This is it, MJ fans — the first posthumous single from the King of Pop, pegged to his upcoming two-disc CD and concert documentary of the 50-date London stand that he didn’t live to complete.
If you think the mid-tempo ballad, with its fingersnaps, soaring chorus and big-build strings, sounds like classic Michael, you’d actually be right — the song supposedly comes from sessions for his 1991 album Dangerous.
Some listeners may pick up shades of “Will You Be There” (also from Dangerous) in the melody, but the song still stands alone as a new release — and reminds us of the singular pop talent Jackson possessed. Listen below (after a 30-second ad for the film), and tell us what you think:
I would imagine that many, if not most, readers had never heard of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately before the tragic announcement this weekend that he had died in Majorca at just 33. And I would guess that a lot of you would be surprised to discover how much space British newspapers such as The Sun, The Mirror, and even a conservative-minded broadsheet like The Telegraph are giving the story.
Nor is the extensive coverage of his death merely due to the fact that the Dublin-born singer was an openly gay pop star. It is hard to overemphasize quite how hugely, and enduringly, successful the Irish Boyzone and their British boy band rivals Take That have been in the UK and Ireland over the past two decades. I lived in England for the two bands’ first periods of success in the ’90s, and although in truth I was not a fan of either act, I couldn’t help but acquire through cultural osmosis a working knowledge of their hits and various personality traits. Pretty much everyone in the country, for example, could have told you Take That’s Robbie Williams was the band’s resident joker, but that it was the quintet’s chief songwriter Gary Barlow who was destined for solo success. (And thus the entire country had to eat its collective metaphorical hat when the former’s solo career ultimately easily eclipsed that of his former colleague.)
Take That were the first to crack the UK top ten with “It Only Takes A Minute,” their 1991 cover of the old Tavares song. Over the next five years they racked up an astonishing number of hits and no fewer than eight chart-topping singles. Meanwhile, Boyzone broke through in the UK with their 1994 version of the Osmonds’ “Love Me For A Reason,” and would themselves score a half dozen number ones over the next five years, including “Words,” “All That I Need,” “You Needed Me,” and “No Matter What.”
Take That split in 1996 and Boyzone followed suit in 2000, the year after Gately went public with his sexuality. In 2005, Take That reformed without Williams and continued their hit-making ways as if they had never gone away. In November 2007, Boyzone leader Ronan Keating announced that they too were getting back together, and last year they embarked on a wildly successful tour of the UK and Ireland. Their first reunion release, “Love You Anyway,” was, remarkably, their 17th single in a row to reach the British top five.
Given the fame of Boyzone, and the fact that Gately died at such young age, you can be sure this is story that will run for a while in the British press. Anyone still bewildered by the fuss, or anyone who wants to remind themselves what the group sounded like, should check out the clip of Boyzone performing “No Matter What” below.
The first 43 seconds of Michael Jackson’s long-awaited “This is It” song has leaked before tonight’s official debut at midnight EST.
The song, which TMZ released ahead of schedule, will be a part of the two-disc album of music inspired from the film “This Is It,” which opens October 28.
What do you guys think of the song? Will it give MJ a new number one?
Kanye West was a no-show at last night’s 4th annual BET Hip Hop Awards, where he was nominated for nine awards, including best live performer.
Also absent from the shindig was rapper T.I., who’s currently serving time in an Arkansas prison on a federal weapons charge. The Atlanta rapper was nominated for six awards and took home two, including Album of the Year.
Other wins of the night went to Ice Cube, was presented with an icon award, and Degrassi alum Drake, who won “Rookie of the Year.” The show also acknowledged the minds behind the turntables, giving a posthumous DJ of the year award to DJ AM.
It’s two in the morning and raining, and I just witnessed the patron saint of New Jersey rock Giants Stadium for the last time. Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band took a wrecking ball to the doomed venue with a vintage 197 minute performance that defied time. (As one native New Jerseyan proclaimed to me as Springsteen tirelessly bounded around the stage: “He’s f—kin’ 60 years old? I mean, c’mon!”)
Performing all of Born in the USA, the album the band first “played the first time we set foot in this arena” back in 1985, the concert was a fitting farewell from the man who’s practically made the Meadowlands his home field over the years. He opened again with “Wrecking Ball,” the new song about the soon-to-demolished stadium he unveiled only last week, and the crowd was ready. Fans held “Wrecking Crew” signs, wore “I Was at the Wrecking Ball,” t-shirts, and roared approvingly when he sang, “Here where the blood is spilled, the arena’s filled, and Giants play the game.”
Earlier this week, Miley Cyrus tweeted her last tweet (supposedly at the behest of her Last Song co-star and rumored boyfriend Liam Hemsworth), but even so, she certainly hasn’t stopped her personalized dispatches to fans. The latest is a YouTube video where Cyrus lays out exactly why she quit Twitter: “I had to say goodbye,” Miley intones, “and this little rap is to tell my fans why.”
Supposedly, the reason is because she wants to keep her personal things personal. “I want my private life private,” she raps. “I’m living for me.” Of course, it totally makes sense to want to keep things private then release a video spelling that out—and simultaneously putting yourself back on display. I mean, yeah. Or something.
And even though Miley’s final tweet on Thursday said that Hemsworth wanted her to delete her Twitter account, she responded to that in the rap by saying: “It wasn’t because my friend told me to. I stopped living for moments and started living for people.” Nice save.
But it’s hard to fault her when she does it so well; “Come Alive (The War Of The Roses),” a zoot-suit post-mod shuffle created exclusively for Kia Soul Collective is currently downloadable on the car company’s website; we’ve also got a stream here:
What do you think, Music Mixers — all aboard the Monae train, or do prefer your Janelle outside the inc. tanks?
As an Idoloonie, the fallow period from June-December has traditionally been a time for ennui, heartbreak, and disappointment. Year after year, we invest ourselves knee-deep in the hoopla (God help me for using that phrase) of taking back the power from short-sighted record labels and forcing them to sign artists who don’t need no stinkin’ autotune. After the confetti falls, though, even in the best of scenarios, we maybe get to witness one or two stops on the Idol summer tour, wallow in the realization that not all of our favorites are getting major-label deals (#signmattgiraud, bitches!), and then brace ourselves for the inevitable sad trombone of songs like Bo Bice’s “The Real Thing,” which have none of the verve or personality or power of the upstart singers we fell in love with on Fox’s ubiquitous talent search.
This year on Idol, however, runner-up Adam Lambert promised us that a change was gonna come. And it may just turn out the man was telling the truth. Indeed, hot on the heels of excellent singles from season 8 champ Kris Allen and third runner-up Allison Iraheta, a verrry brief snippet of Adam’s “Time for Miracles,” a cut from the upcoming 2012 soundtrack, is now streaming at Amazon.com UK, and it sounds like it has the potential to be a power-ballad smash. (For the record, a rep for Adam’s label says “Time for Miracles” won’t be the lead single from Adam’s forthcoming debut disc; a decision on which track they’ll ultimately choose will be made in the next couple of weeks.) UPDATE: A longer, “making of” clip is available via AOL — I’ve embedded it below — and it puts the “edible” in incredible…or somethin’ like that!
But getting back to the Amazon clip, it begins with an acoustic guitar line leading into the last line of a verse, with Adam declaring “So nothing can stop me from trying.” After that, the bombast kicks in — the kind of building, building, building, nod-your-head, power-chordian crescendo you’d expect from what’s rumored to be the closing-credits cut to the year’s big-budget apocalyptic disaster flick, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, and possibly the destruction of everything ever. Then we hear the start of the chorus — “Baby you know that maybe it’s time for miracles/ ‘Cause I ain’t givin’ up on love/ You know that maybe it’s time for miracles…” — which hints at what’s to come, but ultimately cuts off before Adam can really tear into the track with the kind of gale-force vocalizing his fans have been feverishly waiting to hear for weeks now. [UPDATE: Scratch that, peeps! The AOL "making of" snippet now embedded below gives us 86 seconds, with Adam-on-Adam layers that are destined to make my mother do something drastic. Mr. Lambert, if Polly Slezak approaches you and says she's working on a feature for EW, she is telling a lie!] On the Adam Idol Scale ™, “Time for Miracles” sounds like it’s got a little “Mad World” falsetto, a little “Slow Ride” growl, and perhaps the scope and grandeur of “One.” I’m going to reserve saying anything more till the full track makes its way to the internet, but for now, go forth and check out the 29-second leak streaming at Amazon UK, press play on the embeddable 86-second version here, and vote in our poll below. Then you can share your snap-judgment review in the comments section below. Oh, and do follow me on Twitter to get all my Idol-centric updates @EWMichaelSlezak. Yes, folks, I Tweet, therefore I am. trying to hang on to my youthful relevance. Now I’m going to take a cleansing breath, exhale deeply, and then raise the first alcoholic beverage I can get my hands on that no part of the beloved Kradison troika has been saddled with “No Boundaries”-esque pablum. That, in and of itself, proves it’s a time for miracles, no?
October 27 marks the release of Fire in My Bones, a three-disc box containing nearly four hours of rare post-WWII gospel music, much of it previously unreleased — with proceeds going in part to benefit the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund.
The set aims, according to its release, “to address and collect more neglected sounds from that era (and on to the present day) … Field recordings and studio tracks are all mashed together, with solo performances next to congregational recordings, hellfire sermons next to afterlife laments. This is gospel, which we must always remember translates as ‘the good news’ — as it has been sung and performed in tiny churches and large programs, from rural Georgia to urban Los Angeles.”
Aussie swirl-rock outfit 
Kansas-City native 
As an Idoloonie, the fallow period from June-December has traditionally been a time for ennui, heartbreak, and disappointment. Year after year, we invest ourselves 
October 27 marks the release of
