Search Results for: The Maine

Someone should give Gen. Colin Powell another bronze star. Last week the secretary of state went on MTV and committed an unabashed act of heroism. He threw himself into the debate over condom use as a way to fight AIDS – and rounds of flak have been flying at his head ever since. The hostilities began after a young woman from Italy asked him on the show what he thought about condom use in light of the AIDS epidemic. Now, anyone who has climbed as far up the ladder in Washington as Powell knows what to do in this situation:… Read more »

“Rocket Man” Elton John rued on Wednesday the thrust for instant success among undistinguished and indistinguishable modern pre-fabricated pop bands. “It is like packets of cereal. There are too many of them, and too many of them are just average and mediocre,” he told BBC television in an interview filmed during his current tour in the United States. “It is just fodder. It doesn’t sound. It has no distinguishing marks. A lot of it you can’t tell one from the other. There is too much of it, just too much of it,” the high-spending flamboyant rock legend lamented. The 54-year-old… Read more »

‘NSYNC have some surprises in store for fans who presume two massive tours supporting the same album – last year’s Celebrity – is a bit redundant. For the Celebrity 2002 trek, which kicks off March 3 in Portland, Oregon, the pop quintet have traded in stadiums for the cozier confines of arenas, allowing for stripped down, more intimate performances – that is, if your idea of intimate is snuggling up with nearly 20,000 other likeminded pop lovers. Another way the band plans to refrain from giving a repeat performance of PopOdyssey, which began nearly two months before Celebrity was released,… Read more »

Modern rock act Incubus will kick off a North American tour April 11 in Portland, Ore., in support of its latest Immortal/Epic set “Morning View.” The 50-date tour will be sponsored by Honda Civic, which put Blink-182 and Everclear out on the road last year on separate tours. An exclusive weeklong online ticket pre-sale will launch at 10 a.m. ET Saturday (Feb. 16) at civictour.com. “The band is really excited to be involved with Honda and the Civic Tour because it gives us a chance to play much bigger venues at a ticket price [$25] that we think is very… Read more »

On-again, off-again pop power couple Jessica Simpson and 98 Degrees’ Nick Lachey are not only back together… they’re engaged. Though they had a very public breakup last April, the twosome are “very happy” now that they plan to tie the knot, according to a spokesperson for Simpson’s record label. The couple, who had been dating since Simpson opened for 98 Degrees’ tour in the summer of 1999, were similar to pop’s other reigning couple, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake – in both cases, the female half made public proclamations that she would remain a virgin until she was married. Simpson… Read more »

INXS are planning a flurry of releases this year to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary, including the worldwide release of a best-of CD later this year on Rhino/Atlantic Records. According to the group’s official Web site, the compilation will feature INXS “classics” as well as previously unreleased material. The band will also release a DVD anthology featuring promotional videos, live performances, photo galleries and rare footage. An INXS coffee table book is also in the works, featuring photos from the band members’ private collections as well as diary entries written over the span of twenty years by guitarist/saxophonist Kirk Pengilly. INXS… Read more »

Destiny’s Child is scheduled to release This Is The Remix March 12 on Columbia Records. The album comprises 13 songs, including various mixes of the group’s hit records, as well as a bonus track from Michelle Williams’s forthcoming gospel album. The album includes remixes from Wyclef (“No, No, No Part 2,” and “Bug A Boo”), the Neptunes (“Emotion”), Timbaland (“Say My Name”), and Jermaine Dupri (“Jumpin’, Jumpin’”), among others. “Heard A Word,” from Williams’s gospel debut, From My Heart To Yours, due out April 2, is also featured on the album. The following is the album track listing: “No, No,… Read more »

R&B singer Mary J. Blige recently told AP that she and her boyfriend got engaged during the holiday season. Blige had been romantically linked to singers K-Ci Hailey and Case in the past, and she hasn’t set a date for the wedding, but promises that it will be a small private affair. Blige, who recently celebrated her 31st birthday, has never been married and has no children. As for the singer’s groom-to-be, his identity has remained confidential throughout the courtship, but it is only a matter of time before his cover is blown. Prior to the engagement, LAUNCH spoke to… Read more »

Pop music fans will want to pick up a copy of “Longshot,” due March 26 on DVD from Spartan Home Entertainment. The film features cameo appearances by some of the biggest names in teen pop, including Britney Spears, ‘N Sync, O-Town, and LFO, among others. The film was produced by Trans Continental Pictures, a company owned by Louis Pearlman, the man who launched the careers of the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, among others. He’s also the creator of the ABC/MTV series “Making the Band,” which spawned the act O-Town. Pearlman co-wrote and co-produced the feature, which was released last… Read more »

New material from Mystikal, Juvenile, Green Day, Eve 6 and others will surface next month on the soundtrack to the comedy “The New Guy.” Mystikal wrote the title song for the movie, which stars DJ Qualls (“Road Trip”) and Eddie Griffin (“Double Take”) and features cameos from several artists, including Tommy Lee, Jermaine Dupri, Henry Rollins and Kool Moe Dee. OPM and Rehab also wrote songs especially for “The New Guy,” according to an Epic Records spokesperson. Other artists who lent previously unreleased songs to soundtrack are Nine Days, Vertical Horizon, SR-71 and Wheatus. A new remix of Outkast’s hit… Read more »