Archive: May 2011 (1-10 of 87)

May 31 2011 09:15 PM ET

Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' sells 1.1 million in first week of release

Lady-Gaga

Welcome to the one million club, Lady Gaga.

As was announced today by album-sales tracker Nielsen SoundScan, the pop act’s latest album Born This Way, released just over a week ago, succeeded in selling a extremely healthy 1.11 million albums during its first full week at retailers. The feat is a rare one, indeed— Born This Way is just the 17th album to reach the one-million-copies benchmark in a week since SoundScan began in 1991.

That number is the highest since rapper 50 Cent’s The Massacre sold 1.14 million copies in March 2005. More recently, Taylor Swift joined the elite one-million club when her latest album, Speak Now, sold 1.05 million records last November. The overall record is still held by ‘NSYNC, whose No Strings Attached sold a massive 2.42 million records during its debut week in 2000. READ FULL STORY »

May 31 2011 01:40 PM ET

Sean Kingston in 'critical but stable' condition

Categories: Music, R&B, Sean Kingston
Sean-Kingston

Image Credit: Allen Berezovsky/PR Photos

UPDATE (6/1): Sean Kingston expected to recover, sources tell CNN

ORIGINAL POST: Sean Kingston is in critical but stable condition at Ryder Trauma Center in Miami following a weekend jet ski accident, his representative said early Tuesday morning.

It was first reported late Sunday night that Kingston, best known for his 2007 song “Beautiful Girls,” was in serious condition after a jet ski he was driving crashed into a bridge. A female passenger was also injured. READ FULL STORY »

May 31 2011 01:15 PM ET

Panic! at the Disco frontman Brendon Urie breaks ankle onstage, still finishes the show: Watch the video here

No one can ever say that Panic! at the Disco singer Brendon Urie isn’t hardcore.

During a concert on Sunday night in Pompano Beach, Florida, Urie came down hard in the midst of a typically manic performance and managed to break his ankle.

While still onstage, he removed his boot and sock to assess the damage; a giant carbuncle had already formed. “What does this mean?” he asked the crowd between songs. “There’s like a softball in my foot.”

Luckily, fans caught the whole thing on tape, which you can check out the slightly gruesome video below:

READ FULL STORY »

May 31 2011 12:46 PM ET

Avril Lavigne goes on swearing tirade at Tampa Bay Rays baseball game: Watch the video here

Avril-Lavigne

Image Credit: Michael Caulfield/WireImage.com

It’s hard being the Tampa Bay Rays. The team is currently a game and a half out of first place in Major League Baseball’s toughest division, but they play in a terrible stadium that nobody really goes to anyway. And now, they’ve got an Avril problem.

On Saturday (May 28), after the team took a late-game thumping from the Cleveland Indians, the crowd was treated to a concert by Ms. Lavigne as a part of their summer concert series, which also features the likes of Miranda Lambert, Miranda Cosgrove, Goo Goo Dolls and REO Speedwagon.

Apparently, there were some technical difficulties at the top of the show, which lead to Lavigne dropping the F-bomb and several other choice words on a live microphone in front of an all-ages crowd, some of whom were reportedly booing in response to the sound difficulties. You can check out the NSFW audio after the jump.

READ FULL STORY »

May 30 2011 10:39 AM ET

Keith Urban talks summer 'Get Closer' tour -- and why he'll be coming home with scratches on his chest and back

keith_urban

Image Credit: Wade Payne/AP Images

When Keith Urban thinks of summer, one of the first things that comes to mind is tailgating under the awning of his tour bus. In the Best of Summer issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands now, Urban shares five things on his Must List for the North American leg of his Get Closer world tour, which kicks off June 16 — including a Frisbee that he insists he tosses with wife Nicole Kidman (we love that visual) and his six-string banjo, which he likes to play along with any song on his old boom box that sounds like it should have banjo nowhere near it (OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” for example).

But what does Urban have planned for when he hits the stage? “I’m going into the crowd on several occasions. This tour is not just called Get Closer, it’s literally gonna be that, too,” he promises. Having seen him multiple times over the years, we’ve always been amazed at how surprisingly tame fans seem when he’s in the seats playing “You Look Good in My Shirt” among them. Or have we just caught shows with particularly respectful audiences? “I’ll have you walk with me one time,” Urban says, when he’s done laughing. “Maybe from the outside it looks very different, but the lost buttons and ripped sleeves testify to something very different. I’ve come home a few times with scratches on my chest and on my back, and my wife’s gone, ‘What is that?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll show you,’ and we’ve filmed the audience. She’s like, ‘Oh my god!’ [Laughs] It can be a bit treacherous out there sometimes, but it’s always different, always unpredictable, and I love it.”  READ FULL STORY »

May 30 2011 01:36 AM ET

Sean Kingston injured in Jet Ski accident

Categories: Music, R&B, Sean Kingston
Sean-Kingston

Image Credit: Allen Berezovsky/PR Photos

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: Joseph Carozza, Sean Kingston’s publicist, has issued the following statement: “Sean Kingston is now stabilized and has moved from the trauma unit to ICU. Sean’s family thanks everyone for their prayers and support during this time.” Miami’s Local10.com reported that as of Sunday night, Sean Kingston was in serious condition following a Jet Ski accident during a visit to the city, with no information available on the extent of his injuries. The TV station’s Website also reported Kingston’s passenger on the personal watercraft was said to be alert and talking to investigators.

ORIGINAL POST: Singer Sean Kingston was injured Sunday in an accident, his publicist confirms to EW. Further details were not provided in the brief statement made available by his rep, but a source told CNN that Kingston (real name Kisean Anderson) was injured in a Jet Ski accident and taken to a Florida trauma center Sunday evening. His current condition was not given.

The watercraft apparently crashed when it went under a small bridge about 6 p.m., injuring the singer and a female passenger. Officials were still investigating the cause.

“Sean Kingston was in a accident today. No further details are available at the moment. He and his family thank everyone for the well wishes,” his rep’s statement said.

May 28 2011 01:45 PM ET

Gil Scott-Heron, poet and musician, dies at 62

Categories: Hip-Hop/Rap, In Memoriam, R&B

Gil Scott-Heron, a poet and musician often called the Godfather of Rap whose work echoes in current artists such as Kanye West and Common, has died in New York of causes not immediately known, CNN reports. Politically and socially provocative songs including “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” “Johannesburg,” and “Whitey On the Moon” earned him acclaim, as well as criticism, in the 1970s. In 2010, he issued his first album in 16 years, I’m New Here, which resurfaced earlier this year in a remix version called We’re New Here (click to see EW’s review).

At the time of I’m New Here‘s release, EW’s Chris Nashawaty spoke to Scott-Heron about his life and career. See that article after the jump, along with video clips of Scott-Heron’s work. READ FULL STORY »

May 27 2011 05:40 PM ET

Adam Ant falls off stage during London comeback gig

New Romantic rocker Adam Ant, born Stuart Goddard, tumbled offstage today during a comeback concert at London’s Indig02, according to British news reports.

The piratey hitmaker behind ’80s smashes like “Stand and Deliver” and “Goody Two Shoes” brushed himself and returned to the show, though he did tell the audience that he had cut himself and broken a fingernail.

Ant most recently made the news in 2002, when he was arrested for throwing a car alternator through a pub window and intimidating the bar staff with an imitation gun, and he tangled with the law again in 2003 when he threatened to smash in a neighbor’s patio doors with a shovel and was later found laying nude in a cafe basement.

May 27 2011 01:12 PM ET

Courtney Love tweets herself into another lawsuit, this time with a law firm

courtney_love

Image Credit: Charles Norfleet/PR Photos

Some celebrities have made Twitter work for them; Courtney Love is not one of them.

The perpetually-embattled Hole mastermind just settled a Twitter-related lawsuit in March (she paid out $430,000 to fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir after making statements on Twitter and MySpace that suggested she had some sort of criminal past), and now she faces yet another defamation suit thanks to a tweet.

Lawyer Rhonda Holmes has filed a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court that Love libeled her and her firm following the termination of their attorney-client relationship in 2009 (she is seeking unspecified damages). Love had hired Holmes’ firm to recoup money she thought was stolen from the estate of her late husband Kurt Cobain.

When Love began to second-guess attorney Keith Fink’s strategy—and later when the firm demanded that Love refrain from substance abuse during their working relationship—Love fired them and walked away. She returned a few months later seeking their representation again, but Holmes declined to work with Love a second time. That was when Love fired up her Twitter account.

READ FULL STORY »

May 27 2011 10:30 AM ET

Lady Gaga kicks off 'Good Morning America' Summer Concert Series: How did she do?

lady-gaga-gma

Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

Well, that “Born This GMA” meme certainly didn’t go to waste!

Lady Gaga continued her whirlwind media blitz to promote Born This Way by kicking off Good Morning America’s summer concert series today. In front of thousands of screaming fans, some of whom had camped out for two days, she performed a five-song set from the heart of Central Park.

Needless to say, Rihanna purring “S&M” to open the Today show’s own concert series couldn’t compete with Gaga in the Grand Entrance department. With her bipolar Cruella DeVil hair and a red-riding hood ensemble — she looked like a caped crusader for glitter and grease — Her Ladyship ziplined her way over the heads of her cigarette-glasses-wearing audience to land more-or-less gracefully on stage. Admittedly, it seemed to take a bit longer than she’d anticipated — her spandexed backup dancers had carried most of “Bad Romance” by themselves before she made her arrival. And I couldn’t help but notice a rare look of fear on her face before taking her harnessed leap of faith. Had she learned nothing from Hugh Jackman’s zipline debacle on Oprah? Thankfully, though, Gaga is still without a Spinal Tap-style mishap, even if precious time to see her cat-scratch her way through “Bad Romance” was lost. READ FULL STORY »

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