be no free world left within which to rock. In the meantime, we'll all have to make to do with the live albums he's been putting out in the past year, which include such stunning moments as this:

Neil Young - On The Way Home (Live At Massey Hall 1971) [MP3, link expired]

* For example, saying "Alice Sebold's new novel has taken so long, it's like the Neil Young's multi-disc archive box set of publishing" doesn't quite work.