Search Results for: the early november

Suddenly there’s a whole new meaning to “Come On Over Baby” for Christina Aguilera. The five-time Grammy winner and hubby Jordan Bratman welcomed their first child in Los Angeles on Friday. The couple announced the birth in a quick text message to friends and family around 4 p.m.: “Baby has arrived. Mom and dad are doing well!” (Apparently not even the prospect of dirrty diapers can dampen their spirits.) There were no further details immediately available. However, a rep for the singer disputed the delivery dispatch. “The information you have is inaccurate,” the spokesperson said without elaboration. “We will let… Read more »

U.S. album sales plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006, continuing a downward trend for the recording industry, despite a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks, according to figures released Thursday. A total of 500.5 million albums sold as CDs, cassettes, LPs and other formats were purchased last year, down 15 percent from 2006’s unit total, said Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks point-of-purchase sales. The shortfall in album sales drops to 9.5 percent when sales of digital singles are counted as 10-track equivalent albums. About 844.2 million digital tracks sold in 2007, compared to 588.2 million in 2006,… Read more »

Marilyn Manson will start the new year as a single man. The goth rocker’s marriage to model and burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese officially ended Thursday, and the two were “restored to the status of single persons,” according to a judgment filed in Superior Court. Von Teese, whose real name is Heather Sweet, and Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, have entered a marital settlement, but terms of the agreement were not disclosed for privacy reasons, court papers said. Her attorney declined to comment. An after-hours call Friday to Manson’s attorney was not immediately returned. Von Teese filed divorce… Read more »

By all accounts, 2007 was a great year for the video game industry, driven largely by the rising popularity of music-based titles. Total video game sales (hardware and software) through October was $10.5 billion, compared with $7 billion for the same period last year, according to data from NPD Group. Much of the growth can be attributed to a more stable market for the new-generation game consoles: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. But another factor is the “casual game,” a segment that includes significant music-based titles. The rise of casual games — those that virtually anyone can pick up… Read more »

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have depressingly opined that “there are no second acts in American lives,” but Nada Surf is certainly making the case for second acts in indie rock. The band had an accidental alt-rock radio hit in 1996 with “Popular,” only to be signed and then summarily dropped by Elektra. This sort of rise and fall would spell the end for many bands, but Nada Surf kept on going, buying back and reissuing its shelved major-label album, “The Proximity Effect,” in 1998. Since then, the band released two records on Seattle-based indie Barsuk: 2003’s “Let Go,” which has… Read more »

Former “American Idol” contestant Corey Clark is facing up to two years in jail and a maximum fine of $150,000 after pleading guilty to a felony charge of harassment. Clark, 27, is scheduled to be sentenced in early November in Yuma County Superior Court although no date had been set as of Friday. In exchange for entering a guilty plea to one charge of aggravated harassment on Oct. 2, Clark had four other charges dismissed, said Roger Nelson, chief criminal deputy attorney for the Yuma County Attorney’s Office. Authorities said Clark violated a court order in August 2006 by placing… Read more »

KT Tunstall’s apparently tireless capacity for work makes even her laugh. “I feel like a camel,” the Scottish singer-songwriter says with a giggle. “Because I had 10 years of nothing, it does give me an enormous capacity for embracing what’s going on and remembering all that time when I was really wishing things would happen.” That’s why, after two straight years of touring and promotion behind her multiplatinum debut, “Eye to the Telescope” — first released in the United Kingdom at the end of 2004, although its U.S. release was not until February 2006 — Tunstall is, eagerly, right back… Read more »

Nearly five months after Britney Spears filed for divorce from Kevin Federline, the parties reached a settlement late Thursday (March 29) – though it’s not yet certain what the agreement entails. The settlement session took place Thursday at Spears attorney Laura Wasser’s office in Century City, California. Spears, Federline and their respective lawyers met for five hours, during which they came to terms on “all issues of their marriage and child custody,” according to a statement from the spokesperson for Federline’s attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan. “At one point, Kevin went down for a smoke and Britney followed him outside,” the… Read more »

Britney Spears is certainly not the first celebrity to go off the rails in full view of her once-adoring public. But hers is one of the most spectacular falls from grace in recent memory, meticulously documented by paparazzi and bystanders, and uploaded instantly for the titillation of the masses. At 25 she’s certainly young enough to resume her career after she regroups, and for perspective, we’ve compiled some of the most notorious celebrity flameouts of the past 10 years, along with the success (or not) of their efforts to get back on track. We’ve rated these 1-4 in ascending order… Read more »

Last week, Fall Out Boy’s Infinity on High usurped Norah Jones’ Not Too Late – the previous week’s #1 – as the nation’s top-selling LP, relegating the jazzy songstress to the chart’s #2 position and scoring the Chicago rockers the first chart-crowning debut of their careers. This week, Jones returned the favor. With nearly 211,000 copies of Not Too Late sold during the album’s third week of release, Jones reclaims Billboard‘s coveted throne, leaving Fall Out Boy in the proverbial dust. Sales of Infinity on High dipped by more than 50 percent, dropping FOB to the chart’s #5 slot with… Read more »