Monday night was the premiere of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s sexy, Hype Williams-directed “Video Phone” video, featuring the two pop stars dancing and posing pin-up style with massive toy guns and matching leotards.
After successfully premiering Superfraiche Pop Night in June, pop music blogger Arjan Writes will be organizing the next installment of his popular pop music night on Nov. 12 at Santos Party House in New York.
Last month at the MTV Video Music Awards, Pete Wentz decided to play a joke on his pal, Cobra Starship frontman Gabe Saporta, by revealing his phone number live on the show.
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera stepped up to kiss the Queen of Pop’s ring – well, Madonna herself – at the 2003 VMAs, and Lady Gaga got her chance to pay homage this weekend on Saturday Night Live. But rather than play it straight, SNL cast the two in a mock catfight that pit Gaga (the night’s musical guest) against Madge (in town promoting best-of collection Celebration). It all went down during a “Deep House Dish” sketch when DJ Dynasty Handbag (Kenan Thompson) announced “two exciting entertainers, performing together for the very first time.” The pair of slight blond stars… Read more »
Vampire Weekend are offering up “Horchata,” the opening song off their January 12th album Contra, as a free download over at their official Website today. The band has been all viral lately while promoting their second record, and the lead-up to “Horchata” was no different, with their IThinkUrAContra Website mounting a countdown clock that revealed the free download when the zeroes hit today at 2:30 p.m. EST. “Horchata” has all the markings of a Vampire Weekend song: The polyrhythmic influences, xylophones and strings that build until crescendo, the pop sensibilities and lyrics ripped from the Sunday New York Times crossword… Read more »
Just two weeks after Kanye West and Lady Gaga announced their full slate of “Fame Kills” dates, the tour has been canceled. No official reason has been given for the cancellation, but ticket refunds will be available. After the backlash surrounding Kanye’s outburst during Taylor Swift’s VMAs acceptance speech, the tour was rumored to be embattled. Now official confirmation of the cancellation comes from concert promoters Live Nation. But Gaga isn’t letting this slow down her collaborations with rappers. Just yesterday, she hinted at the possibility of recording with Dr. Dre.
Moments before the opening curtain of “American Idiot,” the musical theater debut of the punk band Green Day, a t-shirted house manager took the stage at Berkeley Repertory Theater for the tradition of reminding audience members to turn off their cellphones and unwrap their candies. This being a musical by Green Day, though, it wasn’t your typical curtain speech. “Are you ready to rock tonight?” shouted the house manager, John Gay. And sure enough, the crowd roared back, “Yeah!” Such is the rowdy mood surrounding “American Idiot,” a rock opera drawn largely from Green Day’s multiplatinum 2004 album of the… Read more »
Hayley Williams owns a car, though she prefers to ride her bike. If you live in Franklin, Tennessee, you probably know this by now, because she pilots the thing – a beige, kid-size rattletrap with a basket on the front – all around her hometown, chatting up the locals and stopping in at places like Puckett’s Grocery and the Ivey Cake bakery. She paid $60 for it at a nearby thrift store. It’s probably worth $30. Williams also owns a house in town, and though it’s certainly worth more than her bike, it’s not much flashier: a modest stone number… Read more »
When Panic! at the Disco wrote “New Perspective,” the band had no idea it’d wind up on the soundtrack for the Diablo Cody-penned horror flick Jennifer’s Body starring Megan Fox. “I had this really lucid dream – it was so vivid I wanted to write it down before I forgot about it,” lead singer Brendon Urie told Rolling Stone. “I was never the best at explaining anything, so it wound up being random [lines] that ended up as the first verse.” Urie and drummer Spencer Smith – the remains of Panic after the quartet split in two earlier this summer… Read more »
(Source: Nate Anderson – http://arstechnica.com) With a new school year in full swing, Ars takes a look at the RIAA’s newly updated copyright curriculum. Your kids could be learning from it–so what does it say? School kids in America could certainly stand to learn about copyright in the classroom–it’s a fascinating topic that increasingly impacts the life of every “digital native” and intersects with law, history, art, and technology. But should they be exposed to industry-funded materials meant to teach kids: That taking music without paying for it (“songlifting”) is illegal and unfair to others (RIAA) Why illegally downloading music… Read more »
