Nokia (NOK) Taps Green Day to Launch Nokia Music

Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK), which seemed to miss the mark with its Lumia handset launch event Wednesday – due to no information about price, release date or carriers that will sell them, many analysts say – tapped a popular band to highlight a launch event for Nokia Music, a streaming service that the handset maker will make available on its new Lumia phones that will run on the Windows Phone 8 operating system by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).

Nokia Music, which will feature about 150 different playlists for users to choose from and allows users to customize playlists according to personal preferences, is a free service that will be available on the new Lumia handsets that were revealed Wednesday by Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK).

Green Day will hold a concert September 15 in New York City as a launch party for Nokia Music, and the band will add three special playlists to the service. Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) indicated that other artists and bands will be asked to add their own playlists in the future. Fans of Green Day who wish to purchase tickets for the concert are asked to visit Green Day’s Facebook page.  U.S. wireless carrier AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a co-sponsor of this launch event and is apparently on board as a seller of the new Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 handsets – though the company was not mentioned during Wednesday’s presser.

After its apparent lukewarm reception Wednesday, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) will likely need more healine-grabbers in order to salvage some relevance in the market before the expected launch of the iPhone 5 from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, any positive momentum Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) had gathered in the weeks leading up to Wednesday has seemingly dissipated already, which leaves Nokia still in a no-man’s land – not good news for investors like hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones of Tudor Investment Corporation.