Search Results for: sting

It was a moment that captivated the nation, but what would it have been like if Madonna had picked different kissmates for her VMA performance? As it turns out, Pink was supposed to be there too. “It was originally supposed to be different people involved,” Pink told MTV News Europe, “but I didn’t even know [what was going to happen during the performance]. The kiss wasn’t even talked about.” Rumors had been rampant before the Video Music Awards that Madonna would be taking the stage with representatives of the younger pop generation, but talk had centered mostly on Britney Spears… Read more »

Jason Mraz’s year at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy is paying off after all. In the video for his new single, “You and I Both,” the singer/songwriter puts some of his musical-theater skills to use. “I’m in love with a bank teller,” Mraz said, explaining the clip. “I’m just trying to make a deposit and I’m misinterpreted, I’m misread going into the bank when I slip her a love letter. The bank manager thinks it’s like a robbery note, he sounds the alarm, all hell breaks loose and a big dance number breaks out. You know, that’s what usually… Read more »

Prince will headline a government-sponsored music festival aimed at boosting the image of SARS-battered Hong Kong. He’ll perform at the opening of the concert series, “Hong Kong Harbour Fest,” on Oct. 17, organizers said Thursday. Top tickets for his show are priced at $127. The Rolling Stones, Jose Carreras, Irish boy band Westlife, Carlos Santana, British R&B singer Craig David, Taiwan pop sensation Jay Chou and boy band F4 are also set to perform at the festival, which will run through Nov. 9. The $16.7 million event has stirred controversy, with critics questioning the government’s vow to guarantee up to… Read more »

A new version of The Beatles’ album “Let It Be” will be released in November, the group’s company Apple Corps announced Thursday. “Let It Be…Naked” strips the 1969 album of Phil Spector’s lavish production effects, returning to Sir Paul McCartney’s original idea for the recording. “This is the noise we made in the studio,” McCartney said of the new version. “It’s exactly as it was in the room. You’re right there now.” “Let It Be…Naked” mostly keeps the same track listing as the original album, which featured songs Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road, Get Back and Across… Read more »

Britney Spears previewed another new song this weekend, but instead of broadcasting it to a live audience, she debuted it to a Las Vegas crowd in a surprise – and steamy – performance. Spears took the stage at Rain, a nightclub within the Palms hotel-casino, at 1 a.m. Sunday morning. About 1,800 people were in attendance, but they weren’t expecting nor were they charged for a show from Spears – they were just there to dance. The DJ music stopped, Rain co-owner Scott DeGraff told MTV News, and people were bewildered as a group of five or six dancers took… Read more »

As the music world mourns the death of Johnny Cash-who passed away on the morning of Friday (September 12), at the age of 71-artists from every genre of music are paying their respects to the legendary Man In Black. Guitarist Danny Lohner, who has played with Nine Inch Nails and A Perfect Circle, shared his thoughts with LAUNCH on Cash’s recent cover of the Nine Inch Nails tune “Hurt.” “Johnny Cash’s version blew me away,” Lohner said. “He has such a great character voice…that video is so moving and so well done, and with his wife watching him as he… Read more »

An Internet company wants a federal appeals panel to help disarm lawyers for the music industry, blocking them from using special copyright subpoenas in a campaign to track and sue computer users who download songs online. Verizon Communications Inc. is challenging the constitutionality of the subpoenas under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A trial judge, John D. Bates, earlier had approved use of the subpoenas, forcing Verizon to turn over names and addresses for at least four Internet subscribers. The 1998 law, passed years before music downloading was popularized, permits music companies and others to force Internet providers to… Read more »

The week the music industry brought suit against 261 users of Internet file-sharing services, Donald L. McCabe was in St. Louis to talk about a different form of digital copying. Mr. McCabe, a Rutgers University professor, has made a career of studying the cheating of American high school and college students. His most recent study found that cheating was spreading almost like file-sharing. Of more than 18,000 students surveyed, 38 percent said they had lifted material from the Internet for use in papers in the last year. More striking to Mr. McCabe, 44 percent said they considered this sampling no… Read more »

It’s OK with Nickelback if you want to call them a pop group. In fact, pop doesn’t begin to describe the Canadian quartet’s third album, “The Long Road.” The Roadrunner set, arguably the most-anticipated global rock release of the year, is due Sept. 23 in North America and a day earlier in the rest of the world. “Somewhere along the line, people turned pop – as in ‘popular’ – into a dirty word,” says Chad Kroeger, leader of the hard-rocking band. “We want to reach the widest audience possible and let everyone know who we are. Korn, Tool and Slipknot… Read more »

Johnny Cash, “The Man in Black” who became a towering figure in American music with such hits as “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” and “A Boy Named Sue,” died Friday. He was 71. “Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville. He said Cash died at the hospital at 1 a.m. EDT. “I hope that friends and fans of Johnny will pray for the Cash family to find comfort during this very difficult time,” Robin said. Cash had been released… Read more »