Don Ienner

No one expected pop star Michael Bolton to use his platinum pipes at the Villa Nova restaurant in Newport Beach Monday night. His publicist said he wouldn't.

Only months after resolving a bitter battle over the company's top executive slot, Sony BMG Music Entertainment announced Thursday the departure of two of its senior-most executives. Don Ienner, an 18-year veteran of the company, stepped down as chairman of Sony Music Label Group U.S. less than three months after being promoted to the position. Michele Anthony, who joined Sony Music in 1990, resigned as president and chief operating officer. Company insiders said the two were forced out.

Neil Diamond appeared to be taking a big gamble last year when he went to Nashville to work on a new album with more than a dozen top country music singers and songwriters. Though Diamond continues to be one of pop's hottest live draws, his album sales have slipped dramatically in recent years. So he could have been perceived as yet another veteran pop star trying to jump-start his career artificially by turning to suddenly hot country music.

In a move seen as daring by some, foolhardy by others, Sony Corp. named television executive Andrew Lack as chief of its massive music division. The appointment comes amid expectations of wrenching change both for Sony Music Entertainment and an industry wracked by rampant piracy and falling sales. Lack replaces Thomas D. Mottola, who abruptly resigned Thursday as chairman and chief executive of Sony Music.

A day after ousting its top U.S. executive, Sony Corp. acknowledged that the move had spawned confusion in its U.S. operations and issued a batch of internal memos pledging support for the managers of its electronics and entertainment divisions. The memos--as well as Sony sources--suggest that the company plans to scale back its New York-based Sony Corp. of America office, which had served as the nerve center for the company's U.S.

Most global entertainment giants are looking for an exit from the battered music business. But not Sony Corp., which today expects to tell employees of an ambitious plan to stick with music -- at a price. The long-anticipated divisional blueprint from new music chief Andrew Lack relies heavily on job cuts and a restructuring to boost performance at an operation corporate brass has long criticized as bloated and out of touch.

Jeff Buckley never had a mainstream radio hit during his life. Can he have one seven years after his death? Sony Music is giving it a big push. The company is aggressively promoting the previously unreleased song "Forget Her," which is featured along with other bonus material on the new 10th anniversary "Legacy Edition" expanded version of "Grace." It's the only full album Buckley completed and released before he drowned at age 30 after wading into the Mississippi River near Memphis in 1997.

Rolling Stone magazine's biannual "Next Wave" list, a kind of tip sheet on promising new acts, is where a lot of pop fans first read about the White Stripes, John Mayer and Norah Jones, all of whom went on to major success during 2002. If history repeats itself, the Raveonettes will be one of this year's hit arrivals -- the garage-rock duo from Denmark tops this season's "Next Wave." That means different things to different people.

While media titan Time Warner Inc. talks merger with General Electric's NBC unit in New York, in another part of town music industry legend Clive Davis is trying to keep himself merged with Arista Records. Sources say Davis is asking for a hefty pay raise from Arista's parent company, Bertelsmann Music Group, in return for extending his contract. Both sides are predicting a successful resolution, even though conservative BMG was reportedly shocked by Davis' initial demands.

Of the 46 groups that rap kingpin Russell Simmons either manages or has signed to one of his record labels, he says his absolute favorite is the female New York rap duo Bytches With Problems. He can even recite their lyrics from memory. There's just one problem--the lyrics are so filthy you couldn't print any of them in a family newspaper. But that hasn't stopped Simmons' RAL Records label and his distributor, Columbia Records, from releasing the BWP album, "The Bytches."