Archive: August 2011 (61-70 of 202)

Aug 24 2011 11:48 AM ET

Beyonce joins list of MTV VMA performers

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Categories: Beyonce, Pop, R&B, VMAs
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Image Credit: Kevin Winter/American Idol 2011/Getty Images

On the heels of her four dazzling concerts last week at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom, MTV has just announced the Beyoncé will perform at their 2011 Video Music Awards this Sunday.

She’s a late addition to the roster, which includes Lady Gaga, Adele, Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, and Pitbull—though the show will not, as announced today, have a host.

“We are thrilled to have Beyoncé return to her rightful musical home at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards,” said Amy Doyle, executive producer of the VMAs and MTV’s EVP of Music & Talent, in a statement. “Her performances at the VMAs are legendary — leaving everyone breathless and talking for days. We can’t wait to see her set the stage on fire once again!”

She is nominated for three Moonmen this year including Best Female Video, Best Choreography and Best Cinematography, Though they did not reveal what song she’ll sing, we can’t wait either. It’s been two years since Beyoncé killed it on that stage with her monumental smash “Single Ladies.”

Are you looking forward to her set? Let us know.

Read more:
Beyonce performs ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, song writer releases original version
Beyoncé’s professional split with her dad sparked by stolen funds? Matthew Knowles takes those claims to court
New video for Beyonce’s ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ features lace teddy, great lighting

Aug 24 2011 08:52 AM ET

Which artist or group has the best meet-and-greet? We nominate the Zac Brown Band

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Categories: Country, Y'all!, Things That Are Awesome, Zac Brown Band
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Image Credit: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images

What’s the best meet-and-greet you’ve ever been to before a concert?

If you think posing for a picture with the artist in front of a banner advertising their tour sponsor qualifies, you haven’t attended one of the Zac Brown Band’s eat-and-greets. I recently caught one at the New Meadowlands in New Jersey, and here’s what it entailed: The band formed a receiving line to shake the hands of all 150 guests.

Then, while Zac chatted up folks standing in line for the buffet created by Southern Ground Executive Chef Rusty Hamlin, the other members actually served you before making their own plates and joining you at the tables. So three hours later, when you’re watching fiddle player Jimmy De Martini wow 55,000 people during their cover of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” you keep thinking He handed me my plate. And when Clay Cook belts out “America the Beautiful” before Zac launches into “Chicken Fried,” you’re thinking He’s the guy I told, ‘I don’t like tomatoes, but I really want to try the moonshine vinaigrette’ on the heirloom tomato salad with smoked corn, edamame, and pickled cucumbers, and he reasoned that I should just take some from him and eat around the tomatoes because they’re red and easy to spot.  READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 06:47 PM ET

The Muppets send OK Go through their old videos for 'Muppet Show Theme': Watch it here!

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Categories: Music Videos, New Stuff, OK Go, Rock, Soundtracks

Yesterday, the Music Mix took you behind the scenes for a preview of OK Go’s video for “Muppet Show Theme Song,” their rendition of the classic opening tune from The Muppet Show.

The full version of the video premiered today, and it finds the men of OK Go taking a magical mystery tour through some of their old videos. There’s the classic “Here It Goes Again” (with cameos by Bunsen and Beaker), the Rube Goldberg-inspired “This Too Shall Pass” (starring Gonzo and Camilla), and even a little jab at the group’s dog-happy clip for “White Knuckles” (with special appearance by a sheep).

The string of fake-out gags at the end might be worth the price of admission alone (which, considering this is a video on the Internet, is zero dollars and zero cents), but the whole thing is a grinning technicolor marvel. Dig it after the jump. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 06:16 PM ET

VMAs tribute to Amy Winehouse to feature Tony Bennett, more

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Categories: Amy Winehouse, In Memoriam, Pop, Soul, VMAs
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Image Credit: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images

As expected, the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards will feature a tribute to late British chanteuse Amy Winehouse.

The legendary Tony Bennett, whose duet with Winehouse on “Body and Soul“—the last recording made before her death—appears on his upcoming Duets II, will have the honor of introducing the tribute.

A statement from MTV reveals that the tribute will also debut film of their spring recording session together at Abbey Road Studios in London.

The single and video will be released for purchase by Columbia Records Sept. 14,  which would have been Amy’s 28th birthday. Proceeds will support the Amy Winehouse Foundation established by the late singer’s family.

“It was a thrill to record with Amy Winehouse and when you listen to the recording of ‘Body and Soul, it is a testament to her artistic genius and her brilliance as one of the most honest musicians I have ever known,” says Bennett in the statement.

Though MTV did not say what songs would be performed or who would be singing them, it’s safe to say that hits like “Rehab” and “You Know I’m No Good” will be a part of the set list. The VMAs will air live from Nokia Theater L.A. on Sunday, Aug. 28 at 9pm.

Aug 23 2011 04:58 PM ET

Does Auto-Tune have any place in country music? Listen here and decide

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Categories: Country, Y'all!, Ladies, Let's Argue!, Things That Make Us Go Hmm
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First pop, now country music. T-Pain, you’ve won.

The JaneDear girls, an up-and-coming female duo that shimmied onto the country scene with their self-titled debut in February, are releasing their third single, “Merry Go Round,” next month, and it’s sure to raise a few eyebrows.

The rollicking, fiddle-laced track features a hefty dose of Auto-Tuned vocals, the kind that sound more at home on Top-40 radio than country stations.

Listen to the song below: READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 03:30 PM ET

Abigail Breslin hugs puppies in Nat & Alex Wolff's 'Thump Thump Thump': EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

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Categories: An EW Exclusive!, Video Exclusive

Question: what’s cuter than Abigail Breslin? (Awww!) Answer: Abigail Breslin letting a pudgy French bull dog lick her nose. (AWWWW!)

That’s what’s happening in the video for Nat & Alex Wolff’s “Thump Thump Thump,” a strummy-sweet ode to puppy love that stars actual puppies—alongside Nat and Alex Wolff, the sibling duo from Nickelodeon’s The Naked Brothers Band.

The clip also finds Breslin recreating the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp with 13-year-old Alex, who spends much of the video competing with his 16-year-old brother Nat for Breslin’s attention.

Watch them fist-fight over her while puppies watch from a distance. We know what they’re thinking: Hit him! Also: Treat? Treat! Someone give us a treat! Watch it here:

READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 02:27 PM ET

Florence and the Machine debut new song 'What the Water Gave Me': Hear it here!

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Categories: Florence + The Machine, Indie Rock, Ladies, New Stuff, Pop, Things On The Internet, Things That Are Sexy
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Image Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

By harnessing the power of her Lungs and scoring a big hit with “Dog Days Are Over,” Florence Welch went from indie upstart to major player in the pop world in the time it took to watch the trailer for Eat Pray Love or her performance on last year’s MTV Video Music Awards.

Welch spent the better part of the summer at Abbey Road studios plugging away at a new album, and now the first track from that still-untitled collection has been unveiled via Florence and the Machine’s official website. It’s called “What the Water Gave Me,” which showed up in a handful of set lists over the summer but had not been given the studio treatment until now.

Give the gorgeous, swooping epic a spin here: READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 01:40 PM ET

Tom Waits announces new album, remains eminently Tom Waits-y: Hear the new music here

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Categories: New Stuff, Things On The Internet, Tom Waits

Even if you can’t stand his I-just-gargled-with-hot-asphalt voice, you cannot deny that Tom Waits is a fascinating musical oddity.

He is perfectly at home saving terrible action movies and tag-teaming with Primus, providing music for Robert Wilson plays and emoting opposite Ellen Barkin. He’s a fountain of cultural strangeness, simultaneously a chameleon and a singularity, somehow blending cabaret-style showmanship with the most guttural elements of folk, blues, country, jazz, and metal.

So it’s pretty exciting that Waits has a new album coming out in October, his first since 2004′s Real Gone. He’d dropped some hints that there was new music coming, and had also announced that people should be watching his official site this morning, where he would clear up said rumors.

The new album is called Bad As Me, and the single of the same name is available for sale at your preferred digital retailer. You can hear a bit of it in the completely genius video he shot, which lambastes the very nature of privacy on the Internet and how terrible it is when surprises are spoiled.

He calls it his “private listening session.” Check it out here: READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 12:10 PM ET

'O Brother, Where Art Thou' reissue: How a best-selling soundtrack changed a prisoner's life

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Categories: Soundtracks

Sorry, ladies: the recording of George Clooney singing “Man of Constant Sorrow,” the main song from O Brother Where Art Thou, does not appear on the film’s bluegrass-laden soundtrack, which comes out today on its 10th anniversary in a newly expanded, double-disc form.

In the liner notes, music producer T Bone Burnett admits that “Man of Constant Sorrow” was originally intended to be the Dude’s anthem in The Big Lebowski, but ended up being a better fit for O Brother’s hero, Ulysses Everett McGill. It’s just a shame that the actor who played that character couldn’t sing it.

“Just for the record, George Clooney is a very good singer…[but recording that song] is not something one can do overnight, not even George Clooney,” says Burnett in the reissue, which also features 14 previously unreleased tracks from artists such as Norman Blake and the Cox Family.

Luckily, Burnett didn’t need Clooney to make the album a hit: it sold 9 million copies, ranking as one of the 10 top-selling soundtracks ever and reinvigorating interest in old-timey, roots music. Burnett reveals that it grew so popular, it even changed the life of James Carter, who recorded the album’s “Po Lazarus” in 1959 with folk musicologist Alan Lomax while he was in the Parchman Farm penitentiary in Mississippi. When the album reached No. 1, the Lomax Foundation tracked Carter down.

READ FULL STORY »

Aug 23 2011 11:20 AM ET

Toxicology reports find no illegal substances in Amy Winehouse's system

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Categories: Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse had no illegal substances in her system at the time of her death on July 23. At least, according to her family. In a statement released to press, Winehouse’s family cited a toxicology report that found that only alcohol was present in her system. Whether or not that contributed to her death is not yet known. “The family would like to thank the police and coroner for their continuing thorough investigations and for keeping them informed throughout the process,” read the release.

There is still an active inquest into Winehouse’s death. The singer’s family expects to hear an outcome in October.

Read more:
Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett’s ‘Body and Soul’ duet: Hear a preview here
Adele pays tribute to Amy Winehouse: ‘I don’t think she ever realised just how brilliant she was’
Amy Winehouse joke removed from ‘Glee Project’

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