Best
Buy and Little Steven Van Zandt have teamed up in a new marketing
arrangement to bring the latest and hottest Rock and Roll
to Best Buy customers.
Beginning on November 19, Best Buy stores across the country
will debut a Little Steven’s Underground Garage music
section. The section will feature albums played on Little
Steven's Underground Garage, the nationally syndicated radio
show hosted by Steven Van Zandt, and the Underground Garage
channel 25 on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. The display will also
include records from Van Zandt's new record company, Wicked
Cool Records.
We’re excited to work with Steven Van Zandt, who shares
our passion for music and love of Rock and Roll,” said
Lon Lindeland, director of music merchandising for Best Buy.
“We are committed to helping our customers discover
new music, and we feel the Underground Garage section will
be an exciting way to put the spotlight on great music.”
The
section will highlight the hottest new Rock bands as well
as classic artists who’ve pioneered Rock and Roll and
continue to make great records. The display will also house
Wicked Cool compilations that feature the greatest music from
all five generations of Rock and Roll, including “Coolest
Song in the World“ compilations that will feature songs
from the Underground Garage’s weekly Coolest Song selections.
"The Underground Garage and Wicked Cool Records are extremely
proud of our relationship with Best Buy," says Van Zandt.
"Too many Rock and Roll artists, new and old, are finding
themselves lost in between the alternative and hard rock worlds.
Best Buy is making a statement that Rock and Roll is forever."
This
marketing arrangement will give the Rock and Roll consumer
more choices and provide a new avenue for promoting new bands.
The
first set of records to be released by Wicked Cool and to
be sold at Best Buy will include:
•
CBGB Forever by Various Artists. Features a new song by
Green Day and includes classics from CBGB legends like
the Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads, and contemporary
music from bands like the U2, Foo Fighters, and Good Charlotte.
• Strange Magic by The Charms: A talented new band
from Boston, whose album Pussycat was voted Album of the
Year by three radio shows including the Underground Garage,
Teenage Wasteland (WFMU), and Whole Lotta Shakin (WITR).
• Fuzz For The Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows:
The ultimate holiday party album by the king of Fuzz guitar
and B-Movie soundtracks. Produced by Little Steven, the
album features a song from the major motion picture Christmas
With the Kranks.
• The Mindbending Sounds of the Chesterfield Kings
by The Chesterfield Kings. The latest album from the band
that helped launch the garage rock revival in the late
1980’s and draws comparisons to the Rolling Stones.
• Little Steven’s Underground Garage presents
The Coolest Songs in the World Vol. 1 by Various Artists:
A compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage
radio show’s most popular feature, the Coolest Song
in the World This Week.
• Mastermind by The Cocktail Slippers. All the way
from Oslo, Norway, this girl group was inspired by the
likes of Blondie and the Ramones and wowed the audience
at Little Steven’s International Underground Garage
Festival. |
The
Underground Garage section’s debut will also include
early important albums by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones,
the Kinks, and the Yardbirds, and will be the perfect display
opportunity for new records by the Who, Joan Jett, the New
York Dolls, Cheap Trick, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Little Steven's Underground Garage, with more than 1 million
listeners in over 200 markets nationwide, is the most successful
syndicated Rock and Roll show in the country. Van Zandt, well
known for his role as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos and as
a founding member of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,
is a champion of emerging bands and has helped launch the
careers of such notable bands as Jet, The Hives, The Strokes,
the Libertines, and the Kaiser Chiefs, while introducing a
new generation to legendary artists such as the Byrds, the
Kinks, the Yardbirds, and the Hollies as well as seminal but
lesser-known artists like the MC5, the Stooges, and the New
York Dolls.
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