Search Results for: a day to remember

On seasons four and five of “American Idol,” when the semifinals featured 24 singers, one-third of them were teenagers – eight each season. When this season’s semifinalists were named on Wednesday, only three of the 24 were in their teens: 17-year-old Sanjaya Malakar, 17-year-old Jordin Sparks and 19-year-old Stephanie Edwards. The numbers prompt the question: Is “Idol” growing up? Since raising the age limit to 28 for season four, singers approaching 30 have dominated the show, from Taylor Hicks, Chris Daughtry and Elliott Yamin to Bo Bice, Constantine Maroulis and Nadia Turner. And in season six, eight of the remaining… Read more »

LOS ANGELES – In the weeks leading up to the 49th Grammy Awards, many miles of verbiage were unspooled by slick-suited TV pundits and somewhat bitter music journalists to dissect, predict and pick apart music’s biggest night. But as the awards themselves actually unfolded, live from the Staples Center, it was the moments in which very little – if anything at all – was said that carried the most weight. Whether it was the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines simply – and somewhat fittingly – quoting “The Simpsons” in a kiss-off to the group’s many critics; Chris Brown’s footstep-perfect rendition of… Read more »

Word on the street was that Justin Timberlake was sick, but MTV News found out another one of the night’s big performers was also under the weather. So who used to perform Lionel Richie songs at talent contests, and what exactly did Christina Aguilera say about private parts? Check out what we discovered by poking around backstage where the cameras didn’t go at the Grammys: · The night before the big show , Justin Timberlake was feeling chatty during Grammy rehearsals and sat down at the piano to treat everyone in the room to an impromptu, slowed-down rendition of “Di–… Read more »

The members of Bayside were asleep in their van on Halloween morning 2005 when the vehicle hit a patch of ice near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and skidded out of control. The driver tried to correct his steering but was unable to keep the van from rolling. “I remember when the crash first started,” singer Anthony Raneri recalled. “I had no idea what was going on. I was jolted, and then I hit my head and passed out. And I woke up after the van fell.” While Raneri and guitarist Jack O’Shea escaped with scrapes and bruises, drummer John Holohan was thrown… Read more »

It’s no secret – particularly to various employees at Gambleversity.com, MyBookie.org and/or BetOnAnythingThatMoves.net – that we here at MTV News enjoy the occasional foray into the exhilarating world of wagering. Of course, the key word here is occasional. But with Sunday’s Grammy Awards on the horizon, we convened the MTV News Bet-ological Braintrust – which is really nothing more than a couple of writers and “Hammerin’ ” Hank Goldberg on speakerphone – and determined just which of the Grammy’s 108 categories are most ripe for some sweet speculation. While there are plenty of intriguing possibilities – the battle between Eddie… Read more »

Phew! CBS got through the halftime show without a “wardrobe malfunction.” The Artist Formerly Known as a Munchkin of Wardrobe Dysfunction began by singing “Let’s Go Crazy,” but he didn’t. Prince, who became a Jehovah’s Witness in the mid-1990s, no longer wears yellow, butt-baring pants as he did at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards (prompting Howard Stern’s send-up at the ’92 VMAs). The closest thing to a fashion statement Sunday night was an odd kerchief on his head. So the NFL had no repeat of the 2004 Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake show, which happened the last time CBS broadcast the… Read more »

Around the time Brett Gurewitz was launching Epitaph Records in 1981, his father was lecturing him to take guitar lessons. The Bad Religion guitarist and punk-rock entrepreneur never sat down for courses with a guitar instructor, although he did go to school to learn to be a recording engineer. However, no amount of schooling could have prepared Gurewitz for the next 25 years of his life. Epitaph Records brought a new era of punk rock to the masses in 1994 when the Offspring’s “Smash” turned into one of the biggest rock records of the decade. The success of the label’s… Read more »

Panic! at the Disco went from a group of teenagers who’d written only three songs and never played a live show to the biggest new rock band in America. Their secret: Put together a band the way you’d create a MySpace page and let the kids run wild Ryan Ross bought his C55 Mercedes three months ago, but it’s been parked in his Las Vegas garage ever since. When the Panic! at the Disco guitarist climbs behind the wheel, cues up Tom Waits’ new Orphans collection and starts pushing buttons on the navigation system, he’s still not sure how it… Read more »

Much has already been written about the Shins’ new album, Wincing the Night Away (which comes out Tuesday), including the fact that the majority of the songs were inspired by singer/songwriter James Mercer’s bouts of “crippling insomnia.” Whether or not that’s entirely true is debatable , but what’s more interesting is the fact that, for the first time in almost 15 years of playing together, the Shins have become a band about which much is written. And more pertinently, very little of it is about their career-making shout-out in Zach Braff’s 2004 flick, “Garden State,” or one of their songs… Read more »

UNIVERSAL CITY, California – My Chemical Romance have already given the new year a new name: “Tour thousand and seven.” After spending much of 2006 recording the ambitious concept album The Black Parade, MCR are dedicating the upcoming year to the road. “We’re going to try to bring the music on the record to life with a really good live show,” frontman Gerard Way said. “Something special, something big.” The singer actually predicted they’d be touring “for the next two years.” The band will get started January 19 in New Zealand before launching a North American headlining trek that kicks… Read more »