Surely fans of Breaking Benjamin, Paramore, Default, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Alice in Chains and AFI (and many others) have been counting down to Tuesday, September 29. Why? The bands’ highly anticipated new records are dropping – all on the same day.

It isn’t unusual to have a few albums of the same genre and caliber dropping at once, but Tuesday seems to be an especially exciting and popular day to release music that fans have been feigning for.

So, my question to you is: Who will come out highest on the charts? Paramore, who have support from not only rock lovers but Twilight fans? Breaking Benjamin, who have thousands of loyal BenHeads going through withdrawal? Alice in Chains? Lynyrd Skynyrd? AFI? Default? None of the above?

And do any of these bands have a chance for the #1 spot competing against other big acts like Mariah Carey?

Check out this list of rock releases and let us know what you’ll be picking up and who you think will come out on top this week:
AFI – Crash Love
Alice In Chains – ‘Black Gives Way To Blue‘
Bowling For Soup – ‘Sorry For Partyin‘
Breaking Benjamin – ‘Dear Agony‘
Buckcherry – ‘Live and Loud 2009‘
Default – ‘Comes And Goes‘
Evergreen Terrace – ‘Almost Home‘
Foreigner – ‘Can’t Slow Down‘
Hatebreed – ‘Hatebreed‘
Hydrovibe – ‘Nothing Left to Lose‘
Kill Hannah – ‘Wake Up The Sleepers‘
Lynyrd Skynyrd – ‘God & Guns‘
Paramore – ‘Brand New Eyes‘

This hardware piece is nothing short of awesome. From Digidesign comes Eleven Rack. It’s a standalone hardware unit that acts as a ProTools LE interface, all-in-one reamping solution, and guitar amp modeling.

With it’s multitude of outputs, you can drive combo amps, poweramps, or run direct-in into a P.A. in a live setting. Take what you used in the studio, and run it live. You can also run multiple outs for different laying techniques as well.

It has internal DSP which handles all of the modeling processing, freeing up valuable CPU cycles when you’re in a ProTools session.

This is a killer unit and you’ll be seeing more of these popping up in studios everywhere….

For more info: Click Here

The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards brought an influx of tweets to Twitter on Sunday. According to MTV, during the show alone, 1.3 million tweets were posted regarding the VMAs.

Twitter’s Chloe Sladden explained to MTV that “during the VMAs, Twitter experienced three times our average volume of tweets.”

“[It was] twice as many as during the news surrounding Michael Jackson this past summer,” she added.

Twitter has undeniably changed the way the world interacts. Even celebrities were tweeting from their seats, with many expressing their distaste and anger for Kanye West’s onstage stunt.

“The unique level of viewer engagement MTV was able to inspire during the VMAs was impressive,” Sladden added. “We think Twitter can be the way television becomes more interactive, and MTV is showing us the way.”

Read the full article about the VMA Twitter Experiment via MTV.com.

(image from smashingpumpkins.com)

For Smashing Pumpkins fans: This is big.

On 9-15-2009, recording began for a very intriguing album release set forth by the band. The new album will be titled “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope” and features 44 songs. Yes, 44.

All of the songs will be free. As they stated on http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/, all of the songs will “be free of charge with no strings attached.” They continue by stating you won’t have to give an email address, sign up for anything, etc.

Each song of the album will be released 1 at a time, until all 44 are released. Additionally, for the biggest SP fan, there will be collector editions of the album available upon it’s completion. They will be divided into 4 separate mini ‘box sets.’

The concept of the album is based on the journey in life according to the Tarot.

—-

Some thoughts:

Overall, it’s a really cool concept with some distinct business possibilities. Artists are experimenting with various business models; at this point it’s like throwing something against the wall and seeing what sticks. That’s a tactic that A&R from labels have been accused of lately…. hmmmm.

It will be interesting to see how Billy finalizes the monetization of the release.

-AR

(Image from examiner.com)

I don’t know about you, but I was left feeling like it was a partial atrocity.

Let’s recap:
- Madonna gives a generic speech, paying homage to Michael Jackson, and somehow finds a multitude of ways to relate his life to hers. I found it completely disrespectful to MJ. Somebody else could have done a better job and Madonna’s efforts were poor and truly did no justice to Michael Jackson. Period.

- Opening dance number paying tribute to Michael Jackson was pretty good. Great to see Janet pop out and do some cool dance synced with her brother on a large screen behind her. Nice.

- MC Russell Brand. Oh dear…. where to start. Firstly, pull up your pants. Secondly, 1 or 2 crotch jokes were more than enough. Y’know, I feel like he’d be rolling right along with his monologue, doing a fine job…. then the last 30% of what he said was just poor jibberish. At most times listening to this guy, we were uncomfortable.

- Poor Taylor Swift. She’s a doll. Not only that, she’s a true talent. Then you have a no-talent try to bring her down. I’m referring to the new infamous point in the VMA’s where Kanye West jumped on stage, grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift (accepting her award for “Best Female Video”) and stated that Beyonce should have won. Are you kidding us Kanye?! That was the most insane stunt pulled in completely poor, classless taste. Jesus. Taylor stood there, holding her award, completely blank. Stunned. We were all stunned at what had just happened. Unreal. Somebody remove that man from all of the VIP lists, PLEASE. He’s a moron.

- Green Day: Awesome as usual. They really are an incredible band. They’ve come a long way since the days of Dookie and have matured gracefully, keeping their edge. Keep it up, guys.

- Britney Spears joined us via satellite to accept an award. For what? I have no clue… I was completely dumbfounded by the fact that the world forgot she was nuts.

- Muse (http://www.muse.mu/) performed. SLAMMING. What a great band…

- Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga. She’s a freakin’ trip. There is another true talent. You don’t believe me? Not only can she sing her brains out, but she’s a great piano player too. Check out “Acoustic Poker Face” on http://www.youtube.com/ and really listen to her musicianship. Her performance last night was very good overall. The outfit changes just rock. She’s nuts.

- Beyonce. A true professional with a load of class. Beyonce won “Video of the Year” for “All the Single Ladies.” Thank you, Beyonce, for calling Taylor Swift back out to the stage to complete HER acceptance speech which Kanye so rudely interrupted. That was HUGE of Beyonce to give up her time in the spotlight and let Taylor take it. That’s class.

-MTV’s own Sway tried to plug Verizon’s LG line while trying to call his brother while live on the air… Call failed.

It ended on a high-note with Beyonce passing the spotlight to Taylor, thank heavens. All-in-all, the bad outweighed the good, IMO.

Any points you think we missed? We’d love to hear your thoughts about it all!