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Forget Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, a sure bet to impress audiences at next month’s NBA All-Star weekend is Britney Spears. The pop star will be shooting out lyrics – not basketballs – when she performs during a television special organized by the National Basketball Association to promote literacy, according to Spears’ spokesperson. Spears and other artists to be announced will perform at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on February 9 for the “The NBA All-Star Read to Achieve Celebration.” NBC, TNT, Nickelodeon, BET, NBA.comTV and Canada’s MuchMusic will broadcast the special live simultaneously at 11 a.m. ET. (MTV’s parent company,… Read more »

The world’s largest record company will be the first of the major labels to release a copy-protected CD in the United States, signaling a new chapter in the industry’s efforts to stem music piracy. When Universal Music Group on Tuesday releases the soundtrack, “Fast & Furious – More Music,” consumers won’t be able to copy the music onto another CD or use their PCs to “rip” tracks in digital MP3 format. The copy-protection technology will also render the disc unplayable on Macintosh computers, DVD players and game consoles, such as Sony’s PlayStation 2. It might not even play in some… Read more »

Grammy-winning recording star Alanis Morissette is planning a February release for her first album of all-new material in more than three years, followed by a world tour, her publicist said on Wednesday. The new CD, “Under Rug Swept,” is a collection of 11 songs written and produced entirely by Morissette without the assistance of longtime collaborator Glen Ballard, who co-wrote and produced her first two U.S. major-label releases, starting with 1995’s “Jagged Little Pill.” The new album’s first single, “Hands Clean,” described as a song about a former relationship, is due out in mid-January, with the album set for release… Read more »

Recipients of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and Trustees Awards were announced today by Michael Greene, President/CEO of the Recording Academy. Pianist and band leader Count Basie and recording artists Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Al Green, and Joni Mitchell will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards. Engineer/producer Tom Dowd and original rock disc jockey Alan Freed will be honored with Trustees Awards. Formal acknowledgment of the awards will be made in conjunction with the 44th Annual GRAMMY ® Awards ceremony, which willbe held at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The show will be a prime-time television special on… Read more »

Edgar Bronfman Jr will step down as executive vice chairman of media giant Vivendi Universal next year, leaving flamboyant Frenchman Jean-Marie Messier solo at center stage. Vivendi said on Thursday that Bronfman, head of Canada’s Seagram before it merged with France’s Vivendi last year, would step down at the end of the first quarter 2002, though he would remain non-executive vice chairman of the board. “I deeply regret Edgar’s decision but fully understand his wishes,” Messier said in a statement. he said Bronfman was standing down to spend more time on his “personal and family interests.” It was not clear… Read more »

The Canadian singer, who left the music industry two years ago to start a family with her manager/husband, Rene Angelil, has recorded an album for release in March, her spokesperson said Thursday. Details on the release will be announced in January. After giving birth in January, Dion came out of the woodwork in May to announce that she would end her hiatus in 2003 with a three-year residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Dion will perform a show designed by Cirque du Soleil’s Franco Dragone inside a replica of the Coliseum in Rome. Since then, Dion has taken part… Read more »

Edgar Bronfman Jr will step down as executive vice chairman of media giant Vivendi Universal next year, leaving flamboyant Frenchman Jean-Marie Messier solo at center stage. Vivendi said on Thursday that Bronfman, head of Canada’s Seagram before it merged with France’s Vivendi last year, would step down at the end of the first quarter 2002, though he would remain non-executive vice chairman of the board. “I deeply regret Edgar’s decision but fully understand his wishes,” Messier said in a statement. he said Bronfman was standing down to spend more time on his “personal and family interests.” It was not clear… Read more »

Roxio today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of MGI Software, a provider of visual media software, in a stock-for-stock transaction. Under the terms of the agreement, approximately 2.3 million shares of Roxio stock will be issued to stockholders of MGI at the close of the transaction, yielding an approximate exchange ratio of 0.05269 shares of Roxio for each share of MGI. Based on Roxio’s closing price and the exchange rate on December 3, 2001, this represents a purchase price of approximately $32.8 million. Roxio is already the industry leader in… Read more »

Britney Spears’ third album, “Britney”, debuts at no. 1 on the album sales chart this week with 745,744 units sold, more than doubling last week’s top selling album. This gives Britney Spears the second best selling album of 2001 according to Soundscan (the no. 1 best selling album of 2001 goes to her label mates *NSYNC). Beyond all of this, Britney also becomes the first solo female performer in the history of The Billboard 200 to have her first three albums debut in the no. 1 spot. Britney demonstrates the artist’s global appeal with debuts at number one in Canada,… Read more »

Britney Spears’s first live, full-length HBO concert special, Britney Spears Live From Las Vegas at the MGM Grand on November 18, promises to be full of surprises. However, those surprises will not include her highly-anticipated duet with Cher on “The Beat Goes On,” which Spears covered on her 1999 debut album,…Baby One More Time. Cher was forced to cancel the planned duet because of a conflict with the European promotional schedule for her upcoming studio album, Living Proof. “When they asked me, ‘Who would you like to do a duet with?’ I was, like, ‘Please lets do it with Cher… Read more »