Live Nation Artist: Madonna, U2, Jay-Z and Nickelback
Everyone’s favourite Canadian rockers, Nickelback signed to Live Nation Artists, the new label and promotions company of Clear Channel back in July.  This “360 Deal” is apparently worth $70 million and includes a 3 album deal, promotions, touring, merchandising and everything in between.  They join Madonna, U2, and Jay-Z on this all-star label.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUD3-eE61wE

Metallica x Guitar Hero vs. Guns N Roses x Rock Band
Metallica returns with their new album Death Magnetic out in September, which hopefully is return to their true metal roots.   The band will make the entire album available for download the same day on Guitar Hero III.  Guitar Hero’s competitor, Rock Band will be releasing a new track by Guns n’ Roses off the long awaited, infamous Chinese Democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCu5gZTee_w

The Truth Remix
The Cobra Starship, Diplo, DJ Z-Trip, Mix Master Mike, Pete Rock and DJ Spooky all have collaborated with the famous anti-smoking company The Truth to produce some exclusive remixes of their famous “Sunny Side” songs featured on their TV ads.  Listen & Download all the remixes at:
http://www.thetruth.com/remix/

Holy Fuck: WTF Canada? 
And…no playlist of the summer here in North America would be complete without the addition of Toronto’s own Holy Fuck. This non-technological experimental dance band (they like to use toys, film projectors and other objects to mimic electronic instruments and sounds) has certainly had a great summer highlighted by a celebratory end to a great tour with global indie darling M.I.A., major slots at almost every European music festival that counts and the commensurate worldwide cachet that comes from all this. They also played at a cool little event for one of our clients recently so we love ‘em! Added to their list of accomplishments this summer, however, is the dubious honour of being “blamed for Canadian arts funding cuts” wherein the current minority conservative government has vowed to cut the touring subsidization program PromArt entirely by the end of March 2009 citing funding choices that were “inappropriate…unrepresentative and, at worst, offensive”, according to Anne Howland, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson, in the midst of citing Holy Fuck as an example of such a group.  This flies in the face of a just-released Conference Board of Canada report attesting to the economic benefits of investing in Canadian culture (generating an estimated $46 billion towards the Canadian GDP in 2007 alone). Perhaps there are some ideological shenanigans at play here. More directly, what the fuck?
Radiohead – Nude (Holy Fuck Remix):
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/49657-radiohead-nude-holy-fuck-remix-mp3