Sonic Youth guitarist and singer Thurston Moore says his iconic guitar was stolen after a show in Philadelphia.
Moore reported on the band’s Facebook page Thursday that his circa-1966 Fender Jazzmaster guitar was pilfered late Wednesday night from the Best Western hotel where he was staying. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Wednesday night’s 12-12-12 benefit concert for Sandy relief was an unqualified success: Before even a single note was played on stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden, more than $30 million had already been raised for the Robin Hood Foundation through ticket sales, merchandise, and corporate pledges.
As a charity event, 12-12-12 was a slam dunk. As a musical entertainment endeavor, it was more of a mixed bag, full of plenty of glorious, triumphant moments for sure, but also bloated with curious choices and inexplicable performances.
Bruce Springsteen had the honor of kicking the show off, beginning his band’s brief set with “Land of Hope and Dreams.” As Jersey’s greatest ambassador for well over three decades, Springsteen sweated and howled through the opener’s anthemic refrain, only to raise the stakes on “Wrecking Ball,” a defiant anthem of hope from the album of the same name.
“Wrecking Ball” started a running theme of transformation through out the night: Familiar songs became re-packaged and recontextualized, and themes of renewal and rebirth crept up during the finest performances. READ FULL STORY »
Want to catch Paul McCartney, Bon Jovi, Eddie Vedder, the Rolling Stones, and more superstars take the stage tonight at Madison Square Garden for the 12-12-12 concert that benefits Hurricane Sandy victims? Catch the live stream, which begins at 7:30 p.m. ET below!
Big Boi’s latest album, Vicious Lies & Dangerous Rumors, hits stores tomorrow — which is neither a lie nor a rumor, despite earlier release-date delays.
EW talked to the OutKast-famed rapper about filling the big (left) shoes of his critically acclaimed 2010 solo debut Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, his response to hearing André 3000 apologize to him in T.I.’s recent “Sorry”, and how the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan influenced Vicious Lies‘ first track. READ FULL STORY »
If you were anywhere near a screen that had the potential to play music videos over the summer, chances are you cast your gaze at Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” more than once. The clip, which helped catapult Jepsen from Canadian Idol also-ran to chart-topping international superstar and Grammy nominee, starred Jepsen, the hunky model who stood in as the object of her affection, and one of the great classic twists in the history of music videos. Below, video director Ben Knechtel spins the story of the making of the video for the official song of summer 2012. For more stories behind this year’s top TV, movie, and music moments, click here for EW.com’s Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes) coverage.
As told by: Ben Knechtel
Me and Carly go back a few years now. I work at 604 Records, which is Carly’s Canadian record label. I’ve known her since 2008, and this has been the same team all along. It’s cool to see everyone still together and working on such a large scale now. I’ve actually directed her last four videos. I did the first video with her on a shoestring budget, and that got me in the door with her management and label and with her, and ever since then we established a great working relationship. She trusts me.
I heard the song for the first time [in August 2011], which is pretty crazy. The song wasn’t out yet, and they asked me if I wanted to write a treatment. So I got to listen to it really early, and I remember saying to my wife, “This song is going to be huge.” But I was thinking it’d be big in Canada. You can’t really gauge or anticipate it being such a giant song worldwide. But I remember saying to my wife that it was going to be a huge song, and it’s been incredible to see her go on this journey to pop superstar.
I wrote the treatment [for "Call Me Maybe"]. When I was in college, I made this little video for a school project where I was washing a car like Jessica Simpson in The Dukes of Hazzard. I was in these Daisy Duke shorts, and I had borrowed a bikini top from a girl in one of my classes. It was just a ridiculous over-the-top parody of the classic car wash scene. It’s super embarrassing, but I think you can still find it online somewhere. I always thought that was funny, and people got a kick out of it back then, and I always wanted to find an outlet to do that sort of thing again. “Call Me Maybe” ended up being that outlet.
The dude’s name is Holden Nowell, I think everybody just calls him “Hot Dude.” He’s a model and actor, and a rapper as well. We put up a casting call, and I think we saw 10 guys. Carly was at the casting call with me, and one by one, a guy would come in, and we’d meet him, and he would take his shirt off. And then Holden came out and took his shirt off and Carly was just like, “Uh, yeah. That one.” He’s just naturally ripped. It’s crazy.
It was a relatively small video shoot. We shot it in 12 hours in Langley, British Columbia, which is about 40 minutes outside of Vancouver. It was the day before Halloween, because I remember we had to take down some Halloween decorations because we wanted it to be a summer video. It definitely was not summer — it was freezing cold. I think it was raining four days beforehand, and it stopped raining one day and that’s when we shot the video. Then it rained for the rest of the week. That’s Vancouver for you. I was wearing a winter jacket, some of the crew were in parkas, and poor Holden couldn’t wear a shirt.
I’ll probably never experience anything like this. I remember calling my mom when it hit a million views, and I called home and got really excited about one million views. And now it’s over 300 million and everything is just kind of gravy now. But I was impressed when it hit a million views!
Read More on EW.com:
Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes): The story behind Green Day’s ‘¡Uno!’ album art
Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes): Director Alex 2Tone explains the child pageantry in Iggy Azalea’s ‘Murda Bizness’ video
Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes): How Phillip Phillips’ song ‘Home’ was chosen for the Olympics
EW’s Complete Best & Worst of 2012 coverage
Image Credit: Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images
The wreckage of a small plane believed to be carrying Mexican-American singing superstar Jenni Rivera was found in northern Mexico on Sunday and there are no apparent survivors, authorities said.
Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said that “everything points toward” it being the U.S.-registered Learjet 25 carrying Rivera and six other people from Monterrey en route to Toluca, Mexico. The plane had gone missing after takeoff early Sunday.
“There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human in the wreckage,” Ruiz Esparza told the Televisa network.
Authorities had not confirmed that Rivera was among the dead. READ FULL STORY »
For better or for worse, Toddlers & Tiaras and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo have planted child pageantry firmly in the zeitgeist. It was inevitable, then, that the phenomenon would find alternative modes of expression. In this case, that mode is a rap video (naturally). The lyrics of Australian-born rapper Iggy Azalea’s “Murda Bizness” are all clubs, drinks, and swag, but the video takes a more topical turn and depicts the strange, sequined world of child pageants. Director Alex 2Tone opened up about the video’s timely theme and what it’s like breaking a cardinal rule of filmmaking: never work with kids.
For more stories behind this year’s top TV and movie moments, click here for EW.com’s Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes) coverage. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images
For some of you, the focus on Christmas shifted roughly 20 minutes after swallowing the last bite of Thanksgiving pie and you set out to find the best spot for your Black Friday tent.
One of the great joys (or, depending on who you are, nightmares) of the holiday commerce season is the never-ending stream of Christmas music filling in all the empty airspace in your local shopping malls and department stores. But what if you’re shopping online, and somehow avoiding every other vestige of public-space holiday-music inundation?
To help you, here’s a rundown of some of the new stuff added to the yearly snowpile of Yuletide releases (and at the end of this post, a Spotify playlist to let you try out the wares like so many Costco samples.)
Rod Stewart, Merry Christmas, Baby
The undisputed champ of this season’s holiday music bonanza is Stewart, whose first holiday album is currently doing big business (it narrowly missed preventing Alicia Keys from being the top album in the country this week). His approach is very much “Over-Eggnogged Uncle Croons Hugs ‘Round the Tree,” but it’s still Rod-ily charming, and his original composition “Red Suited Super Man” will be an alternate-universe hit next Yuletide season.
Cee Lo Green, Cee Lo’s Magic Moment
The music world was half-expecting a new album from Green’s old hip-hop group Goodie Mob this holiday season, but instead we got The Voice favorite’s blast of red-velvet funk (and that’s red velvet like Santa’s suit, not the sexy cake kind). Its Motown bounce recalls all the great Stevie Wonder Christmas tracks of yesteryear, and the inclusion of the Muppets (on “All I Need Is Love”) is never not awesome. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Phillip Phillips fans planning to stay home for New Year’s Eve now have a reason to choose Fox — the American Idol winner will play Fox’s New Year’s Eve Live!, along with Lifehouse. A host and additional performers will be announced for the 90-minute special, broadcasting live from Las Vegas starting at 11 p.m. ET on Dec. 31. And never fear, Fox cameras will also show the ball drop in New York City’s Times Square.
Read more:
Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen to play ABC’s ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’
Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes): How Phillip Phillips’ song ‘Home’ was chosen for the Olympics
Best of 2012: The 5 best non-Adele songs of the year
Image Credit: Lindsey Byrnes
Taylor Swift wasn’t the only one with surprise face at Wednesday night’s Grammy nomination concert.
A partial list of the nods for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards were revealed in a live televised concert event tonight, and it produced a fair share of bookie-flouting snubs and nods.
The show, which took place in Nashville under the watch of awkward-slash-charming cohosts Swift and LL Cool J, handed out a slew of golden-ticket invites to the February ceremony: First-timers Frank Ocean and fun. nabbed multiple (and fairly anticipated) nominations — including Best New Artist and Record of the Year — as did fellow rookies Gotye, Hunter Hayes, the Lumineers, Ed Sheeran, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Alabama Shakes.
A partial sampling of the nominees (for the full list, click here): READ FULL STORY »
