Bloggy Goodness: Citigroup Takes Over EMI

While we don’t usually fancy ourselves as a destination for financial news, we did think this was an important enough story to share: on Tuesday it was announced Citigroup has agreed to take over troubled music company EMI. The deal will decrease the label’s debt by 65% from an astonishing $5.5 billion to roughly $1.9 billion.

EMI, which is considered to be one of the “big four,” was founded all the way back in 1931, and has been home to the likes of Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, The Band, Pink Floyd and more recently The White Stripes, Gorillaz and LCD Soundsystem, includes record labels such as Capitol, Virgin, Blue Note, Astralwerks and more.

• List Time: White Stripes Songs To Get Your Through Their Breakup
• Find out how Reggae revolutionized England’s music scene
• Cover Alert: G. Love tackles Paul Simon
• A biopic about legendary piano man Elton John is in the works
• Download This: Jeff Tweedy @ Boulder Theater (via IAFYAF)
• Rod Stewart & Jeff Beck may head into the studio together

Finally, we’re happy to report that Gregg Allman’s new solo album Low Country Blues debuted at number five on Billboard’s Top 200 chart, by selling just under 36,000 copies in its first week, marking the highest position for any of Allman’s solo records. The blues cover album, produced by T. Bone Burrnett and his first in 14 years, bested his previous high of #13 which was achieved by his 1973 solo debut Laid Back. Amos Lee’s Mission Bell took the top spot this week by selling 40,000 copies, the lowest total to take that honor since SoundScan started in 1991.