Archive: July 2011 (41-50 of 122)

Jul 23 2011 01:40 PM ET

Amy Winehouse mourned on Twitter

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Filed under: Music, News and tagged: ,
Amy-Winehouse

Image Credit: Danny Martindale/WireImage.com

As news of Amy Winehouse’s death at age 27 spreads, friends, fellow artists, and fans have begun to share their grief on Twitter:

Kelly Clarkson:
“I heard the news about Amy Winehouse. I’m incredibly sad. I didn’t know her but I met her a few times and got to hear her sing before she blew up. She was a beautiful and talented girl. I’m angry. What a waste of a gifted person. What a shame she saw no hope and continued living her life in that [manner]. I have been that low emotionally and mentally and that is overwhelming. I keep asking myself why some of us are spared and the others are made examples. I’m very angry and sad. I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. Sometimes I think this job will be the death of us all, or at least the emotional death of us all. Maybe that is why as a little kid in Sunday school I learned that God didn’t want false gods or idols. I thought it was terribly selfish of God as a child but I think I get it now. He didn’t want us following people or things that are imperfect and not so much for the followers but for the gods and/or idols who will never be what everyone wishes or needs them to be because we are made imperfect. He knew we wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure, the shame, the glory, or the power the spotlight brings. I am distraught. I am also extremely grateful and thankful for the people who love me and support me. Without such amazing friends and family who knows where I’d be. My thoughts and prayers are with her friends and family. I am so sorry for your loss. I pray for peace in your hearts.” READ FULL STORY »

Jul 23 2011 01:01 PM ET

Amy Winehouse found dead

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Filed under: Music and tagged: , ,
Amy-Winehouse

Amy Winehouse, 27, has been found dead at her London home. According to a statement by the Metropolitan Police, they were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square NW1 at around 4 p.m. local time Saturday. Enquiries continue into the cause of death.

Last month, Winehouse called off all of the remaining dates on her European tour. That announcement came a day after the singer canceled dates in Athens and Istanbul following a disastrous performance in Belgrade, Serbia.

“Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen,” Winehouse representative Chris Goodman told the Associated Press at the time. There was no mention of why Winehouse was in the state she was in during the Belgrade show.

Much of her Belgrade performance, which started an hour late, was caught on video. Winehouse stumbled about the stage and only intermittently sang her songs. The crowd roundly booed Winehouse, and a local newspaper referred to the concert as “the worst in the history of Belgrade.”

Only a few weeks before hitting the road, Winehouse spent two weeks at London’s Priory Clinic, though it was never made clear what she was being treated for.

(Reporting by Mandi Bierly and Kyle Anderson)

Details to come…

Read more:
Amy Winehouse mourned on Twitter
Amy Winehouse falls apart on stage in Belgrade: Watch the video here
Amy Winehouse, gifted Grammy-winning vocalist, frequent tabloid subject, passes away

Jul 22 2011 06:03 PM ET

Danny Elfman on Tim Burton, Gus Van Sant, and why it's so hard to sing in Russian: An EW Q&A

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Filed under: Music and tagged: , , , ,
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Image Credit: Jon Furniss/WireImage.com

Ever since he first laid down tracks for Tim Burton’s Pee Wee’s Big Adventure 25 years ago, composer (and erstwhile ’80s rock star) Danny Elfman has crafted scores for dozens of iconic films and television shows.

You can scarcely swing a cat without bumping up against an Elfman creation, be it the opening songs from The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives to now-legendary themes for flicks like Batman and Spider-Man.

You’ll get to hear him again in some of the biggest movies on the horizon, including Real Steel, Men In Black III and The Hunger Games, and if you’re interested in his past work, he recently released a 16 disc retrospective box set of his collaborations with Tim Burton. This week, he also just opened Cirque Du Soleil: Iris in Los Angeles. EW caught up with him recently, and he told us his memories from some of his favorite projects.

The Nightmare Before Christmas
“If I were to list my favorite collaborations with Tim [Burton], I would say number one would be The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was the purest, simplest process I had in all the years with Tim. There was less pressure, and the results came from the ability to kind of wander. We didn’t know how to start doing a musical; there was an animation crew ready to go and there was no script. So we started with the songs. And literally, he’d come over and start telling me the story.

I said, ‘Just tell me the story like you’re reading a book to a kid.’ So he’d take out some pictures and tell a little bit of the story, and as he was telling the story, I’d start to hear an idea for a song. Usually about three days later, I’d play him the song, and then he would tell me more of the story. Ten times we got together, he told me a story and I wrote the songs. When I was writing lyrics for [Oingo Boingo], I would write about abstract things or things that annoyed me. I could be bitter or facetious about something. I had never written anything where I told a story and wasn’t sarcastic in the process. It was a new experience writing lyrics for songs that were doing a complete narrative.” READ FULL STORY »

Jul 22 2011 04:26 PM ET

Pitbull and Marc Anthony make things hot in 'Rain Over Me' video: Watch it here

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Filed under: Music

Following the lead of his smash single “Give Me Everything,” Pitbull talks to the ladies again on his latest offering “Rain Over Me.”

Oddly enough, the Marc Anthony-assisted cut about being showered with love gets the desert treatment in its accompanying video.

In it, the two Latin stars rope in some girls and hope for the best. You can check it out after the jump. Expect cameos from hot women, a rattlesnake, and several bottles of vodka.

READ FULL STORY »

Jul 22 2011 03:41 PM ET

Rob Zombie Q&A: Rocker and filmmaker talks Slayer tour, new movie, and the legend of Mick Jagger

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Rob-Zombie

Image Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Two nights ago, Rob Zombie turned the summertime volume up to 11 by kicking off his co-headlining tour with shred legends Slayer in Reading, Pennsylvania.

But the multi-talented Zombie has quite a few tentacles in a number of different pies at the moment, so when we caught up with him a few weeks ago, he ran down the seemingly ever-growing list of projects he’s currently advancing.

Entertainment Weekly: The last time we talked, you were also working on a tour and getting movie stuff together at the same time. Can we safely call you a workaholic?
Rob Zombie: I like to have a lot of projects going at once because I work in a very kind of schizophrenic manner. So if I ever get stuck on something, I can just to the next thing and the next thing. It’s kind of a blessing and a curse because at the same time, I hate working that way. I’m like “Boy, if I could just focus on one thing…” but then I’m always afraid if you’re only focusing on one thing and if the one thing falls apart, you’re like “Now what?” It’s sort of a paranoia.

You’ve played with Slayer before in the past, going back to the White Zombie days. Were you a fan before you worked with them?
I was a fan before we opened but not for long time. I was never a crazy metal fan. I saw them at the Felt Forum in New York on one of the early shows on the South of Heaven tour. That’s when I really was blown away by the show and the insane intensity of the whole thing.

Is it inspiring to you that they can still put out that kind of energy all these years later?
It’s not really inspiring to me because we’re all the same age. So I’m not inspired by that. I’m inspired if I watch the Rolling Stones. I think, “Holy f—, Mick Jagger is almost 70 and look at the energy that guy’s got.”

Is that going to be you? Will we be able to see you live at 70?
Who knows? I mean, there’s very few people that have that. Probably not, because when I’m together with all the guys from Slayer, everybody’s  just sitting around talking about how much their necks hurt. Mick Jagger is just possessed. People take for granted that they don’t even understand how great it is sometimes. Like when the Stones played the Super Bowl and everyone complained about it. Give me a f—ing break! You work that f—ing stage the size of a football field when you’re 66 years old, and we’ll see if you come out alive. It’s a phenomenon. READ FULL STORY »

Jul 22 2011 01:55 PM ET

Rihanna gets LOUD at New Jersey's Izod Center with surprise guest Jay-Z: EW's live review

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Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

Last night, Rihanna and her LOUD  Tour stopped at New Jersey’s Izod Center.

The red-headed pop vixen packed the venue, running through about two hours worth of hit records, starting with “Only Girl (In the World)” and capping things off with fan favorite “Umbrella.”

A Rihanna show feels less like a traditional concert and more like a party. There were hot girls and a goofy pillow fight, and nothing felt overdone or too planned. There were a few choreographed dance sequences, but she mostly spent the evening shimmying, winding, and skipping along.

As opposed to giving the standard review, I’m opting to break it down into three categories: Sex, Singing, and the Surprise. After the jump, find out how naughty Rihanna got, if her island-coated vocals were any good, and how ape-nuts the crowd went when she brought out rap titan Jay-Z.

READ FULL STORY »

Jul 21 2011 12:19 PM ET

'Glee' cast unveils live version of 'Loser Like Me' from upcoming 3D concert movie: hear it here

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Filed under: Movies, Music and tagged: ,
Glee-Live

Image Credit: Jonathan Shensa/PR Photos

The second season ended in May and the new batch of episodes won’t begin until September, but Glee has remained on the tip of New Directions-loving fans tongues all summer.

News about the cast seems to be constantly dropping from the sky (or from creator Ryan Murphy’s mouth), and the cast hit the road for a few weeks for the show’s live tour.

There will be one more big dose of Glee before the show returns, in the form of Glee Live! In 3D!, which pulls highlights from the live show, throws them up on the big screen and puts them in your lap just for good measure.

The movie opens August 12 for a two week run in theaters, but the first piece of audio from the tour just debuted on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show today. Follow the jump for the premiere of the concert version of “Loser Like Me,” one of the original tunes first unleashed on the universe during last season. READ FULL STORY »

Jul 21 2011 12:10 PM ET

Rebecca Black's behind-the-scenes footage of My Moment' video: Watch here

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Oh, you thought it was over after “Friday“? Jokes on you, haters! Rebecca Black has a real single out, “My Moment.”

“Weren’t you the one who said that I would be nothing?” ask Black on the track. As a matter of fact, many have. But in a preview of the synthy track’s video, she and host of helpers are doing plenty–hopping out of limos, being snapped by the paps, and, of course, dancing their tails off.

“It’s weird,” the ever thankful Black says of her new found fame. “But it’s cool.” Check out the clip after the jump.

READ FULL STORY »

Jul 21 2011 11:34 AM ET

Kanye West and Jay-Z unveil regal raps on soulful single 'Otis'

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Jay-Z-Kanye

Image Credit: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for VEVO

Ladies and gents, Kanye West and Jay-Z are ready.

After months of speculation and two weeks after letting EW and a few other outlets hear a rough version of their highly anticipated collab Watch the Throne, the two officially released a cut from it so that we may all bask in its opulent glory; you can listen to it by clicking here at Jay’s Life + Times.

It’s called “Otis”—named after the classic Otis Redding sample the beat is wrapped around. Jay and ‘Ye go tit for tat on the braggadocio-heavy cut. “I invented swag,” Jay declares from jump, and what follows is a lyrical onslaught of upscale rhymes and confidence justified by years of success.

Kanye explains why he hasn’t been caught out by the paparrazzi:”They ain’t seen me ’cause I pulled up in my other Benz/Last week I was in my other-other Benz.” Sure, these aren’t exactly the issues of the common man. But it’s so hip-hop. With no hook or chorus, it’s pleasantly unconventional.  And between the soulful bounce and the aggressive delivery, this might be the most well-executed rap song of the year so far.

Have you heard “Otis yet? Think it’s better than “H.A.M.“? Tell us what you think. Looking forward to Watch the Throne?

More on EW.com:
New video for Beyonce’s ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ features lace teddy, great lighting
Kanye West and Jay-Z reveal album details, kingly cover art for collab ‘Watch the Throne’

Jul 21 2011 09:59 AM ET

Katy Perry, Adele, Kanye West lead 2011 MTV Video Music Awards nominations

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Filed under: Music and tagged: , , , , , , ,
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Image Credit: Pimentel/Getty Images

Quick: Which clip won the Moonman for Video of the Year at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards?

Having a hard time remembering? That’s because the actual awards are only about the fourth most important aspect of any given VMAs (just behind the performances, the host and whatever Kanye West does).

Still, the nominations do provide an excellent jumping-off point for the show, which will air live from Los Angeles on August 28. This year, Katy Perry leads the way with nine nominations, split between nods for “Firework,” “Teenage Dream,” “E.T.” and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” Adele is right behind with seven nods for “Rolling in the Deep,” and Kanye West also racked up seven (most of which are for “All of the Lights,” though “Power” did get a pair of noms as well.

The five videos competing for Video of the Year are “Firework,” “Rolling in the Deep,” Bruno Mars’ “Grenade,” Beastie Boys’ “Make Some Noise” and, in a somewhat shocking turn of events (if only because the buzz on his crew has died down so profoundly), Tyler, the Creator’s “Yonkers.”

You can check out the complete list of nominees after the jump. Oh, and the winner of the 2010 Video of the Year was Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” READ FULL STORY »

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