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Archive: November 2009 (101-110 of 119)

Nov 4 2009 04:51 PM ET

Taylor Swift on 'SNL': Let the Kanye yukks begin

Categories: Let's Argue!, New Stuff, SNL, Taylor Swift, Television

Judging by the first promos to be released for Taylor Swift’s hosting gig on Saturday Night Live this weekend, there will be more riffs on Kanye than a South Park episode:

We know Taylor can take a good prank at her own expense; but will this weekend’s episode devolve into one long ‘Ye rant? Despite bloggy rumors, neither the singer’s publicist nor reps for the show itself would confirm whether West will actually make a surprise appearance—though SNL did say more promos would be released tomorrow evening.

Swift talked to MTV about the taping today, saying, “I want to look nothing like myself. I told all the writers, ‘Don’t count anything out.’ I want to go completely, 100 percent in. I don’t want to be halfway involved. Just because I have a lot of things to do as far as being musical guest and host doesn’t mean I don’t want to live up to my full hosting demands.”

We can haz Penelope skit? Also, no painful Madonna/Gaga-style improvs, por favor. But seriously, how does this promo bode for the upcoming show? And what are you expecting from Taylor, musical-guest and host-wise?

Nov 4 2009 03:09 PM ET

Allison Iraheta exclusive: We reveal songwriting and production credits for her debut album!

by Michael Slezak

Categories: Allison Iraheta, American Idol

allison-iraheta_l The track list for Allison Iraheta’s Just Like You may have leaked at Walmart.com earlier this week, but a source at The Rocker’s label was awesome enough to give EW.com some exclusive scoop on the songwriting and production credits for the album. Without any further ado, chew on this, Idoloonies! Me? I’m gonna go find someone to slap me upside the head to help me deal with my surplus of fanboyish excitement.

1. “Friday I’ll Be Over U” (Max Martin, Shellback, Savan Kotecha, Tiffany Amber) (Produced by Max Martin & Shellback for Maratone Productions)
2. “Robot Love” (Heather Bright, Warren “Oak” Felder, Johannes Joergensen, Sterling Simms, Gary Glitter, Mike Leander) (Produced By “Oak” of the Knightwritaz for NineTimesNine Entertainment & Uncle Josh for DEEKAY)
3. “Just Like You” (Max Martin, Shellback, Savan Kotecha) (Produced by Max Martin & Shellback for Maratone Productions)
4. “Don’t Waste The Pretty” (Michael Dennis Smith, Stefanie Ridel, Miriam Nervo, Olivia Nervo) (Produced by Howard Benson)
5. “Scars” (Toby Gad, Elyssa James) (Produced by Toby Gad)
6. “Pieces” (Daniel James, Leah Haywood, Shelly Pieken) (Produced By Dreamlab)
7. “D Is For Dangerous” (Sam Watters, Louis Biancaniello, Michael Biancaniello) (Produced by Sam Watters & Louis Biancaniello for MzMeriq)
8. “Holiday” (Dave Bassett, Dilana Trudy Smith) (Produced by Dave Bassett)
9. “Still Breathing” (Tommy Henriksen, Chioma Eze) (Produced by Howard Benson)
10. “Trouble Is” (Ron Aniello, Shelly Pieken, Aimee Proal) (Produced by Ron Aniello)
11. “No One Else” (Kara DioGuardi, Greg Wells, Alecia Moore) (Produced by Greg Wells)
12. “Beat Me Up” (Kevin Rudolf, Jacob Kasher) (Produced by Kevin Rudolf for BAMF Productions)
13. “You Don’t Know Me” (Allison Iraheta, Mitch Allan, David Bassett, David Hodges) (Produced by Mitch Allan & David Hodges)

FYI: For all my Idol-related updates, follow me on Twitter @EWMichaelSlezak, and if you love music (and what Idoloonie doesn’t?) then get hip to our Music Mix blog @EWMusicMix!

Nov 4 2009 01:58 PM ET

The Beatles: Christmas comes early for fans with Fab Four USB

by Clark Collis

Categories: The Beatles

Beatles-USB_l EMI and Apple Corps have announced that the Beatles recently remastered back catalog will be available as a limited-edition USB on December 8. The drive will feature the quartet’s 14 stereo titles as well as 13 mini-documentaries. Apple has famously been in no rush to release the Beatles’ music in digital form, despite the desire on the part of Paul McCartney that the Fab Four’s tunes be available on iTunes. “It’s bit of a sticky issue,” the music icon told EW earlier this year. “I’d like to make it happen. Though I am not part of the negotiations.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for EMI has confirmed to EW that yesterday the company launched a lawsuit against Santa Cruz-based website BlueBeat.com, which has been selling the Beatles music digitally without permission, and providing free streams as well. According to the spokesperson, “EMI has not authorized content to be sold on BlueBeat.”

Will you be USBing come December, Beatlemaniacs, or better that their Fab catalog “Get Back” to where it once belonged—in regular physical form?

More on The Beatles:
John Lennon biopic trailer
Paul McCartney to document Citi Field shows
The Beatles’ ‘Lucy’ dies
The Beatles stereo box set
The best Beatles songs

Nov 4 2009 01:09 PM ET

'This Is It': Michael Jackson soundtrack tops the albums chart in a busy week

by Simon Vozick-Levinson

Categories: Charts, Creed, Michael Jackson, The Swell Season

Michael Jackson’s This Is It won the box office easily last weekend, so it should come as little surprise to find the concert film’s soundtrack topping the Billboard 200, too. The King of Pop’s latest posthumous release sold a strong 373,000 copies in its first week on shelves, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s comparable to the big sales his greatest-hits set Number Ones was putting up in the weeks immediately following his untimely death — and since This Is It is categorized as a new release, Jackson finally gets to take the No. 1 Billboard 200 spot that a technicality robbed him of for much of this past summer.

A busy pack of other new releases crowded into the shadow of This Is It. Creed came Full Circle to No. 2 with a respectable 110,000 copies sold, answering the question of how many people still consider themselves Creed fans in 2009. The public’s appetite for Rod Stewart covers albums remained unwhetted as his latest such set, Soulbook, bowed at No. 4 with 84,000. Trans-Siberian Orchestra‘s Night Castle checked in at No. 5 with 83,000. Sting‘s If on a Winter’s Night… traveled to No. 6 with 80,000.

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Nov 4 2009 11:39 AM ET

Muse, 'Undisclosed Desires': Watch the new video here

by Leah Greenblatt

Categories: Muse, New Stuff, Twilight, Video Gaga

Fantabulously histrionic Brit-rockers Muse—who, as any dedicated fan will tell you (and tell you and tell you), did in fact have a career well before Twilight—get all wired up and robo-tribal in the new clip for the very Depeche-y single “Undisclosed Desires,” from their recently released fifth album, The Resistance. Watch it below:

Nov 4 2009 09:19 AM ET

Jon Spencer's Heavy Trash, 'Gentle': A Music Mix exclusive video

by Leah Greenblatt

Categories: Buzzworthy, New Stuff, Video Exclusive

Nineties alt-scene dreamboat and bona fide blues-dandy Jon Spencer, he of the Blues Explosion, Pussy Galore, and, no doubt, countless boxes of Clairol Hair Black, has spent the last four years gigging with raucous punkabilly outfit Heavy Trash.

He and bandmate Matt Verta-Ray (late of langorous NYC rockers Madder Rose) are spending November on the road to promote their third Trash release, Midnight Soul Serenade. In the meantime, they’ve bestowed the just-minted video for “Gentle,” directed by renowned grunge-scene chronicler Michael Lavine, upon the Music Mix. Watch the black-and-white action (Winona not included) below:

Nov 3 2009 06:00 PM ET

Adam Lambert's 'For Your Entertainment' sound clips hit the web early

by Leah Greenblatt

Categories: Adam Lambert, Divas!, New Stuff, Things That Are British

Can’t wait three more torturous weeks for Glambert’s debut to drop? Be sated, child, by amazon.co.uk, the British arm of the books-plus behemoth: They’ve got 30-second teasers of all 19(!) tracks currently up on their site.

Get thee to it, Glamborinas, and pick your early favorites. The bananas falsetto on prance-prance-revolution “Music Again,” a collaboration with The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins, had me at high-pitched hello, though that may be because (Braggy McBraggerson) I got to hear it in full last week at an EW listening session.

But you tell me — loving what Señor One Glove has to offer, or wishing he would cover both ears while he’s at it?

Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix

Nov 3 2009 05:25 PM ET

Lightning Bolt and F--- Buttons concert reviews: The present and future of NSFW avant-rock?

by Joseph Brannigan Lynch

Categories: Indie Rock, Let's Argue!, Music, Things That Are British

Two of the premier purveyors of droning avant-rock played New York over the last few days—metal-noise extremists Lightning Bolt and British electro-transcendentalists F— Buttons. The two groups have a lot in common—both dispense with discernible lyrics in favor of having a dude growl into a mic that’s inserted halfway down his throat; both are experimental duos intent on maximizing a song’s visceral impact.

Cult favorites Lightning Bolt (somewhat visible in the picture above) brought their ear-shredding noise-rock to Brooklyn this Halloween weekend, playing Brooklyn’s DIY concert venue—Above the Auto Parts Store—and inciting their willing, wriggling fan base into the throes of thrash-passion.

Lightning Bolt’s music is easy to describe in one sense—it’s loud and not something most people tend to enjoy, lacking in melodies and oftentimes even recognizable guitar riffs. But for those who seek more of a head-trip than typical alternative bands can provide, Lightning Bolt have been the reigning champions of guitar-based sonic explosions for the better part of this decade—and they don’t let up on their recently-released Earthly Delights.

Their apocalyptic live shows are responsible much of their legend—halfway through the set, everyone within ten feet of the stage was soaked in each others’ sweat, and before the evening was over, anyone who could take their shirt off without being indecent had done so.

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Nov 3 2009 03:24 PM ET

Rihanna, 'Wait Your Turn': Watch the official video

by Leah Greenblatt

Categories: New Stuff, Rihanna, Video Gaga

The album is Rated R, pop fans, but RiRi is rated F this week for “freaking ubiquitous”: The official video for her just-dropped second single “Wait Your Turn” comes post Glamour-cover unveiling, pre-Diane Sawyer sit-down, and mere hours after her full tracklist reveal, complete with guest stars (will.i.am, Young Jeezy, Slash).

The clip, like the song, strays far from the chart princessa’s habitual high-gloss R&B shine; here, she’s filmed in grainy black and white—the eye-patched outlaw in a deserted noir cityscape, laying down tough island-girl boasts over a spare, digital-hand-clap beat. Church pews and angel wings, shrouded in nocturnal mists? So Keanu in Constantine. Watch it below:

So what do you think, Music Mixers? I wasn’t fully feeling it yesterday, but it’s growing on me. A little levity up in this goth-gasm wouldn’t hurt, though; I’m reserving my judgment for the full album.

Nov 3 2009 02:01 PM ET

'Say Anything' turns 20: Cameron Crowe's crazy story behind 'In Your Eyes' and Lloyd Dobler's boom box

by Jason Adams

Categories: An EW Exclusive!, Movies, New Stuff, Things We Love

Prepare yourselves, hopeless romantics: To commemorate today’s 20th-anniversary edition Blu-ray and DVD re-release of Say Anything…, Twentieth Century Fox will be “Mobler”-izng (apparently “mob” + “Dobler” = “Mobler” — and yes, I agree it’s a stretch) a veritable army of Lloyd Dobler lookalikes to descend upon New York City’s Times Square later today, boom boxes outstretched and hearts worn proudly on their trench-coated sleeves. Clever? Yes. Original? Hardly!

In last week’s issue of EW, I wrote of my own life-imitating-Lloyd moment to get my high school girlfriend back, which coincided with the original release of the movie two decades ago.

Today’s publicity stunt will also have over-the-emo-top-named band the Lloyd Dobler Effect playing an acoustic version of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” What it will not have, but which I have here, is the full story from Say Anything‘s writer and director Cameron Crowe on how the scene and song came together to create the iconic John Cusack moment (and, um, eventual shameless PR stunt).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did the scene come about? It’s something that could have gone terribly awry, but instead is incredibly endearing and iconic and lasting. Did you just write “lifts boom box overhead”?

CAMERON CROWE: Yeah, and the music wafts down the hillside, I think was what it was. I was supposed to, not that it’s such an epic event, but I just remember the day that I was waiting to go somewhere; we were in Seattle and Nancy [Wilson, Heart guitarist and Crowe's wife of 23 years ] and I were late to go someplace and I was ready to go and she needed some more time. I had been writing, and it’s that great thing of like, “Thank goodness I don’t have to work on this any longer and try and solve this problem because I’ve got to go.”

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