Now sporting a "4" beside its title to indicate that it's shipped 4 million copies to record stores, Taylor Swift's (booking agen) Fearless rebounds to the top of Billboard's country albums chart, elbowing aside Carrie Underwood's (booking agen) Play On, which held No. 1 for the past three weeks.
Lady Antebellum's (booking agen) "Need You Now" is also in its third week at the peak of the songs list.
Jimmy Wayne's (booking agen) Sara Smile is the highest-debuting album this time around, bounding in at No. 32.
The only other newcomers are Jason Aldean's (booking agen) Live Sessions EP (No. 43) and Rascal Flatts' four-song Christmas package, Unwrapped (No. 48). Rodney Atkins' (booking agen) It's America revisits the albums chart at No. 75.
There are just two new songs to recognize: Underwood's "Temporary Home," which settles in at No. 48, and Love and Theft's "Dancing in Circles," arriving at No. 59. Returnees include Jack Ingram and Patty Griffin's "Seeing Stars" (No. 55) and Mica Roberts' "Days You Live For" (No. 58).
Rounding out the Top 5 albums, in descending order, are Lady Antebellum (booking agen), Tim McGraw's (booking agen) Southern Voice and Sugarland's (booking agen) Green and Gold.
The No. 2 through No. 5 songs are Luke Bryan's "Do I," Reba's "Consider Me Gone," Underwood's "Cowboy Casanova" and Craig Morgan's "Bonfire."
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Michael Jackson and Mother Teresa. Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama. And now, Shakira (booking agent).
The Colombian singer who is famous for hits like "Hips Don't Lie" and "Whenever, Wherever" joins a diverse group of luminaries when she addresses the Oxford Union on Monday.
The 32-year-old is also a UNICEF ambassador, and will address the union about the work of her Barefoot Foundation, which helps child victims of violence. The union is the ancient university's famous debating and social society.
Oxford Union spokesman Conan McKenzie said Shakira's philanthropy was one reason for her invite, but added that "she's an immensely popular singer with a large fanbase among Oxford students. And the Oxford Union has a tradition of inviting a wide variety of speakers."
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Katy Perry (booking agent) has already gone on record as saying that her new album will show the influence of artists like Ace of Base (booking agent) and the Cardigans (booking agent), but now she appears to be tempering that goal a bit.
"Yeah, I guess the idea was to have, like, roller-skating music, like ['The Sign' by Ace of Base] or 'Lovefool' by the Cardigans. But actually, what I'm focusing on is the actual song and the story and having it say something, because then I can put the bells and whistles around it," she told MTV News Wednesday night at the Grammy nominations telecast in Los Angeles, where she picked up a Best Female Pop Vocal Performance nomination for "Hot n Cold." "But if I don't have the song, then I don't really have anything. I really want to continue to be able to make a record that ... I can make [another] 'Unplugged' with."
In recent months, Perry's been working with the likes of Weezer's Rivers Cuomo and frequent Rihanna (booking agent) collaborator Tricky Stewart on crafting the songs for the follow-up to her breakthrough One of the Boys album. And, so far, she's happy to report that things have been going swimmingly. But she doesn't want to say too much about the process, lest she jinx.
"I was in Las Vegas working with Tricky Stewart, who is amazing, and I'd been bottled up for about two years," she explained. "I haven't written on the road. I was focusing on the One of the Boys record and making that visual and touring, so all of that stuff that I've kind gathered has just been spilling out. And it's hard for me to talk about it, because I don't want to jinx it. ... I'm not usually one of those people but ... I'm like 'It's going to be great, but let's see.' "
Just when will she be ready to unveil some of her new songs? Seems like that's still a ways off. Perry's gunning for greatness on the new album, and you can't put a timetable on that.
"It's too premature, but I know that I really want to make a record that I can never make again. I didn't think I had it in me to get to this capacity, so what do I have to go to the next level, you know?" she said. "I'm really encouraged, and nobody's really stopping me or telling me what to do or say. ... I'm just kind of letting it all come out."
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Weezer (booking agent) canceled the rest of their 2009 tour dates on Sunday, following a tour bus crash in upstate New York that resulted in serious injuries to singer Rivers Cuomo. According to an account of the crash on the band's Web site, the bus carrying Cuomo, his family and assistants hit a patch of black ice on a highway near Albany, New York, early Sunday morning, sending the vehicle skidding into a muddy ravine on the side of the road. Though the bus ran over a guardrail and flattened it, it did not roll or turn over when it came to a stop.
Cuomo's wife and 2-year-old daughter were not injured in the accident, but his assistant, Sarah Kim, was thrown from her bunk and suffered two fractured ribs and a fractured lower vertebra. Cuomo, 40, was tossed violently around in his bunk and was taken to St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam, New York, after complaining of rib pain. Doctors found that he had cracked three ribs and sustained "mostly minor but very painful internal damage" as well as a lower leg injury. The band was traveling from Toronto to Boston for a Monday night (December 7) show at the Agganis Arena, on the tour to promote their latest album, Raditude.
Longtime band friend Karl Koch provided the detailed description of the crash and its aftermath for the band's site. "The interior of the bus was a chaotic mess with broken glass, smashed glasses and plates, food and clothing items strewn everywhere, as well as the refrigerator flying off the wall and many drawers coming right out of their slots, spewing their contents everywhere," he wrote. "On top of it the sliding interior doors were fused shut and the bus's electronics were ruined, so no one could get into the back lounge where Rivers lay immobile and unable to speak due to the pain in his ribcage. To top it off, the front door was jammed shut with 5 feet of heavy wet mud up pressed against it so there was no way to leave the bus."
Koch said that police and emergency personnel used the Jaws of Life to remove the rear window bar so that responders could climb across a ladder laid over the ravine to reach Cuomo and remove him and Kim on stretchers. At the other end, officers dug out the front of the bus so the other passengers could escape. The rest of the buses in the band's entourage pulled up within 20 minutes of the accident to find a long line of fire trucks and EMT vehicles.
"I threw on my shoes and walked up just as the Jaws of Life were being turned on, catching a glimpse of Rivers lying inside on his back surrounded by EMTs," Koch wrote. "I couldn't believe what was happening in front of me, as Rivers lay so helpless, shivering in the center of the chaos, and meanwhile the sun was coming up and revealing an utterly beautiful light covering of snow on the surrounding trees."
While a spokesperson for the band's label had no update on Cuomo's condition on Monday morning, Koch reported that the singer had been transported to a larger area hospital where he remains under observation and is resting comfortably. As a result of the crash, the rest of the band's December dates have been canceled, but Koch said the group will try to reschedule them if they can.
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Shakira (booking agent) has once again proved that she's got some hip-hop cred. She hooked up with Kid Cudi (booking agent), for the remix of her song "Did It Again," which came out last month, and now the up-and-coming rapper appears in a video for the remix that leaked online over the weekend.
The scenes of Cudi standing in a room are cut into the original video of Shakira (booking agent) performing contemporary dance with a guy on a bed and relaxing in a sauna full of beautiful women. Cudi's most elaborate verse comes about halfway through the song, after he's spent the first part just saying "yeah" behind Shakira's lead vocals.
He sings, "I can put you where you need to be/ You can believe that," and raps about bringing good vibes to Shakira's life. Then the song returns to its original images of Shakira dancing around being sexy.
"It was a collaboration between this friend of mine who's a dancer and me. She showed me this contemporary dance piece that was produced in Iceland. So we said, 'Hey, maybe we could do something like this for "Did It Again,"' " Shakira (booking agent) recently told MTV News about the Sophie Muller-directed clip. "So we brought this choreographer from Iceland from this contemporary dance company, and we worked on this piece."
Shakira (booking agent) also recently talked about working with Lil Wayne (booking agent) on her She Wolf album, noting that in a musical landscape with no genre rules, it makes sense that she include hip-hop on her album.
"[I'm] starting to understand and assimilate and internalize hip-hop music and hip-hop influences, so I'm trying to incorporate them within my own music," she said. "Which is a new thing in my life, and I'm completely over the moon. I'm like a kid with a new toy. I'm playing with these new ideas."
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Rihanna (booking agent) and Lady Gaga (booking agent) have a lot in common. They are both innovative pop stars with a concrete vision for their music and image. They are both fashionistas with a love for forward-thinking style. And they certainly both have swagger.
Maybe that's why Rihanna (booking agent) has so much respect for her contemporary. "She has a very bold, fearless image," Rihanna (booking agent) told MTV News on the set of her "Hard" music video.
Rihanna (booking agent) also admires Gaga because she doesn't apologize for those bold moves. "I have to say, I have so much respect for original artists and artists who aren't afraid to do what they want to do," Rihanna said. "That's what I respect most, so she's awesome."
Recently, everyone from frequent collaborator RedOne, who described Gaga as "very talented, very ahead of the curve," to Smokey Robinson have been praising the new pop diva for her individuality and her ability to take over the charts and garner five Grammy nods this year.
"I think that Lady Gaga (booking agent) is so different and she has taken the world by storm," Robinson told MTV News on Wednesday at the Grammy nominations concert. "I enjoy her music. So I think that she's unique. Unique always has a chance."
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With a new DVD landing and more touring set for 2010, the members of Creed (booking agent) -- reunited after a nearly five-year split -- plan to keep the band a going concern for the foreseeable future.
"As long as things still just flow smoothly, I don't see why we can't," guitarist Mark Tremonti tells Billboard.com. "Now that the record's out and the first tour's been done and everything, there haven't been any fights or disagreements...It feels good. We've been gone a long time, and we've got a lot to prove, still."
Tremonti says Creed plans to hit the road again in late April "for about a four or five-week Stateside tour of all the tertiary markets that we didn't hit last summer." The group will play in Australia, New Zealand and South America in June, then return to North America for another summer tour of mostly amphitheaters.
Creed's first studio album in eight years, "Full Circle," debuted at No. 2 on the Top 200 chart following its Oct. 27 release. On Dec. 8, the group is releasing its first-ever concert DVD, "Creed Live," a 17-song set that was filmed in Houston and set a world record for the most cameras (239) used for a live concert recording. Director Daniel E. Catullo III also used "big freeze" effects popularized by "The Matrix" film series.
"We're happy with it," Tremonti says. "I don't know how much of a difference all those cameras really made in the end...The coolest thing is we got a plaque that says we're Guinness Book of World Record holders, which is something I never thought I was going to be unless I grew my fingernails real long or something really silly."
Tremonti will not be idle while waiting for Creed to resume touring, however. He and Myles Kennedy have regrouped in Florida to continue work on the third album by Alter Bridge, the group the guitarist and Creed mates Scott Phillips and Brian Marshall formed when Creed first split. Tremonti says they hope to be ready for that band to hit the studio in February and finish before Creed heads out again. Alter Bridge is slated to tour Europe starting in October, with North American dates expected in late 2010 and 2011, followed by European festival appearances that summer.
"Me and Myles need to get on the same page with our ideas, and once we're there we'll realize what kind of work load we have," Tremonti says. "We don't have much time to spare. We feel like we're cutting it really close, but I feel like I'm very well organized at this point, which makes me feel better."
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Though Chris Brown (booking agent) hasn't discussed the intimate details about his assault of Rihanna (booking agent) in interviews to promote the Dec. 8 release of "Graffiti," several tracks from the just-leaked album seem to directly address the singer's feelings about his ex-girlfriend.
"I might have cheated in the beginning/ I was wrong for writing 'Disturbia'/ But I meant it in 'Forever'/We were supposed to be together/And I can't let you go," Brown sings on "Famous Girl." The 20-year-old wrote the song "Disturbia" for Rihanna's "Good Girl Gone Bad" album, while "Forever" likely refers to his own hit of the same name that spawned a viral wedding video.
Brown also sings, "Sorry I bust the windows out your car," on the song, possibly alluding to reports that he smashed the window of a vehicle during an argument with Rihanna that occurred before the February assault.
In addition to "Famous Girl," Brown dabbles in various influences throughout "Graffiti," from dance and rock to reggae, pop and of course, R&B. The slow jam "Take My Time" features Tank and recalls Brown's smooth-talking 2008 single "Take You Down." On the '80s-influenced "I.Y.A.," Brown AutoTune'd voice echoes, "I wanna wake up in your arms." Producers Da Bizness and Brian Kennedy, who also worked on "Disturbia," borrow from Eric Prydz's 2005 European Hot 100 chart-topper "Call on Me" for the dance-R&B track "Pass Out."
"Wait," featuring Trey Songz (booking agent) and Game, delivers a thumping beat that rivals "I Can Transform Ya," Brown's lead single from "Graffiti" that currently stands at No. 20 on the Hot 100. The ballad "Fallin' Down" incorporates rock elements and features Brown's vocals at their most raw. Brown also dabbles in reggae on the song "Brown Skin Girl" featuring Sean Paul.
Like "Famous Girl," Brown's second single "Crawl" implies that the singer would like to be reunited with his ex-girlfriend (the song recently entered Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at No. 69). On "Sing Like Me," however, Brown expresses an entirely different sentiment, boasting about his celebrity status and his skills with women over a beat that harkens R. Kelly's "Feelin' on Yo Booty."
One of the most striking tracks on the album, "I'll Go" is a lush ballad that creatively blends piano with violins and electric guitar. "There's a star in the palm of my hand/ And I think it's yours/ If you don't want it then I'll understand/ You deserve much more," laments Brown.
Other songs on "Graffiti" include the apologetic mid-tempo ballad "So Cold;" the flashy, Plies (booking agent)-assisted "What I Do;" and "Lucky Me," on which Brown thanks music for keeping him strong.
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Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue is to release a download-only concert album, "Kylie Live in New York."
Set for global release December 14, the album was recorded at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom earlier this fall as part of the diminutive singer's first North American tour.
The 25-song set contains live versions of international hits "Confide in Me," "The Locomotion" and "Can't Get You Out of My Head" -- the latter in its remixed form with the New Order track "Blue Monday" and renamed "Boombox/Can't Get Blue Monday Out of My Head." ITunes customers will also receive three bonus tracks.
International release is being handled by Parlophone/EMI, excluding Australia and New Zealand, where the artist is signed to Mushroom Records.
To preview the release, YouTube will be running a one-hour audio stream of the first half of the show from midnight U.K. time December 12. The stream will be available for 24 hours.
Kylie Minogue's debut U.S. tour took place September 30 to October 11 this year.
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The 52 annual Grammy nominations were announced this week on a Wednesday night TV special hosted by LL Cool J (booking agent), and it was definitely ladies night, with Beyonce (booking agent) (10 nominations), Taylor Swift (booking agent)(eight), and Lady Gaga (booking agent) (five) leading the pack.
But one diva who was somewhat surprisingly shut out was onetime Grammy sweetheart Whitney Houston (booking agent).
The Grammy committee usually loves comeback stories. Whether it's artists who left the spotlight for a while and then returned with a vengeance (Bonnie Raitt (booking agent), Natalie Cole (booking agent), Tina Turner (booking agent)), veterans who reinvented their careers by collaborating with other musicians (Carlos Santana (booking agent), Herbie Hancock (booking agent), Robert Plant (booking agent)), or artists who struggled with their demons and made great music as a result (Dixie Chicks (booking agent), Amy Winehouse (booking agent)), such rising-from-ashes back stories usually strongly resonate with industry voters. In this regard, Whitney Houston's "comeback" album I Look To You--released after the singer's long hiatus, divorce from Bobby Brown (booking agent), and infamous battles with drugs--seemed a shoo-in for multiple nominations.
Her record label Arista seemed so sure of Whitney's chances, in fact, that it moved her album release date up in order for it to qualify for this year's voting window. But Whitney was actually completely shut out, with NO nominations whatsoever--not only was she snubbed in the major categories like Album Of The Year, but even in the secondary Pop and R&B categories. This was a shock considering her Grammy history of 24 nominations and six wins, including winning Album Of The Year and Record Of The Year in 1994.
Many industry people and fans alike are wondering why Whitney was overlooked this time. Some say it might have been all the hype. From the moment it was announced that Whitney would be releasing her first original studio album in seven years, the Arista promo machine went into overdrive--with Whitney hosting a star-studded listening party with her longtime mentor, Arista honcho Clive Davis (at which Clive reminded everyone of Whitney's millions and millions of albums sold), and doing a headline-garnering Oprah interview about her struggles. And it seemed many were rooting for her, with I Look To You debuting at #1 with more than 300,000 units sold in its first week (it has sold about 800,000 as of this writing), but the hype was still a little overwhelming.
But then there was Whitney's series of disappointing, poorly received performances on Good Morning America, The X Factor, and Dancing With The Stars, on which her now-hoarse voice was a mere shadow of its former glory, and many started to doubt that this was much of a comeback at all. Perhaps the Grammy voters doubted it as well. Guess Whitney will just have to settle for the lifetime-achievement "International Artist" trophy she picked up at last month's American Music Awards.
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