Search Results for: madonna

Heartfelt letters from Beatle John Lennon, including a rant he fired off to Paul and Linda McCartney, are included in a five-decade collection of pop memorabilia up for sale Thursday at auction house Christie’s. The draft letter, littered with spelling mistakes, deletions and expletives, swings between hurt and anger and affection for McCartney, offering an insight into their strained relationship at the time of the Beatles’ breakup in the early 1970s. The letter was expected to fetch almost $120,000, Christie’s said. Another Lennon letter, to his cousin Leila, shows a deeply nostalgic side as he reminisces about childhood Christmas vacations… Read more »

Pop diva Janet Jackson on Monday called off the European leg of her star-crossed “All For You” tour, citing safety concerns in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on America. “If anything happened to anyone on this tour, I could never forgive myself,” the singer said in a statement released in London. “Like most people the events of Sept. 11 have troubled me enormously and I remain concerned about the foreseeable future.” The statement said the singer had decided the risk to her tour personnel was “too great to proceed comfortably.” Full refunds will be given to fans who… Read more »

Gorillaz, the cartoon indie-beat band formed by Damon Albarn of the rock band Blur, picked up six nominations, including best group, in the eighth annual MTV Europe Music Awards noms, announced here Tuesday. Gorillaz will compete with Destiny’s Child, Limp Bizkit, R.E.M. and U2 for the best group prize in a ceremony to be aired live Nov. 8 on MTV’s worldwide channels from Frankfurt, Germany. Additionally, Gorillaz’ international hit single “Clint Eastwood” is up for best song. Nominees in the female act category include Dido, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and Mariah Carey, while Robbie Williams, Eminem, Ricky Martin, Shaggy… Read more »

While choosing new tunes for her upcoming album, one of Whitney Houston’s old hits inspired some feelings of patriotism. According to her label, Houston, who had been in the process of picking songs for the LP with Arista CEO L.A. Reid before last Tuesday’s terrorist strikes, decided to do her part to help the country recover by agreeing to have her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” re-released. Houston has waived her royalty rights to the recording and instead the proceeds will be split between the New York Firefighters Disaster Relief Fund and the New York Fraternal Order of Police Fund,… Read more »

Like all of us, artists in the music industry have had their lives turned upside down in the wake of Tuesday’s terrorist attack on America. Superstars like Madonna and Janet Jackson have had to switch their concert schedules, but more importantly, many performers’ whole way of seeing life has changed. “To be honest, I’ve been scared to come through the Lincoln Tunnel,” Ja Rule, who was raised in New York and now lives in New Jersey, told Carson Daly today on MTV’s “TRL.” “When I came through the tunnel [today], I saw a whole thing of Army [trucks]. It shook… Read more »

With lower Manhattan cut off to civilian traffic after Tuesday’s terrorist assault on the World Trade Center, officials at independent music magazine publisher CMJ decided to put off for a month its annual Music Marathon & Film Fest, which was to have started Thursday. The four-day event, which typically hosts scores of upcoming and established indie bands in downtown venues including the Bowery Ballroom, Irving Plaza and the Mercury Lounge, now will begin Oct. 10, a spokesman confirmed. “On behalf of the entire CMJ extended family, I wish to extend my most profound condolences to the families of the innocent… Read more »

Britney Spears will grab another page from the Madonna playbook this fall with a “really, really theatrical” tour that will chart her journey toward full-blown, snake-toting adulthood, according to tour director and choreographer Wade Robson. The tour is slated to kick off in Miami next month and will include revamped versions of Britney’s hits, plus plenty of new songs from her upcoming third album, presumably including the just-debuted “I’m a Slave 4 U,” which she performed at Thursday’s MTV Video Music Awards. “The show is gonna be really, really theatrical – it’s really complicated,” Robson said on the red carpet… Read more »

Irish rock band U2, which just finished a European tour, will return to North America in October for 15 arena dates, the group’s promoter said. The tour will begin on Oct. 10 at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and will conclude on Nov. 18 in Las Vegas, according to a statement issued on Monday by Clear Channel Entertainment, a unit of Clear Channel Worldwide. U2 will also play Chicago, Baltimore, New York City, East Rutherford, Providence, Philadelphia, Austin, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Oakland and the Canadian cities of Montreal and Hamilton. U2 have already grossed an… Read more »

Since Bob Dylan’s Grammy-winning album “Time Out of Mind” was released four years ago, the 60-year-old rock master has played 460 live shows, soaking up the cheers from crowds around the world. He feeds off his Never Ending Tour, dancing, grinning, cracking jokes, engaging in guitar duels with his band, then standing at solemn attention, his suit coat soaked with sweat, bending in a deep bow before leaving the stage. In the spring he went into the studio to give some of the energy back, and the result is “Love and Theft,” an album already hailed as one of the… Read more »

The ‘NSYNC/Jackson 5 machine has been turned on once again. A scheduling conflict that caused the younger fivesome to pull out of their performance of “Dancing Machine” with the reunited legends on September 7 at New York’s Madison Square Garden has been resolved, ‘NSYNC announced Thursday (August 30). ‘NSYNC were originally slated to rehearse their MTV Video Music Awards performance on August 29 and 30 – the same days Jackson had hoped they could rehearse for his “Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration, The Solo Years” concert. ‘NSYNC rearranged their schedule to make it work. The group even found time to… Read more »